Using machine learning and data science for identifying and placing bets in sectors and different parts of the world, Rocketship.vc, Silicon Valley located early-stage startup closes final close of fund-II at $100 million on Tuesday.

 

Headquartered in Los Altos, California, the firm’s latest investment carriage is supported by Vulcan Capital, the investment wing of Vulcan Inc., which is the company founded by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, the United States’ private market investment manager Adams Street Partners, the family office of Marc Andreessen, and Chris Dixon, they both partners at Silicon Valley investment powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz.

 

Sailesh Ramakrishnan, Partner, Rocketship.vc, said, “Our heavily polished data skills permit us to step on different options, leveraging data science, technology, and analytics for finding the best companies, located at any place and growth stage from any market. We feel excited to stay at the frontline of this shift and with all our experience, we will help founders successfully create their own businesses, location doesn’t matter.”

 

Rocketship.vc’s founders – Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan are serial entrepreneurs with work experiences in senior roles across Amazon and Walmart, claims to leverage machine learning and data science for identifying and placing bets in sectors and different parts of the world, regardless of banking on personal meetings, for making deals. Rajaraman, an angel investor, has records of successful investments in Facebook and Lyft.

 

In 2015, the firm, where investment carriage closed at $40 million, is now expanding presence in India, with investments of $14 million and above in the third-largest economy of Asia as per the day.

 

Ramakrishnan stated, “Our algorithms help us in dealing every difficulty smoothly without going to offices. Our strong connections with the founders and investors help in that and we are making the connections stronger.”

 

The connections include the renowned names from the industry – Moglix (B2B industrial goods marketplace), Yulu (mobility startup), NoBroker (online realty portal), and Khatabook (digital credit ledger), with two exits scores till now.

 

Last year, Reliance acquired a major stake portion in the fashion portal – Fynd, and Naspers-owned fintech major PayU acquired a decent stake in digital credit platform Paysense at a $185 million valuation in January this year.

 

Ramakrishnan said, “In the last few years, our algorithms are getting huge recognition in India. Because of this, it is the second-largest country by dollars in our portfolio. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, various sectors like e-commerce, cloud, and ed-tech have strong tailwinds in India, and we are expecting to invest in them.”

 

Overall, Rocketship.vc made investments in 44 companies across seed, Series A and B rounds, having 46 percent of the investments outside the United States, as per data by the investment firm.

 

“Venture Capital is on the tracks of the biggest shift in decades it made till now. With entrepreneurship finding value in every part of the world, firms are recognizing the traditional Silicon Valley-based networking approach of VC are not able to scale the new reality of meeting startups, wherever they are based,” clarified Ramakrishnan.