“Going All In On India”
Blume Day 2019
Hi all, My name is Karishma Patel — a new member of the Draper Venture Network team as of February 2019! I recently had the opportunity to attend Blume Ventures’ Annual Blume Day, which was held in Mumbai, India on February 28th at The St. Regis.
Blume Day 2019 kicked off with an intimate breakfast hosted by Priya Rajan from Silicon Valley Bank on the topic of helping Blume’s founders expand to Silicon Valley and globally. It was great to meet and connect with many of Blume’s founders and discuss how DVN can be a resource to them as they continue to scale their companies. This was followed by Blume’s AGM and LP update, which was impressive to see Blume’s fund performance over the years and where they are looking to in the future with the growth of India’s middle class, increase in consumption, and increased digital connectedness.
There were 3 main tracks for panels throughout the afternoon: 1) The Discerning Indian Customer, 2) Make in India, Ship to the World, and 3) Bringing The Next 100s of Millions Into The Internet Economy. The panels were well-curated while showcasing Blume’s portfolio companies and delivering key insights from founders of Tricog, Dunzo, Dataweave, Servify, Milkbasket, Kaleidofin, Jai Kisan, Turtlemint, Instamojo, Locus, Agara Labs and more!
The day came to an end with a great panel on exits, a high energy musical performance, and Blume announcing their partnership with Japanese deep science fund, UTEC, to take Indian tech startups global through their joint initiative called BUDHA (Blume UTEC Deep-tech Accelerator).
Into the evening, we had dinner while enjoying the view of Mumbai from the terrace, where I was able to connect with more of the Blume team as well as other investors and LPs. It was apparent to see the strong presence Blume has in the Indian startup ecosystem by the solid network of guests in attendance from founders to other investors, LPs, and corporate partners.
Blume Day was definitely one of the best executed VC events I’ve been to and truly delivered on quality networking, connections to founders, and key insights on “Going All In On India”.
Key panel insights available here: http://blume.vc/category/blume-day-2019/
