Chiratae Ventures’ new startup accelerator promises seed funds at ‘supersonic’ speed

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Chiratae Ventures has announced its accelerator program – Chiratae Sonic, which seeks to fast-track fundraising for early-stage startups in India. Under the initiative, startup founders would secure seed funds within 48 hours if the required investment is less than or equal to $500,000.

Chiratae Ventures has created a template form and a dedicated website for the Chiratae Sonic Program to quicken the application process, which will accept entries for the next 30 days under the first phase of the seed initiative.

“One of the biggest challenges an early-stage entrepreneur faces is the tedious and time-consuming process behind raising capital. We believe innovation needs to be at the core of why and how founders interact with investors. By solving and simplifying the ‘how’ of that conversation, Chiratae Sonic strives to empower founders to focus on innovation above all,” said Sudhir Sethi, Founder & Chairman, Chiratae Ventures.

It is the 8th seed investment program rolled out by Chiratae Ventures. The focus remains on investing in startups with technology at the core, said in a statement.

Currently, Chiratae Ventures handles close to $900 million worth of assets under management. So far, it has invested in at least 99 startups across consumer tech, enterprise Tech/SaaS, fintech, health tech, deep-tech, edTech and Agri-tech.

Bounce, Cure.fit, FirstCry, Flipkart, Myntra (acquired by Flipkart), Lenskart, Manthan, NestAway, PolicyBazaar, Rentomojo and Uniphore are some of the companies in Chiratae’s portfolio.

So far, it has exited 37 startups with 2 IPOs, including Newgen Software technologies, which went public in January 2018.

Chiratae Ventures recently made a stellar exit after one of its portfolio companies PlaySimple – a game development startup – was acquired for $360 million by the Sweden-based Modern Times Group. Chiratae Ventures, along with Elevation Capital, had seeded PlaySimple with a $4 million investment in 2016.

In its latest search-and-fund drive for the next crop of new-age startups in India, Chiratae Ventures also promises to provide access to the expertise and insights of its Global Advisory Board and India Advisory Council. Chiratae Venture’s Global Advisory Board includes Tata Group’s Ratan Tata and Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is also a key collaborator in the Chiratae Sonic program. It will offer credits up to $100,000 per eligible startup through the AWS Activate program. That includes resources like AWS credits, business mentorship and technical support to help early-stage founders build and scale startups.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow