Season Two Ventures, founded by former UST Global’s CEO Sajan Pillai, has made five fresh investments in the country, at a time when most investors have slowed down deal activity hurt by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The B2B-focused $100 million early-stage fund has backed digital payments startup Uvik Technologies, air quality intelligence startup Ambee, data privacy company Ozone.ai, and two healthcare businesses Svast and Hilabs.
“Post Covid-19, every aspect of how consumers interact with products and services, including consumption and access is going to change…for instance, students were earlier going to school, now it’s coming home. This change is across sectors,” Pillai told ET.
“Our bets are all relevant companies capturing large markets in a post-Covid-19 world,” he added.
Anchored by Pillai, Season Two scouts for startups in the enterprise healthcare, fintech, logistics, energy, and utility space. The fund typically cuts a first cheque size of between $500,000 and $1 million, with a $2-$3 million quick follow-on.
Its edge lies in its founding team, which includes global advisors like David Levy, the CEO at EHE Health; Rollin Ford, the former CAO at Walmart among others, and working closely with teams to establish a go-to-market product leveraging its network, and experience.
This is particularly useful for most B2B startup founders who come with strong product experience but limited understanding of problem statements and monetization roadmap with large enterprises, as well as connections.
“Having someone with global experience and outreach has helped us redraw the product and go to market strategy – for example, use of UV light for sterilizing fresh foods is an insight we are using for our products currently to ensure Covid-19 Safety,” said Harsha Vardhan, cofounder and CEO, LiL’Goodness, one of the first investments by Season Two.
The company has, however, delayed its first close amid the outbreak, Pillai said, adding that these investments are under the “warehoused”’ category.
Warehoused investments are bets taken before the first close, when partners are making investments that will roll into the fund, to help demonstrate the fund’s investment process to potential Limited Partners.
“We will resume our fundraising conversations in a few months as and when things settle,” he said, adding that he continues to be bullish about Indian technology shifting towards product engineering and building and being able to do this at significantly lower costs than Silicon Valley or Israel.
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