Mumbai, India, March 20, 2023. Blume Ventures, one of India’s largest homegrown early-stage venture capital firms, is delighted to announce the elevation of two senior members of its investment team, Arpit Agarwal and Sajith Pai, to Investment Partners at the firm.
This announcement follows Blume’s emphatic close of its Fund IV late last year, where Blume raised $290M from high-quality institutional investors on the back of a strong investment track record and its demonstration of long-term institution-building. Arpit and Sajith’s elevation to Investment Partners is an acknowledgment of their valuable contribution to Blume’s founder journeys and strong underlying portfolio performance. They have been key ingredients to Blume’s own growth and institutionalization.
Arpit joined Blume in 2014. He was always an ecosystem enabler through his roles as a founding member of the Headstart Network and the TLabs teams. Arpit has been instrumental in shaping portfolio construction since his first investment for Blume in Cashify in 2015. He also led the formation and growth of MetaMorph (previously Passion Connect), one of Blume’s key partners in Talent Management at our portfolio companies. He has established himself as a thought and community leader in emerging fields such as DeepTech, Health tech, and EVs/Clean Tech and has played a key role in fostering a vibrant B2B / Enterprise practice at Blume. His EV Primer from 2022 became one of the VC market’s definitive learning docs on the burgeoning EV ecosystem in India. Arpit’s commitment to building community – not just in form but in spirit – has been the guiding force for Blume’s community initiatives with early-stage founders, finding innovative ways to engineer serendipity for their portfolio companies.
Sajith joined Blume in 2018 after almost two decades at The Times Group, where he was involved in strategy and corporate development. Known for his sharp thought leadership even before he came into Blume, Sajith’s passion for content and writing brought a distinctive advantage in the VC ecosystem. At Blume, he has invested in companies across EdTech, HRTech, B2B Marketplaces, Workforce enablement, and other consumer Internet business models. He has additionally exemplified one of our core values of high ownership by leading and deepening our Research as well as Marketing & Content efforts, helping grow our team and leadership in these areas. His work on the Indus Valley Annual Report has helped position Blume firmly as a thought leader in the Indian startup ecosystem.
While Blume has raised its largest-ever fund, it has been with the implicit nod by our investors that we have five strong investment leaders now, each with a strong grip on the sectors they specialize in. Sanjay Nath leads our strength in cross-border SaaS, while Arpit Agarwal heads Emerging Tech (including EVs and Climate Tech). Ashish Fafadia heads Fintech and Agri, while Sajith Pai and Karthik Reddy lead Domestic Consumer Internet and B2B Marketplaces (including EdTech, Health, Commerce, and Brands). Blume’s multi-sectoral expertise across tech comes from the evolution of the fund into these sectoral buckets managed with ~$50 million of capital per Investment lead and their respective underlying teams.
Additionally, Blume’s strength in backing its best companies in later-stage rounds has led to an extension of reserves for Series A/B rounds in this $290M fund. And finally, repeat founders are raising compelling seed rounds, and Blume is a preferred seed round participant for a lot of them.
In the absence of strong >$200 million funds historically, Blume has also been raising Continuity funds since 2018 for its Fund I and II winners. Blume has completed its first close of its $60 million Continuity Fund, Fund 1Y, which will invest in Purplle, Carbon Clean, Cashify, Zopper, and other breakout stars. With over 25 companies at more than a $100 million valuation and 10 ‘soonicorns’ (>$500 mill in the last valuation) and Unicorns, the Blume team is prepared to back another generation of transformational startup founders with the widening leadership team.
