Venture Catalysts Buys India Ops Of US-based Z Nation Lab


Venture Catalysts Buys India Ops Of US-based Z Nation Lab

Venture Catalysts, one of the country's largest angel investor networks, on Monday said it has bought the India operations of seed and early-stage fund and accelerator, Z Nation Lab for an undisclosed sum.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley in the US, Z Nation Lab has operations in India and in the US. It has run diverse initiatives like 'KHOJ' in association with leading universities like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in India to organize global startup boot camps held in Mumbai and Silicon Valley. To date, Z Nation Lab has guided more than 200 entrepreneurs and invested in startups like Fampay, Delightree, Knight Fintech, Gmetri, Ubits, Beehero, Datapoem, Odeko, Hotify, Conversion.ai, and others through their seed fund in the US.

'Since inception Venture Catalysts has a collaborative approach in supporting the India startup ecosystem. This is a further step towards the same and simultaneously building inorganic growth of Venture Catalysts,' Anuj Golecha, co-founder of Venture Catalysts, stated. VCats has recently joined the US market to promote and invest in startups founded by Indians who are aiming to enlarge in the US and/or US startups targeting the Indian market, he added.

'This collaboration with Z Nation Lab team will enable Venture Catalyst to leverage the network and expertise of the Z Nation Lab, to work together to reach and fund more entrepreneurs from India looking at global expansion and take them to exit,” Golecha stated. Z Nation Lab would continue to invest in high-growth enterprise tech startups targeting the customers in the North American market and focused on M&A exits in 3 to 5 years, the statement said.

With this move, the Z Nation lab business is underlining its approach to partner with high-growth ventures in emerging markets like India and South Asian markets, whilst giving unique access and insights to their portfolio startups who want to tap into opportunities in the US, it added. ZNL also targets to support moving startup headquarters to the US by leveraging its expertise in helping set up startups in Silicon Valley.

'I have been working with the Venture Catalysts team for the last three years, and I have been incredibly impressed by their growth and deep penetration into the Indian startup ecosystem not just in the metros but also in smaller tier 2 and 3 towns. They have truly democratized early-stage investing in India in the last 5 years,' Amit Jain, co-founder of Z Nation Lab, stated.