Venture capital firm Kalaari Capital is planning to launch a seed and incubation program called KStart to invest about $20 million in 40 startups over the next 2 years, reports ET. According to the report, the VC firm has not made any seed deals in the last 10 years, but launched this because it felt a requirement and gap in the market in terms of mentoring. Interestingly, in June last year, online food delivery company Holachef did raise Rs 20 crore in seed funding led by Kalaari Capital and India Quotient. Kalaari also has investments in Haptik, Instamojo, Myntra, Snapdeal, Swipe, YourStory and Zivame among others. The company’s KStart will invest about $500,000 in each startup through convertible notes, a debt instrument of bonds which can be converted to shares later. KStart will have quarterly batches of up to 5 startups. The company will have the option to invest up to 50% in new funding rounds raised by its portfolio companies, to minimise risk. It has also appointed Padmasree Warrior, former CTO of Cisco and Varsha Rao, global expansion head of Airbnb to mentor the startups in this program. In February last year, Ratan Tata, Tata Sons chairman emeritus, joined the VC firm in an advisory role, to guide and mentor founders of startups in Kalaari’s portfolio. Kalaari Capital’s investments in 2016: - Earlier this month, Truebil, an online marketplace for used cars, raised Series A funding worth Rs 35 crore from Kalaari Capital, Inventus Capital and Tekton Ventures, with…
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