Global venture capital fund MSA Novo on Tuesday, said it has invested over $15 million (around Rs 117 crore) across six Indian startups, marking its debut investments in the country.
The investments were made across MPL, Slice, Jar, AppsForBharat, Flint and Questbook, with a focus on early and growth-stage tech-enabled startups, MSA Novo said in a statement.
Speaking to VCCircle, Prakhar Khanduja, head of India investments at MSA Novo, said, “for early-stage startups we invest between $500,000-1.5 million, and for growth-stage startups, we invest from $5-30 million. In the next few months we are bullish on early-stage investments in India.”
Founded by Ben Harburg, MSA Novo is a global venture capital with investments across various emerging markets. Started in 2019, the global fund has a portfolio of over 50 companies, including NuBank and Xeplin of Latin America, TradeDepot and Nestcoin in Sub-Saharan Africa and Kitopi, Tabby and Cassbana in the MENA region.
The firm’s sector focus is concentrated on core infrastructure layers in financial services and commerce enablers.
“Of all emerging markets, India has the strongest fundamentals in the depth of its entrepreneur base, engineering talent, total addressable market, capital availability and public market maturity. We believe we are still in the early innings of evolution in the Indian technology market and believe that we can be a high-value additive participant,” said Ben Harburg, general partner at MSA Novo.
Apart from India, MSA Novo is also looking to invest in Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore. The global venture capital firm has also set up ground operations in India with an office in Delhi, with Khanduja joining them early this year to lead investments in the country.
Since inception, MSA Novo has raised a $200m venture fund and a $150m growth fund despite disruptions caused by the global pandemic, according to the statement.
The technology-focussed global venture capital (VC) investment has grown three times over between 2020 and 2021, with Bengaluru alone producing 16 unicorns from the 44 startups that entered the prestigious club.
A unicorn is a privately held startup with a valuation of $1 billion or more.
India also grabbed third rank in 2021 in terms of investments into the broader technology category, a spot higher than the previous year, as per a research report, conducted jointly by London & Partners and dealroom.co.