Venture Catalysts, India’s first and largest early-stage investment firm, has announced full exit from its portfolio Koovers, a leading B2B e-commerce platform for auto spare parts, with handsome 2.1x returns in just 1.5 years.
Venture Catalysts (Vcats) exited its investment in Koovers after the latter’s acquisition by Schaeffler India Ltd, an industrial and automotive parts maker and listed subsidiary of German automotive major Schaeffler Group, in August 2023. Schaeffler acquired Koovers for Rs 142.4 crore.
Venture Catalysts had invested in Koovers in early 2022 in its pre-Series A round through its Angel Fund and few other Angels and Family Offices directly investing in the company. All the investors have got an exit with the acquisition. Inflection Point Ventures, Canbank Venture Fund, and JPIN some of the other marquee investors in Koovers.
“Koovers is one of the rarest startup that is not only solving a major problem in the automotive aftermarket segment but also been posting impressive revenues year after year. We invested in the company for a long term but the acquisition was a great exit opportunity with over 2.1x returns in just 1.5 years in a market that’s facing a longish funding winter and a liquidity crunch. These opportunities to the investors creates a huge positive impact in the entire ecosystem,” said Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Founder and Managing Director of Venture Catalysts ++.
Founded in 2015 by Vinayak YB, Sandeep Begur, and S Prem Kumar, Koovers is a B2B e-commerce platform that supplies auto spare parts to independent auto workshops (IWS) and the aftermarket ecosystem. It has clocked a revenue of Rs 77 crore in 2022-23 and supplies to over 7,000-plus workshops and has a portfolio of around 1.8 million parts from various manufacturers.
“We are quite excited to have had investors like Venture Catalysts on our captable. With their guidance under the leadership of Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, we we were able to achieve our growth metric goals thus creating immense value for all our investors,” said Sandeep Begur, Cofounder, Koovers.
About Venture Catalysts:
Venture Catalysts is India’s first integrated incubator. It typically invests $250K – $2 Mn in early-stage start-ups with a potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Founded in 2016 by Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain, Venture Catalysts has invested in over 300+ startups since inception. The cumulative valuation of the startups invested by Venture Catalysts is $10 Bn+. Venture Catalysts has a presence across 55 cities in 9 countries and is one of the most active early-stage investors globally.
