Newsletter Issue # 45 | December 2022

Monthly Spotlight

Deep Dive Into Our Choice Story Of The Month

WaterBridge Ventures leads $3m pre-Series A investment in HR-tech startup CBREX

First-of-its-kind B2B recruitment agency marketplace CBREX recently announced its pre-Series A fundraise of $3m led by WaterBridge Ventures. 

Talent acquisition continues to remain complex and challenging for enterprises especially given post-pandemic remote and hybrid work preferences, geopolitical tensions restricting talent migration, and an overall global skilled talent crunch. By digitizing workflows of talent acquisition teams and enabling them with real-time competitive intelligence and market insights, CBREX significantly shortens hiring timelines. The team, led by Gautam Sinha, Sanjeev Punwani and Divya Chethan, comes with two decades of recruiting experience across India and the US.

With an early focus on mid-market US clients across tech, healthcare, and pharma, we strongly believe that CBREX is poised to uniquely capture this opportunity by sourcing quality talent at unprecedented scale and speed. 

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Portfolio Milestones

Milestone Updates From Our Portfolio

Loopworm covered in Inc42’s list of ‘30 Startups to Watch’

Loopworm was picked as one to watch in the niche and nascent commercial insect farming to animal feed manufacturing space. The 2019-founded startup currently still in R&D stages is seen as an early-mover in the category, building multi-species insect-rearing units in partnership with smallholder farmers.

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Chalo included in the Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 

Co-founded by Priya Singh, Chalo was featured as a women-led future unicorn in the  ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index. Through its live bus tracking and digital ticketing app, Chalo is disrupting the mobility segment across India with a presence in over 20 cities currently.

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Saurabh of Eloelo speaks at Headstart Network 

Saurabh Pandey, Co-Founder & CEO of Eloelo, was the Keynote Speaker at Headstart Network Foundation’s Startup Saturday. He spoke about what the first 100 days of starting up look like, the "fail fast" philosophy, and shared some learnings from his journey of building Eloelo.

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NewsFlash

WBV Portfolio In The News

DataWeave recognized as a Winter 2022 Leader by G2

With 70+ reviews and 4.4 stars on the peer-to-peer software review site G2, DataWeave was recognized as the Winter 2022 Leader. DataWeave is a SaaS-based digital commerce enablement platform providing digital shelf analytics and dynamic pricing solutions for global consumer brands and retailers. 

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Tejas Jain of BimaKavach interviewed by YourStory

In a YourStory interview, Tejas Jain detailed his vision of transforming how SMEs in India purchase business insurance. Complex contracts, cross-border trade, cyber security risks, increased customer awareness are some factors leading to increasing business risks and losses incurred by SMEs. BimaKavach strives to make business insurance easy to access through a digital platform and affordable to purchase through customisation of policy terms to individual business needs.    

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Legitquest partners with Forbes to host the ‘Legal Powerlist 2022’

Forbes India joined hands with Legitquest, India’s highly efficient AI-based 360-degree solution of Legal research, case alert, and litigation management tool, for the ‘Forbes India Legal Powerlist 2022’. The event aims to identify and felicitate Indian lawyers who exemplify distinction, quality service delivery, and demonstrate superior leadership.

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WBV Insights

Thought Leadership From Our Team

Anjali Sosale speaks at Redseer Ground Zero 7.0

In the Redseer Ground Zero 7.0 event held in Bengaluru, Anjali Sosale of WBV featured on a panel alongside Anand Daniel (Accel) and Umang Bedi (CEO, dailyhunt). The conversation was focused on how content-to-commerce plays will evolve going forward, and what will it take for them to become mainstream.

Watch here

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The Marketing Dollar Spend Mantra: MarTech

The global spend on digital marketing is expected to be around $4.7 Tn by 2025, and the number of MarTech companies has rised from merely 2,000 in 2015 to over 10,000 in 2022. Aishwary Thakur detailed our thesis on the space - We are excited about the future of sales & marketing tech and believe that there’s ample room for both vertical- as well as horizontal-disruption.

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Our view on E-commerce Enablement in India

Increasing internet penetration, consumer spending, and the rise in D2C brands in India (~60 brands crossing the $15Mn ARR threshold over the last 5 years), have given rise to various forms of tech-led e-commerce enablement startups. Ananyah Dhawan from WBV detailed our thesis on the space and e-commerce solutions we’re keeping a keen eye on.

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