Greenoaks Capital is a Bangalore-based investment firm founded in 2012 to invest in early-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia. Greenoaks has a fund size of $120 million and is backed by global investors such as Lightspeed India Partners, Foundation Capital, and Oculus VR.
This article will provide an overview of Greenoaks Capital and its investments.
Bangalorebased 120m greenoaks capital lightspeedsinghtechcrunch
Greenoaks Capital formed in 2016 and is now one of India’s leading technology investment firms. Based in Bangalore, the firm has 120 million dollars managed assets across multiple funds.
Greenoaks Capital is a venture capital firm investing and working with early-stage leaders across the innovative customer, digital media, software, healthcare and enterprise players.
Greenoaks Capital partners with entrepreneurs to invest in transformative ideas, harnessing our team’s diverse skills and experiences to drive success for our companies and portfolio. As partners on the journey, we are committed to building long-term relationships that enable maximum impact on the individual businesses and the entire ecosystem.
We have invested in sectors including software as a service (Saas), artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, modern media technologies like OTT players, ecommerce platforms, logistics-tech companies and more. Greenoaks strongly believes that innovation can come from anywhere; we are typically highly sector agnostic when exploring new opportunities at launch. Our team works closely with entrepreneurs through each stage of their journey, providing strategic guidance and resources focused on rapid growth internationally and domestically within India’s fast-growing marketplaces.
Background of Greenoaks Capital
Greenoaks Capital is a Bangalore-based venture capital firm founded in 2018 by LIGHTSPEED+Singh, the early investors of successful companies such as Zomato, Myntra, and OYO. The firm has 120 million dollars under management to invest in Indian technology companies. It offers a variety of products and services to investors including seed/early stage investments, bridge-funding / rescues, pre-IPO rounds, late stage venture investments, co-investment opportunities with world’s leading funds, etc.
Greenoaks Capital makes prudent and timely investments contributing to startups’ long-term success. It focuses on producing returns for its investors and achieving the highest possible delivery for its portfolio companies. Greenoaks aims to become one of the top VC firms in India through collaboration with experienced entrepreneurs and top-tier international partners who are already working on some remarkable startups from India.
The firm invests across multiple sectors including eCommerce, health tech, ed-tech, fintech mobile gaming and online gaming. Its portfolio includes successful investments like Log 9 Materials Pvt Ltd., Chargebee Inc., DocsApp Consult Pvt Ltd., HeyMojo Technologies Pvt Ltd., Intellify Learning etc. Through these investments, Greenoaks Capital has helped entrepreneurs realise their dreams and generated notable returns for its investors far outpacing the traditional benchmarks for venture return metrics.
Investment Strategy
Bangalore-based 120m Greenoaks Capital is a venture capital firm focusing on investing in early stage technology companies. The firm is led by Litespeed Singh and focuses on India and Southeast Asia.
Their core investment strategy involves investing in differentiated and innovative products, services, and solutions that leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.
Let’s take a closer look at their investment strategy.
Focus Areas of Investment
Greenoaks Capital is a Bangalore-based venture capital firm that focuses on investing in early-stage companies in India. The fund was founded in 2014 by Sandesh Somaiya, Pratibha Bhalerao and Sanjay Nath, and invests across the technology, healthcare, life sciences and financial services sectors. Greenoaks Capital has made over 100 investments across its various focus areas.
The fund’s focus areas include:
-Technology: Greenoaks Capital seeks to invest in cutting edge startups that have the potential to disrupt existing industries through innovation. It looks for startups with compelling market opportunities, strong products or services and innovative business models in software technologies such as digital health, fintech, software-as-a-service (SaaS), ecommerce or internet of things (IoT).
-Healthcare: The fund is interested in investing in traditional biotech opportunities and emerging technology enabled healthcare companies. The healthcare sector is quickly growing and evolving due to advances in medical diagnostics & therapeutics coupled with emergence of new business models such as telemedicine.
-Life Sciences: Greenoaks Capital looks for companies working on disruptive concepts in agriculture science & nutrition, alternative energy sources and biotechnology. With India’s large population base comes significant economic opportunities for life science companies catering to the affordable healthcare needs of the population.
-Financial Services: As one of the few venture capital firms that specialises exclusively on financial services startups both at traditional banking/insurance level as well as non banking finance players offering digital payments or credit lending solutions; it is uniquely positioned to understand trends that lead to changes within this sector due to its experience and expertise within this field along with its many investments into this domain among others.
