Funds managed
| Fund name | Asset Class | License |
| KITVEN Fund/ Idea2POC Grant | Seed, Early stage | SEBI Cat 1 |
| KITVEN Fund 2 | Early stage, SME, Startups | SEBI Cat 1 |
| KITVEN Fund 3/ Bio Venture Fund | Early stage/ Later stage | SEBI Cat 1 |
| KITVEN Fund 4/ AVGC Venture Fun | Early stage/ Later stage | SEBI Cat 1 |
| KARSEMVEM Fund/ SemiConductor Venture Fund | Early stage/ Later stage | SEBI Cat 1 |
About the AMC
- Date of Incorporation- 22 April 1998
- Non- Government Company
- Trusted advisor and professional investor to the company from seed to success.
- Cater to IT, Bio-Tech and other high-end products or solutions in the knowledge based sector.
Key staff
- Laxmappa Bheemappa Nilogal (Director)
- Ekroop Kaur
- Jayakumar Arkoni Raghupathy
- Nagarajarao Ranga Narasimha
- Gowli Venkatramana Chandrakumar
- Sanjay Jain
Investment Philosophy (for firm)
Investment objective:
- Provide long term capital to the unlisted SMEs and startups from the sector- Semiconductor, ESDM, Biotechnology, Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics and others related.
- Investment criteria is based on the past and expected performance of the company in terms of market, competitiveness, management and its future potential.
- These funds can be used for:
- Growth and Expansion, Diversification and Integration,
- Moving up in the value chain
- Manufacturing and commercializing of the development of the product,
- Developing technology/ products that are competitive,
- Upgradation to cater wider clients.
Investment Philosophy (for funds)
Karnataka Information Technology Venture Capital Fund (KITVEN Fund):
- Backed by State & Central Government financial institutions.
- Focused on seed and rapid- growth opportunities in Karnataka in various companies related to “Information Technology, Bio-Technology and other high-end products/ solutions in the knowledge based sector.”
- Long- Term investment approach
- Received subscription from:
- Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited – KSIIDC
- Karnataka State Financial Corporation – KSFC
- Small Industries Development Bank of India – SIDBI, Karnataka Biotechnology & Information Technology Services (KBITS), etc.
- Investments in the form of equity, debentures, preferential capital (convertible or redeemable), or any combination of them.
- Investment horizon is for 3-5 years or even less than that is accepted.
Media
Title: “Graphene Semiconductors raises Rs 4.95 cr from Karnataka Semiconductor VC Fund”, Source: Business standard, Date: 29 January 2015
- Graphene received investments from Karnataka Semiconductor Venture Capital Fund of Rs. 4.95 crores. It claimed that this was the first time in the semiconductor industry that received backing of a governmental-backed VC fund.
- The Karnataka Semiconductor Venture Capital Fund chose this company because of semiconductor technology and end-to-end development of the product.
Title: “Karnataka government fund puts Rs 5 crore in Graphene Semiconductor”, Source: Economic Times, date: 29 January 2015
A R Jayakumar, CEO of KITVEN Funds, who has been handling Rs 96.15-crore of Karsemven fund, says that “IT is stagnating. Semiconductor and embedded systems are the next big wave”, and thus have found it valuable to invest into the same.
Title: “Wearable tech firm Sensegiz raises $500K in pre-Series A round”, source: VVcircle, Date: 19 November 2015
https://www.vccircle.com/inter-city-taxi-aggregator-aha-raises-angel-funding
- Sensegiz Technologies Pvt Ltd raised funds Sensegiz Technologies Pvt Ltd. from KARSEMVEN Fund in the pre-Series A.
- “Sensegiz did its sourcing, assembly, research, all out of Karnataka and has a proven global product. This was a right fit for us.” This statement was given by Manish Kumar B, assistant VP at KITVEN funds.
Analyst questions
- It was mentioned on the site that your firm does not invest in Seed stage. What are the reasons that this stage is not at all preferred by you?
- This AMC seems to be sector agnostic as it has invested into various companies of different industries depending on the potential level. Which sector do you think is currently emerging and is worth investing?
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