Latest news with #TenacityVentures
Mint
03-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
With multiple startups IPO-ready, Tenacity Ventures now plans a bigger second fund
Mumbai: Tenacity Ventures, backed by founders of Dream11, is gearing up to launch a $150 million second fund even as several companies from its debut portfolio move closer to public market listings, the firm's top executives told Mint. 'While companies like Purplle, Headout, Tonbo Imaging and Exotel are already IPO ready, others, including IDfy, Toddle, Seclore, Clear, Videonetics, and Qnu Labs, will certainly have the scale to explore options for a listing over a three-year timeframe," Tenacity's managing directors Rohit Razdan and Gourav Bhattacharya told Mint in a joint interview. They did not disclose if they plan to sell stakes in the IPOs. 'There is enough flexibility in India, and I think the overall ecosystem has seen a good progression in the last couple of years with many startups tapping the public markets," Razdan said. 'We expect this to ramp up in the coming years as the broader sentiment from regulators and investors alike is to encourage more companies with sustainable metrics to go public." Also Read: IPO street is lighting up as hopes swell, global worries fade While they will also explore strategic options for exits, Razdan added that the early growth stage fund is likely to see IPOs as a larger percentage of exits, given that Tenacity typically invests in mature companies with a strong product market fit. 'In some cases, public markets may not necessarily know how to value certain assets, so strategic options make more sense," he said, adding that the aim is to have many exit options always available for its companies. The VC firm has already clocked its first exit in Effectiv, a real-time risk decisioning firm, with almost a 2.5x gain when the company was sold to US-based Socure, an artificial intelligence-based provider of fraud prevention and digital identity verification, for $136 million last year. Also Read | Ride the bond-wagon: VCs and fintech startups rush to tap the latest retail investor fancy New fund Tenacity's new fund comes after the VC firm announced the final close of its first fund at $100 million in March last year to invest in Indian companies. About 80-85% of the first fund has already been deployed across 15 companies and the investment firm will begin the process for the second fund in the coming months. Largely backed by domestic investors, including other startup founders and senior executives, Tenacity plans to increase its average ticket size by 45-50% to ₹60-70 crore in its next fund for which it will also tap institutionalized pools of capital alongside existing investors. Its current average ticket size is around ₹40-50 crore. With a focus to invest in software and deep-tech companies across series B and C stages, the VC firm looks for companies that are built in a capital efficient manner with low volatility and high ability to generate returns. Also Read: Are Indian venture capitalists investing in moonshot ideas? Meanwhile, fundrasing momentum has picked over the last six to eight months with several private equity and venture capital firms including Kedaara, ChrysCapital, Stellaris Ventures, India Quotient, Sixth Sense, Prime Ventures, Accel, A91 Partners, Cornerstone VC and Bessemer Venture Partners that have launched new funds. Tenacity joins the growing list of other investment firms such as Nexus Venture Partners, Lok Capital, Chiratae Ventures, Peak XV Partners, WEH Ventures, InCred Alternative Investments, Avataar Venture Partners, Blume Ventures and Fireside Ventures that are also preparing to raise fresh capital.
Economic Times
20-05-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Cybersecurity startup Cloudsek raises $19 million in funding led by Tenacity Ventures, Commvault
ETtech Rahul Sasi, founder, Cloudsek Predictive cybersecurity Cloudsek has raised $19 million in a fresh funding round led by Tenacity Ventures and Commvault. Others participating in the round include Inflexor Ventures, MassMutual Ventures and Prana Ventures, along with some strategic investors. Founded in 2015 by Rahul Sasi, Cloudsek uses its artificial intelligence (AI)-backed stack with 18 applications to predict and mitigate cyber threats. The startup will use the capital for product innovation, global expansion and doubling down on existing international markets like the US, UAE and Asia Pacific, cofounder and CEO Rahul Sasi told ET."Today, most of the cyber threats originate from human beings. In the next few years, they will be orchestrated and planned by AI. So, humans would need smarter solutions to defend against them," Sasi technology identifies initial attack vectors, such as leaked credentials, exposed APIs or compromised vendors, as opposed to tools that respond after a cyberattack incident. "Our version of threat intelligence is predictive, not forensic," he explained. The startup has over 250 customers, including Fortune 500 companies, across banking, healthcare, technology and the public sector. It has so far raised $30 million. "Today, over 60% of our net new revenue comes from international markets, with the US emerging as our fastest-growing region. We have achieved this scale while staying cash flow positive," Sasi said, adding that Cloudsek is growing 70% year-on-year. It also uses an AI-backed command centre, Nexus, trained on open source data and streamlines it in one place. Through this platform, security teams can access and analyse intelligence in real time and identify attack patterns and vulnerabilities across their digital AI platform, trained via large language models and multi-language models, also provides cyber risk quantification through which companies can assess potential financial losses and regulatory said the rise of cybercrime is related to geopolitical tensions as well. "There are wars happening right now. You will see every time the economy goes down, cybercrime goes up," he said. He added that the preventive cybersecurity market was earlier dominated by American or Israeli companies, however, India has now come to play a significant role in it.
Time of India
20-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Cybersecurity startup Cloudsek raises $19 million in funding led by Tenacity Ventures, Commvault
Predictive cybersecurity Cloudsek has raised $19 million in a fresh funding round led by Tenacity Ventures and Commvault. Others participating in the round include Inflexor Ventures, MassMutual Ventures and Prana Ventures, along with some strategic investors. Founded in 2015 by Rahul Sasi, Cloudsek uses its artificial intelligence (AI)-backed stack with 18 applications to predict and mitigate cyber threats . The startup will use the capital for product innovation, global expansion and doubling down on existing international markets like the US, UAE and Asia Pacific, cofounder and CEO Rahul Sasi told ET. "Today, most of the cyber threats originate from human beings. In the next few years, they will be orchestrated and planned by AI. So, humans would need smarter solutions to defend against them," Sasi said. Cloudsek's technology identifies initial attack vectors, such as leaked credentials, exposed APIs or compromised vendors, as opposed to tools that respond after a cyberattack incident. "Our version of threat intelligence is predictive, not forensic," he explained. Live Events The startup has over 250 customers, including Fortune 500 companies, across banking, healthcare, technology and the public sector. It has so far raised $30 million. "Today, over 60% of our net new revenue comes from international markets, with the US emerging as our fastest-growing region. We have achieved this scale while staying cash flow positive," Sasi said, adding that Cloudsek is growing 70% year-on-year. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories It also uses an AI-backed command centre, Nexus, trained on open source data and streamlines it in one place. Through this platform, security teams can access and analyse intelligence in real time and identify attack patterns and vulnerabilities across their digital ecosystem. The AI platform, trained via large language models and multi-language models, also provides cyber risk quantification through which companies can assess potential financial losses and regulatory impacts. Sasi said the rise of cybercrime is related to geopolitical tensions as well. "There are wars happening right now. You will see every time the economy goes down, cybercrime goes up," he said. He added that the preventive cybersecurity market was earlier dominated by American or Israeli companies, however, India has now come to play a significant role in it.
