Green House Ventures (GHV), started by serial entrepreneur and Indian Angel Network member Vikram Upadhyaya, is on a roll. Growing at an aggressively, the sector agnostic, GHV is accelerating startups from various domains under its 12-month acceleration program.
Launched with an aim to fund and mentor startups between the incubation and venture capital stages, GHV Accelerator, has 5 innovative and disruptive startups on board, these include LazyLad, MyTaxiIndia, Foodport, PickMyLaundry and FitMeIn, all from diverse domains such as food-tech, hyperlocal, laundry, taxi, fitness etc – almost a mini-ecosystem in itself !!
What is noteworthy is that each of GHV’s startups is alleviating major pain points of customers, making their lives simpler.
Here’s a snapshot of these startups:
GHV has handheld the startups and provides them a controlled environment. With pre-established resources and a pool of network that helps expedite faster turnarounds in the industry marketing, PR, HR, MR, technology and networking; GHV claims to empower these startups to scale 10X at an accelerated speed. As the name itself suggests – GHV renders the greenhouse effect on all its startups, thereby reducing the chances of any misses that may impact the growth of startup.
Also, being well entrenched in the ecosystem with access to senior, experienced and able mentors and advisors like Masa Matsumoto, Gen Isayama, Rajan Anandan and Rajiv Sodhi, the startups get a 360 degree perspective, getting the best out of them.
A notable accomplishment is that two of GHV’s onboarded startups – Lazylad and MTI – have already bagged Pre-Series A funding within 60 days of signing up. While LazyLad closed a Pre-Series-A funding of $500K from foreign high net worth individuals, online car rental startup MyTaxiIndia (MTI) Pvt. Ltd also raised $500K in Pre-Series A funding from Japan’s largest taxi company Nihon Kotsu Co.
Saurabh Singhla, co-founder at LazyLad, says that being from a technical background and as a co-founder to us, GHV provided them with a go-to market, market research, PR and fundraising strategies. “We took 60 days from term sheet to term sheet and all the credit goes to GHV,” he added.
Speaking about his experiences with GHV, Anshuman Mihir, Co-Founder at MTI another startup at GHV says that they had a great idea, a wonderful team and a passion to create that idea in reality, but some of their key matrices were missing. GHV believed and helped them to find those matrices, and gave wings to fly high.
GHV has also tied up with industry bodies and platforms that also adds to its credibility and its strong network base both in India and abroad. The accelerator has a partnership with World Innovation Labs (WiL), a Japan based VC fund that invests in disruptive startups with global appeal.
Indian software Industry association NASSCOM too is on GHV’s board as a collaborative partner. Through NASSCOM’s 10000 Startups program, GHV gets access to a wider pool of startups for acceleration, and thereafter to give them access to the investors in NASSCOM’s network for Series-A funding. Further, in order to create easier access to capital for seed ventures, GHV has also tied-up with deal discovery platform, LetsVenture. The tie-up offers GHV access to a pool of curated startups that need further funding. Then there is Applyifi, a startup ecosystem enabler, whose unique 36-point assessment scorecard will be used to identify the potential ‘stars’ for acceleration.
Vikram Upadhyaya says, “I had a singular goal at the inception of GHV a year back, of creating the robust startup eco system that India deserves. I am glad that the government of India, Department of Telecom especially, is taking desirable steps for the betterment of the ecosystem. As an investor and a serial entrepreneur, somebody who has seen both sides of the table, I feel it is vital not just to educate and skill the youth, but also fuel those who have that innate fire in their belly to become job-creators.”
GHV has a large investor base in Japan owing to Vikram’s strong network in the country and GHV’s exclusive partnership with WiL, a Japanese VC fund based out of Tokyo and Silicon Valley. He is the first entrepreneur nominated by Japan’s ICT Ministry in India-Japan ICT Committee (2009-2010). Upon its launch in October last year, GHV had received interest from 350+ startups, since its inception it now has over interest from over 5,000 startups, all within a year’s time. It not only ensures its carefully chosen startup’s 10X growth, but its own as well.
Speaking about GHV’s future plans, Vikram said that they are targeting to onboard 25 startups by early 2017 and the signup process for some new startups is already underway. Selected startups get funding up to $100K. Thereafter, the startups are given access to the resources and connections in the industry and ecosystem in order to fast-track their growth.
The focus is on strengthening their business metrics in order to get Series-A funding within a time frame of just 12 months.
In fact, GHV operates like a mini-ecosystem, complete in itself, that can serve as the perfect platform to catapult unique and disruptive startups into the ‘big league’.