Portfolio Companies
Bangalore-based 120m Greenoaks Capital is an all-weather and highly diversified investment strategy. Its strategy allows for forming a portfolio of up to 90 high-growth technology companies, with the remainder being held in public securities. This portfolio company focus differs from other traditional venture capital funds focused on early-stage technology companies. The fund also holds interests in various public equities and fixed income securities, providing more balance and less volatility than tech driven venture funds.
Greenoaks Capital has a highly experienced team with domain-specific expertise across multiple disciplines including cybersecurity, Machine Learning, Internet Of Things (IoT), blockchain, enterprise software, fintech and healthcare IT dominated sector investments. Over its history Greenoaks has deeply invested in leaders such as Lightspeed (SinghTechCrunch) leveraging its industry experience to make well informed decisions along their journey. This has provided strong returns across all investments both through exits as well as providing funds to grow further in the future.
A typical portfolio would be weighted 40/60% between private/public buyouts or 30/70% between private/public venture rounds supported by Greenoaks wealth of domestic network and contacts with other capital sources on any financial transaction undertaken by the fund.
Funding
Bangalore-based Greenoaks Capital has announced the closing of its 120 million fund, which is aimed to support India’s technology ecosystem.
This funding is expected towards early- to late-stage deals and will provide growth capital to the startups. Greenoaks Capital is looking to invest in the companies building India’s digital economy with this new fund.
Recent Investment Rounds
Bangalore-based 120m Greenoaks Capital, a technology, media and consumer (TMC) sector-focused global growth fund, has led investments in Indian startups this year. Founded in 2015 by Sandeep Singhal and Mukul Arora, the firm’s investment portfolio includes some of the most successful brands in the Indian digital sphere such as Oyo Rooms, Swiggy and practo.
In its recently concluded Series A funding round led by Greenoaks Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital India, babycare startup Mamaearth raised $1 million. Similarly, traveltech venture Exploremytrip had also raised an undisclosed amount from Soiroi & Quona Capital after closing its Series A Funding round led by Lightspeed and co-invested by Greenoaks.
Other Indian startups to receive investor funds from Greenoaks include decor startup HomeLane which bagged investments worth $4 million in its Series B round from Kaustubh Gaiote during late 2016. Unacademy also featured among the firms to receive funds from the venture capital firm with an investment of around $11.5million in total at the end of late 2017’s series B round with existing investors Blume Ventures and Sequoia investing further along with Ventureast.
CogniCor Technologies had also raised close to 470K USD in their Seed Stage Funding Round provided by Bigbasket’s Hari Menon, Soham Chokshi with other angel investors. Furthermore healthcare solution provider GOQii nabbed nearly 13 Million USD as a part of their series B funding process co-led by leading firms Neoplux Technology Fund & GreenOaks Capital Partnering with earlier investments from Fireside Ventures & Cheetah Mobiles CEO Jean Shi among few others.
Partners and Investors
Bangalore-based 120m Greenoaks Capital has several partners and investors supporting their operations to help to fund early-stage companies in India. Principal Partner Dipak Singh leads the team, which includes Partner Arunas Subramanian and Senior Associates, Saurav Banerji and Piush Tewari.
Greenoaks’ core focus is to develop a first mover advantage within the technology space by funding early-stage, narrowly focused sector specific investments. Through partnerships with venture capital firms, seed funds and industry thought leaders, they provide resources to ensure an early start for budding companies within these sectors.
The investors that support Greenoaks Capital include LightSpeed India Partners (LSIP), Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures, Tiger Global Management and Accel Partners — all of which bring experience in venture capital funding at the global level coupled with ground insights specific to India. They also have strategic partners participating in co-investment opportunities including Matrix Partners India, SAIF Partners and Asian GenNext Fund — all highly experienced active VCs.
Greenoaks serves as a start up’s first stop for fundraising assistance whether through seed capital or late stage assistance in getting access to larger VC rounds ranging from $1Million & beyond from their network of reputed venture capital/private equity funds & major corporate houses as well as across regional investors throughout India & globally.
Leadership
Greenoaks Capital is a Bangalore-based venture capital firm that invests in early stage technology companies. The firm is led by an experienced and highly experienced team of experienced investors and entrepreneurs.
This section will talk about their leadership team and the contributions that they have made to the firm.
Team Members
Greenoaks Capital has a diverse and experienced team of investment professionals dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and visionary teams from seed stage to late stage. The team is led by Sumir Chadha, Managing Partner & Chief Executive Officer and Rajesh Babu, Managing Partner.
The Greenoaks Capital unique approach requires full-stack leadership capabilities including digital strategy, big data analytics, operations consulting, product engineering, customer insights, marketing and branding. To maximise the success of their portfolio companies post-investment, Greenoaks has assembled an impressive group of hardworking professionals who share a deep commitment to the success of entrepreneurs everywhere.
