Canada billionaire partners with Indian firm to launch $10 MN fund for startups

Tech entrepreneur and billionaire from Canada, Terry Matthew in a collaboration with Indian company Ideas to Impacts have launched $10 million funds for Indian startups.

The fund will give seed money for idea-stage and accelerator-stage startups in the business-to-business, software as a service space, with investment deal sizes of up to $750,000. Over the next five years, the company plans to support and mentor 30 startups.

The investment vehicle, christened Alacrity India Fund, will bring on board Indian angel groups, industrialists, and corporates, besides Wesley Clover and Ideas to Impacts.

“By expanding our Alacrity Global startup ecosystem to India, we are enabling Indian entrepreneurs and partners to create investable, global enterprises, while enabling our existing Alacrity startups to actively engage with the burgeoning Indian market,” said Matthews.

The startup accelerator will function out of a 32,000 sq ft space in Pune. The company’s funds are present in Canada, the UK, France and Turkey. It plans to launch operations in Mexico, China, Indonesia, Austria and Singapore in 2018.

Founded in 1972, Canada-based investment firm Wesley Clover has backed over 100 companies to date.

Its areas of interest include next-generation cloud and SaaS applications, services and hardware for fixed and mobile communications, video collaboration, customer engagement, and analytics, according to information available on its website. Besides, its portfolios include real estate such as leisure properties.

Pune-based Ideas to Impact founded by IIT Bombay alumni Gireendra Kasmalkar, offers a host of services, including technology offshoring, promoting ideas and incubating them, besides backing early-stage tech startups.

“Alacrity India will enable early-stage startups to address these challenges with our expertise in scaling up technology businesses. The Indian startup ecosystem will be strengthened by our sourcing of diverse problems and entrepreneurs from Tier II and III cities,” said Kasmalkar.

Over 1000 tech startups were incorporated in India in 2017, as per a recent NASSCOM-Zinnov report. The total number of tech startups in India is close to 5000-5200.