Nokia arm to to invest in Indian start-ups

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Tuesday, 28 June 2005, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: BlueRun Ventures and Nokia Growth Partners, two venture capital firms supported by Nokia Corporation, hope to invest in one or two Indian start-up companies every year, senior executives said on Tuesday. "We are looking for one or two investments in India a year," said John Gardner, founding partner of BRV, a global venture capital fund focused on early stage companies in the IT, mobile, and consumer electronics markets. "We are pursuing some serious opportunities. Hope one or two will go through," Sujit Banerjee, Principal at BRV, said. NGP is a $100 million mid-to late-stage venture capital fund. It has earlier this year invested $3 million in Bangalore-based Sasken Communication Technologies, a telecom research and R&D outsourcing leader. Formerly known as Nokia Venture Partners, BRV invested $10 million in Pune-based Nevis Networks, a start-up company developing a new class of enterprise security solutions, last year. Gardner said the value proposition for investing in Indian companies creates some of the most significant, emerging opportunities for venture capitalists. BRV India Office said Vineet Buch, who was the co-founder and CTO of systems management software provider Karient, and Vasudev Bhandarkar, who was most recently chairman and CEO of wireless software company Unimobile, have been added as Principal and Venture Partner.