Naya Ventures, a new venture capital firm specialising in early stage companies in the mobile and cloud markets, announced on Thursday its first closing for its ₹250 crore ($50 million) fund.
The fund is led by serial entrepreneurs who are veterans in the mobile and cloud technology industry and who have collectively founded and sold mobile technology companies creating more than ₹2500 Crore ($500 million) in shareholder value.
The fund is headed by Dayakar Puskoor, a wireless industry visionary and former Microsoft executive, whose background includes founder and CEO of JP Mobile and M2 Junction; Prabakar Reddy, an experienced global executive with more than 20 years of strategy and operational roles in Fortune 500 and innovative start-up companies including co-founder and CIO of Risemart and Managing Director of ANSR Group; and Gowri Shankar, CEO of SinglePoint Technologies and a founding member of the Sprint PCS launch team, which laid the foundation for Sprint PCS's industry-leading enterprise sales strategy.
"We're pleased that these investment partners have joined us and see the value in our unique approach," said Puskoor, who serves as general and managing partner for the fund.
Headquartered in Dallas, with offices in Silicon Valley, Seattle and Hyderabad, India, Naya takes a unique approach from the typical venture capital fund to lead by collaboration. Combining the features of a venture capital fund with those of a private equity firm, Naya not only provides capital to early stage companies, but also the industry experience and relationships at the concept stage in their development to help jumpstart their growth to the next level and beyond.
Since its operation 2011, Naya has added seven companies in the mobile and cloud market to its portfolio. These include BoxFish (formerly Mixaroo), a better way to control TV, Zoomingo, a top rated shopping app platform that lets consumers find the best deals in their local stores or online from their smartphone or PC, and Glympse, a mobile service that allows GPS-enabled mobile devices to share their location via a web app for a pre-set amount of time. Additional companies are currently in the pipeline or under evaluation.