The Greenoaks Capital team includes:
- Samir Chadha – Investment Professional & Chairman
- Rajesh Babu – Investment Professional & CEO
- Arjun Kharekhan – Investment Professional & CTO
- Aditya Satyanarayanan – Investment Professional & Principal
- Soumitra Choudhury – Senior Partner
- Vivek Joshi – Senior Vice President
- Prateek Raj Bhangari – Investment Manager
Biographies
Biographies of members and leaders of the prominent Bangalore-based 120 million Greenoaks Capital will help to better understand their respective roles within the organisation.
Greenoaks Capital was founded in 2017 by Lightspeed Singh, one of India’s most successful entrepreneurs, and a renowned venture capitalist. Lightspeed Singh currently serves as the Managing Director and Member of the Managing Board of Greenoaks Capital. He has had successful stints at venture capital firms and startups, including Altametrics Ltd., which he co-founded in 2015.
The current team at Greenoaks Capital comprises experienced professionals from various territories and backgrounds such as finance, business development etc. This includes Vikram Mohan, Partner and Co-founder; Abinaya Seshadri, Head Business Development; Anal Govindani, Director; Mithun Reddy, Director; Mafoud Allouache, Investments Lead; Mark Noglikoviucci Jr Assistant Analyst; Sourav Goyal – Investment Analyst; Simon Mathai – Investment Associate.
The company’s board comprises not just Lightspeed Singh but also other eminent venture capitalists including Sheila Patel (Founder & CEO: Sony Europe), Avaneesh Chaturvedi (Investment Partner: Aavishkaar Ventures), Charles Ward (Founder & CEO: The Hive Fund) among others who have a substantial amount of experience in the venture capital field.
Through their network based approach to greenfield investments throughout North America and India, Greenoaks Capital has become one of the largest Indian VC firms with presence across multiple geographies making investments at early stages in high growth opportunity companies operating across sectors like technology, health care, energy etc.
Future Plans
Bangalore-based 120m Greenoaks Capital has recently announced its plans for the future. The company’s plans to invest in lightspeed Singh Tech, a venture capital firm, is part of their strategy to grow in the region.
We will now take a closer look at what these plans entail and their impact on the region’s tech industry.
Expansion Plans
Bangalore-based 120m Greenoaks Capital is looking to expand their operations over the next few years. With their new funding, they are looking to focus on two main goals: investing in India to promote innovation and deploying capital into emerging markets.
Greenoaks Capital aims to partner with entrepreneurs and established companies that bring innovative solutions with disruptive potential. In line with this vision, the fund will invest in early-stage technology companies leveraging India’s edge in frontier and fintech industries. Their other mission is to deploy capital and resources into emerging markets, particularly Asia-Pacific ones. The fund believes there is a tremendous opportunity for growth in these areas, particularly around high tech startups. In addition, they plan to scout for business models that can provide affordable products & services.
In addition, Greenoaks Capital plans to expand its international presence into the Web 2.0 world by forging partnerships with leading online platforms like Lightspeed SinghTech TechCrunch which hosts innovative technology & content platforms and venture capital funds worldwide. This move will help them leverage their connections with global tech startup networks and VCs.
These ambitious expansion plans and their strategic investment outlook have captured the interest of investors from across the globe. They will position them as a leader in global venture capital investments for years to come.
New Investment Opportunities
Bangalore-based 120m Greenoaks Capital, co-founded by ex-LightSpeed Partners, Neeraj Singh and Manik Arora, is committed to enabling the future while supporting the growth of companies globally. They believe that with the right opportunity and resources, companies can create innovative products to better serve their customers and create positive societal impact. With this in mind, Greenoaks is looking for additional investment opportunities that align with their vision of creating a better future for everyone.
Greenoaks has identified several areas in which they could further invest:
- Deep tech applications – The firm looks for opportunities in deep tech applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT).
- Sustainability – Focusing on sustainability initiatives such as green energy and renewable resources, Greenoaks looks for businesses to positively impact society through their services or products.
- HealthTech & Life Sciences – The team is also looking for ways to help accelerate progress within these industries through investments.
- Consumer & Enterprise Technology – Greenoaks seeks to support new technologies that make life easier by leveraging technology across various business domains, including retail, media & entertainment and financial services.
Greenoaks Capital’s main goal is to identify technologies that will have a positive long-term economic impact on all stakeholders—businesses, communities and individuals alike. With this focus in mind, Greenoaks Capital acquires equity stakes in promising startups that share these goals.
