Clarion Venture Partners

FOUNDED:

July 2010

OFFICES:

Pune(HQ), Bangalore, Ahmedabad

KEY PERSON:

Ankur Agarwal and Swati Agarwal

Ankur and Swati started their carrier with IT services companies, Infosys and Kanbay respectively. They began their entrepreneurial journey by way of an IP based fax solution offering way back in 2000. In 2002, Clarion Technologies was set up as a software solutions company focussing on the SME markets in North America and Europe.

Besides, Ankur and Swati have a property management company with several million dollars worth of assets leased out. They are members of India Angel Network, largest angel group in India, Charter Member of  TiE and on the Executive Council of  Software Exporter’s Association of  Pune.

CLIENTELE:

The Angel fund looks at experienced professionals or teams who are passionate and have 10 to 20 years of industry experience.

COMPETITORS:

Very few Venture Capital and Angel funds in India or Silicon Valley are really focussing on the IT Services start-ups at the moment.

DIFFERENTIATING FACTORS:

One of the biggest advantages of getting funded by Clarion Venture partners is the ‘Shared Services’ which takes care of entrepreneurs’ day to day challenges of running a business. These services are based on Centres of  Excellence (CoE) in Accounting & Finance, Facilities & Administration, Human Resources, Talent acquisition & retention, IT, and Operations, and each one headed by a very experienced domain leader. It allows the entrepreneurs to focus on growing the business while leaving to the experts to handle people, finances, administration.

Another crucial success factor that Clarion Venture Partners brings to the table is the access to highly experienced industry leaders as mentors and advisors. People who’ve been there done that. Clarion Venture Partners has a panel of  such ‘gurus’ available on crowd-sourcing model who love to get involved with start-ups and help them in setting their strategies and guide them.

Sales and marketing is perhaps the biggest challenge that any entrepreneur faces. A shared CMO helps the entrepreneurs

build their marketing strategy based on proven models that have worked for other investee companies. And a Sales Outsourcing company incubated by Clarion Venture Partners takes care of lead generation through various sources like emails, phone calls, internet, etc.

Most important is that the promoters are themselves first generation entrepreneurs, have built a successful enterprise and understands the challenges, needs and expectations of start ups.

JOURNEY SO FAR:

Over the last one year Clarion Venture Partners have incubated three companies:

1. A company that builds mobile apps,
2. An e-commerce solutions company and payment gateway, and
3. Involved in more than 150 product releases every year
4. A Sales Outsourcing business.

Focus has been on creating Centres of  Excellence for business services and forming a strong mentorship team. We plan to make fifteen investments in the coming year.