Google funds in Indian VCs

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 19 February 2007, 18:30 IST
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Bangalore: Erasmic Ventures Fund, one of the few early stage venture capital funds in India, got huge brand equity with Google as a limited partner. Prashanth Prakash, Managing partner, Erasmic Venture Fund, said that the funds were an endorsement for the team. He added that Google is to remain in the funds for five years. However, the quantum invested by Google into Erasmic is not known, this early stage VC is scanning the spaces of Internet, mobile and media for investments into ventures at the pre-seed or seed stage reported a national English daily. Erasmic has a sub $10 million fund, and plans to invest in 10 ventures with a typical investment being approximately half a million dollars. The spaces it has been looking at are what it feels as 'white-spaces' with the ability to scale. Subrata Mitra, Managing Partner, Erasmic, said it generally receives about 15 proposals per month but few of them have the right mix between right entrepreneurs and focus on the right markets & ideas. Even Samir Sood, head of corporate development South Asia, Google said, "While the rush of large amounts of venture capital into India is well documented, very little of this trickles down to the really small firms, the early-stage startups." Other than Erasmic, Google has also invested in Seedfund, a early stage VC. Erasmic would be looking at investing in a mix of both pre-seed/seed and existing entrepreneurial ventures. Prashanth felt that picking the right space is important for any ventures to succeed, adding that there are still many untapped areas to invest. As Google has invested in both Erasmic and Seedfund, it is expected that its role would not be limited just to finance alone but also to provide strategic inputs.