Mumbai, India-based Blume Ventures will get its second venture capital fund underway later in 2014, The Economic Times reported. Instead of looking for new bets, however, the new fund of the seed stage investor will devote a substantial part of its capital to its current portfolio companies. The report said Blume Ventures whose investments are focused on the digital media, consumer internet and mobile fields, intends to launch the fund in May or June which will target a fundraising amount of $50 million or Rs 307.7 crore, the report said.
Blume Ventures is deploying investments from its maiden Rs 100-crore local currency fund which it formed in 2012. Blume Ventures Managing Partner Karthik Reddy told The Economic Times, "We're looking at an overseas institution-led fund, and the strategy will be to reserve more money for follow-on investments...30 per cent for seedstage investments, while 70 per cent for follow-on rounds."
The report said Blume was considered as one of last year's most vigorous investors for early stage firms. Its portfolio includes bedbathmore.com, an online home furnishing portal and Hotelogix, an SaaS-based property management system provider.
The Economic Times reported that Blume's typical investment amounts to $250,000 or Rs 1.5 crore. For follow-on funding rounds, it invests anywhere from $1.5 million to $2 million or Rs9.2 crore to Rs10 crore. Blume successfully exited its first investment in November when Boku, a mobile payments firm based in San Francisco, purchased Qubecell, a mobile billing aggregator based in Mumbai.
Reddy said, "There are movements taking place, and the first two quarters should see a number of our companies raise their Series B rounds. It's going to be a fairly exciting time."
The second fund of Blume Ventures is going to be a 10-year fund that is set for registration either in Singapore or Mauritius. The average investment holding period for Fund II is around six years, the report said.
Join the Conversation