2023 Recap @ Inventus Capital

With the first month of 2024 now in the books, we find the startup ecosystem returning to the lean-startup fundamentals we’ve long favoured, alongside a dramatic inflection in the AI innovation wave we’ve been investing behind the past seven years.

As entrepreneurs and VCs ourselves during prior waves of innovation, we recognized the transformative potential of AI early on. Last year’s breakthroughs enabling the use of larger and less structured data sets re-doubled our interest to partner with entrepreneurs redefining industries with AI.?

We’ve seeded seven new companies, many at the forefront of applying AI in both business and consumer applications, while executing with productive unit economics. Additionally, our more mature companies have received follow-on financings or profitable exits, that recognize their market leadership and growth via lean startup fundamentals. ?

We look forward to working with great co-investors to back the best entrepreneurs and invite you to click here to review our startups through concise video business summaries and to request a meeting with our CEOs where there’s an interest.

Latest New Investments

Inventus Fund IV has invested in seven companies, so far:

Inspirit

Ed-tech evolution through 3D, hardware-agnostic virtual classrooms for STEM education

Unlogged

DevOps software massively reducing software debugging costs

Auro Digital

Institutional grade platform for managing cryptocurrencies and digital assets

TenXer

System-in-the-cloud marketplace that provides developers with an on-demand, on-cloud evaluation for IC integrations; particularly for custom applications built on analog circuits

SwingVision

AI-assisted computer vision to improve your game, delivered simply with your iPhone. Winner of 2023 Apple Design Award and covered in Forbes, with Tennis Superstars Lindsay Davenport and Andy Roddick as investors and supporters

LivSYT

Easy-to-adopt self-use AI-integrated SaaS-based software, designed for contractors and modular manufacturers to help them complete projects faster. In use across half of India’s metro rail projects

Khyaal

India's #1 App for Senior Citizens. They provide live sessions on various skills and activities, on-demand assistance, secure payments, jobs etc. through a highly intuitive interface for the elderly. Over 1M senior citizens have joined Khyaal

3 more signed termsheets in closing documentation

2023 Exits & Up-Value Rounds

• Resilinc received a primary/secondary growth investment from Vista Equity Partners at a significant step-up in value from Inventus’ investments in the company
• Tricog Health has accelerating traction applying AI in healthcare diagnostics and raised an? $8.5 million up round
• HealthifyMe raised $30 million from Khosla Ventures and LeapFrog to accelerate its AI capabilities for consumer health applications and pursue global expansion
• Aarna Networks closed a $6.15M oversubscribed Series A lead by 3 Lines VC, LDV Partners & NVIDIA
• InspectHOA raised $2.5m as it applies AI to commercial real estate transactions, in recognition of tripling customer traction since our investment
• Policy Bazaar’s successful IPO was fully realized last year, along with highly profitable acquisitions of FundsIndia and Savaari where Inventus was the lead seed investor

Inventus Companies in the Press

• Asimily featured in Forbes amid its growing leadership in IoT security
• SwingVision won the 2023 Apple Design Award
• Snapchat partners with Inspirit to build AR STEM lessons. Also covered by Fox News and TechCrunch
• Scispace was named ‘AI/ML Market Disruptor of the Year’ at AI Conclave, along with achieving # 1 in traffic and plugin installs
• Khyaal’s client base reached 1 million and it was featured among the top global Age-Tech startups and companies for 2023
• Aarna Networks was recognized in the STL Partners List ‘15 Edge AI Companies to Watch in 2024’. It also featured in Analytics Insight: Top 10 Outstanding IoT Edge Computing Platforms of 2023
• HealthifyMe was covered in India’s premier news outlet for entrepreneurship
• Talview recognized as a Leader in Proctoring, and was recognized as a ‘high performer’ by G2
• Credit Sesame named Platinum Winner of Future Digital Awards by Juniper Research for its innovative Sesame Credit Builder banking, and launched Industry’s First Credit AI Platform
• Schmooze had a successful India launch and was featured in The Hindu BusinessLine, Times Of India, Financial Express
• Resilinc named "Risk Management Company of the Year" in the annual SupplyTech Breakthrough Awards
• Knolskape listed as one of the 20 in Training Industry’s 2023 Leadership Training Watch List

Our GPs making waves

• The IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) at Gandhinagar instituted the BV Jagadeesh chair professorship to promote innovation and entrepreneurship as well as interdisciplinary research in population dynamics
• Kanwal Rekhi, Raju Reddy, and BV Jagadeesh were invited by the University of San Francisco to do a series of talks on Asians in Silicon Valley. Watch all of Kanwal’s sessions here, Raju’s sessions here, and BV’s session here
• INSEAD Alumni Association organized a special event for Manu Rekhi to hear his journey as an entrepreneur and venture investor. He was also guest speaker for Xoogler.co's Early-stage investors meetup
• BV Jagadeesh’s book StartUp To Win?, is doing phenomenally well, providing a guide on surviving and adapting to the ever-evolving startup landscape
• BV Jagadeesh was given the #SpiritofTiE Pravasi Bangalorean Award by TiE Bangalore
• B V Jagadeesh spoke at the Bengaluru Tech Summit, in a Fireside chat with famous Indian cricketer Smriti Mandhana
• The New York Times, in a popular article, interviewed Kanwal Rekhi and documented his and BV Jagadeesh’s contribution to India’s entrepreneurship movement
• Kanwal spoke to YourStory on Byju’s chaos, Sequoia’s split, and why easy money breeds bad habits
• Business Today covered Kanwal’s article talking about how large valuations give a false sense of success to startups
• MoneyControl covered Kanwal’s thoughts on Byju's: 'Auditors' resignation typically means people trying to protect their reputation
• Kanwal Rekhi spoke on ‘What NOT to do as an Entrepreneur’ at an event organized by IIT Bombay Alumni Association
• Raju Reddy featured on The Industry Show hosted by Dr Nitin Bajaj
• Global Indian published an article on Raju’s life, career, entrepreneurship and success

We’re covering some hard topics in our viral LinkedIn blogs - Read them here and here. Or follow us on LinkedIn - we have a cumulative 150K followers across our partners. Subscribe to our newsletters on LinkedIn and come see what all the hype is about!!

Check out few viral pieces from Kanwal on the Sequoia split, on Nvidia stock rally, on VC Economics, and on Indian startups, along with Manu’s controversial topic on Entrepreneurs Vs. Managers.

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