Fostering a Market-Thesis-Driven Investment Formula: Blume Ventures Purplle, GreyOrange, Exotel, IDfy, Carbon Clean, TaxiForSure, Turtlemint, Cashify, IntrCity, Zopper, WebEngage, Unacademy, Slice, Spinny, Servify, smallcase, LambdaTest, Ultrahuman, Classplus, and Battery Smart are just a few of the significant companies in which Blume has invested.
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Blume Venture's culture, ethos, and platform services have been meticulously built to be the best partner that a seed-stage company can ask for, according to the firm's Co-founder and Managing Partner, Karthik Reddy.
"That's our product—an investor who's as much a believer in the founders' pursuit of the mission as they are. We keep iterating to get better at this every day, every week, and every month."
Karthik believes that the founding team and the founder are the reasons to believe that a VC-backed company can become a very large value creator. "We always try to have a market thesis on the size of the market and the shift in consumer or enterprise behaviour that will unfold over the next decade. Without that house view, it's difficult to back even the best founders."
"When the two come together in our evaluation, there's a bit of magic, and that usually leads to a solid seed investment. The evolution from there to a large USD 100 million company is a different story; it's a low set of probabilities that require grit, great product and service, and a lot of luck for it to play out well," adds Karthik.
Blume's notable investments include the likes of Purplle, GreyOrange, Exotel, IDfy, Carbon Clean, TaxiForSure, Turtlemint, Cashify, IntrCity, Zopper, WebEngage, Unacademy, Slice, Spinny, Servify, smallcase, LambdaTest, Ultrahuman, Classplus, and Battery Smart.
Karthik notes that the market will continue to slow with higher-conviction investments with deeper ownership in the early stages. The other theme will continue to be seasoned founders taking on bold market opportunities. "At the growth stage, everyone is looking at paths to profitable companies or convincing margin and growth opportunities. Investors will look for strong signs of such performance."
New areas like AI and climate are more acquisition-friendly; capital-efficient spaces like brands will continue to get early-stage backing, Karthik believes.
Ashish Fafadia, Partner at Blume and lead of fintech and growth portfolios, asserts that the firm has always treated B2C as building tech for the Indian consumer.
"And the other side of investments is B2B, which is building tech for global enterprises. So one is using Indian tech for the consumer, which is the financial services part of it. And the other is building technology for the world, which is B2B and the tech side of the Fintech thesis," Ashish explains.
Ashish further explains that he feels that there is a bit of a gap on the insurance side of things.
"There is a massive opportunity we have as a portfolio to be fairly exposed to credit. But I do believe that services will grow fast, and credit has to go even marginally faster than that," adds Ashish.
Facts:
- Portfolio Size: 150+ all time, 75 active
- Average Ticket Size: 'Fund IV', Sweet Spot: USD 1 Mn to USD 5 Mn
- Total Exits: 35+
- Total Assets Under Management: USD 650 Mn
