The Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE.CO), the start-up incubator founded by IIM Ahmedabad, announced the profitable exits of four start-ups: Guvi, Barrix, Transerve and Riskcovry. Over the past 15 years, the incubator has invested in over 350 start-ups with more than 40 profitable exits.
Indian start-ups have proved to be attractive acquisition targets for global leaders. Barrix Agro Sciences, developing pheromone-based pest control products, was acquired by the Indian subsidiary of Japanese chemical giant Sumitomo Chemical India, yielding a 5x return on IIMA-CIIE’s investment.
Returns
The location intelligence start-up Transerve bagged a 12x return for the firm with its acquisition by Precisely, a global leader in data integrity. IIMA-CIIE also sold its stake in Riskcovry, a full-stack insurance distribution platform, to a wealth management company.
India’s original IT garage start-up, HCL, acquired a majority stake in the edtech platform GUVI, a tech skills learning platform in vernacular languages. Both transactions yielded a 6x return each to IIMA-CIIE, according to a press release.
“We are thrilled to announce these successful exits during a time when market conditions have been particularly tough. Indian start-up entrepreneurs continue to build value for the larger domestic and global ecosystems at play while proving the profitability of early-stage investing,” said Vipul Patel, Partner, Seed Investments at IIMA-CIIE.
In the recent past, IIMA-CIIE announced its partnership with SIDBI to launch a pre-seed fund, committed to investing up to $100k each across 30 deep tech opportunities in India in the next 24 months.