Ashwin Damera, founder & CEO at ed-tech start-ups Eruditus and Emeritus, has invested $32 million in venture debt firm InnoVen Capital India Fund. The investment was made through Damera’s family office which is co-managed by Ashwin and his wife Bhagyashree Damera.
Damera co-founded Eruditus and Emeritus, a leading global ed-tech platform currently valued at $3.2 billion, following its $650-million Series E funding in 2021. It’s backed by marquee investors such as Softbank, Vision Fund 2, Prosus, Accel, Sequoia, Bertelsmann and the Chan Zuckerberg initiative.
Eruditus offers online courses collaborating with more than 60 top-tier universities across the US, Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, India and China. It mostly focuses on short courses, degree programmes, professional certificates and senior executive programmes focused on working professionals.
The unique model of state-of-the-art technology, curriculum innovation, and hands-on instruction from senior faculty, mentors, and coaches has educated more than 250,000 individuals across 80 countries. Damera is also a second-time entrepreneur and previously had co-founded Travelguru, a company that was later acquired by Travelocity in 2009. An angel investor and advisor to multiple start-ups and entrepreneurs, Damera holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is also a qualified chartered accountant.
“I am delighted to invest in Innoven’s maiden venture debt fund. This investment is from my family office and will give us exposure to venture debt, which is a unique asset class. As an entrepreneur, this investment also aligns with my goal of investing back into the venture ecosystem as the capital will eventually support many promising start-ups, as they scale up,” Damera said in a statement.
InnoVen Capital is one of Asia’s leading venture lending firms with offices in India, China and Singapore. It provides debt capital to high-growth venture capital-backed start-ups. Founded in 2008 as the first dedicated venture debt provider in India, the platform offers multiple debt capital solutions, including venture debt, acquisition finance, growth loans, working capital, etc.
To date, InnoVen Capital India has invested in more than 200 start-ups, including market-leading companies such as Byju’s, Swiggy, Eruditus, DailyHunt, Elasticrun, Oyo Rooms, PharmEasy, boAt, Moglix, CureFit, Dealshare, Cars24, Udaan, Shiprocket, Infra.Market and others.
“We are excited to welcome Ashwin as a major investor in our fund. While we are raising capital from several classes of investors, it’s always special to have successful founders invest with us, as they bring value beyond capital. Over the last few years, the ecosystem has seen several founders generate some liquidity and many have allocated capital to venture debt, as part of their asset allocation. We launched the India fund late last year and have already built a strong portfolio of 25 companies, including 7 unicorns. We expect to do our final close sometime next quarter,” said Ashish Sharma, managing partner, InnoVen Capital India Fund.
