MUMBAI: Looks like start-ups in India have nothing to worry as venture capitalists seem to be eager to put their faith and money in them.
AntFarm, a digital innovation company, has raised Series-A funding from Bay Capital and Hausela Capital Partners. The funds that have been raised will be channeled to reinforce the current portfolio, grow upcoming businesses in the travel space and to build new early stage ventures in the fitness, hyper-local and mobile categories.
“With more and more start-ups in India entering the billion-dollar club, AntFarm is poised to explore business opportunities in the dotcom and mobile space in high impact markets and create products which are disruptive. Over the last year, we have already made successful forays in the fashion, advertising and travel industry verticals. We are now gearing up to disrupt the multi-billion dollar health/fitness space,” said AntFarm managing director and CEO Rishi Khiani.
AntFarm has a track-record of building profitable business units in a year’s time with Stylista.com, a collaborative fashion label, and Fork Media, a native advertising platform.
AntFarm’s most recent venture, Arrive.com, is a travel discovery platform that is close to rolling out a mobile app for the East Asian market.
AntFarm follows a unique approach in jumpstarting successful businesses by putting together unique cross-functional teams led by industry veterans and entrepreneurs that work on business opportunities identified internally at AntFarm.
Hausela Capital Partners MD Piush Kumar said, “The digital landscape in India is on an exponential growth trajectory. This dynamic landscape has thrown open exciting opportunities to create new products and innovative business models. AntFarm has demonstrated its mettle with successful ventures in the digital space. They bring a unique mix of industry experience, technology expertise and entrepreneurial spirit. And, we are confident that they will be able to build successful digital business models.”
Antfarm has previously raised an angel round from Bennett Coleman & Co CEO Ravi Dhariwal and leading entrepreneur, Sanjay Kalra, who previously served as the CEO of Tech Mahindra.
Bay Capital is an independent investment management firm while Hausela Capital Partners is the investment office of Piush Kumar with the objective of funding start-ups in the digital technology space.
