An early-stage technology-focussed fund, Silverneedle Ventures, announced the launch of their Rs 100 Crore fund. Their first investment is in the creator monetisation platform Knorish. Silverneedle Ventures (SNV) has invested an undisclosed amount of funding in a Pre-Series A extension round of the startup. The round is backed by marquee investors such as Andrew Holland, Bharat Serum Family Office, IPV, Mumbai Angels, and Jet Synthesys. Knorish is building the world’s most convenient platform for creator monetization through a sales funnel for online courses, webinars and memberships.
SNV is a sector-agnostic early-stage technology fund that partners with entrepreneurs to increase their probability of success through an active hands-on approach. The fund aims to invest in Pre-Series A/Series A round of early-stage startups focused on B2B SaaS, Deeptech, sustainability, and D2C/consumer internet, among a few other sectors. The fund is founded by Ajay Jain and Deepesh Agarwal who were also the founders of Xseed partners. The team has a group of seasoned professionals who have invested in 30-odd early-stage investments and mentored numerous startups. The SNV team has run successful startups and has been part of the startup ecosystem as employees/advisors of incubators and accelerators. The leadership team is based out of Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, and California.
With the launch of SNV, they have announced their first investment in Knorish. Knorish aims to utilise the fund by expanding and growing their business to new markets, while planning to onboard more creators and use the rest of the fund to enhance the tech ability. Currently, the startup has a team of 32 people in technology, sales, customer success, content designing, and marketing. The startup is tapping a market of 80 million creators and knowledge professionals in India who can eventually convert their skills into a creator business.
Knorish caters to 38,000 academies built by creators from 11 countries, impacting a million users in 45 countries. The goal is to actively acquire more customers from the growing global markets. The startup is founded by Kinner N Sacchdev (co-founder and CEO) and Rakhi Wadhwa (co-founder), serial entrepreneurs, who have previously led a leading consulting firm with Fortune 50 clients from the US, the UK, and the Middle East.
Silverneedle Ventures co-founder and managing partner Ajay Jain said, “After the success of Xseed Partners, we have set up Silverneedle Ventures with a very strong and diverse team, bringing expertise in core areas of Startup business model. With our mentor-driven model approach, we will assign segment-specific experts across the globe, for the portfolio, so that each startup is taken on a growth trajectory. The SNV team is positive about success because of our previous investment track record & strong pedigree which holds us in good stead to not only source better but also to add maximum value to the startups throughout the journey. Our limited partners (investors) – be it individuals, family offices or fund of funds have the ability to fuel the growth for the startups.”
On the investment in Knorish, Silverneedle Ventures founding partner Deepesh Agarwal further said, “Our core team recognises the increasing contribution of evolving sectors in the Global economy and the potential they offer via Startup investments. The team believes the creator economy stands at an inflection point, as content creators are moving beyond simply working with brands and evolving their businesses by adding numerous revenue streams. As a result, platforms are moving fast to build an increasingly multifaceted offering of opportunities. In turn, creators are leveraging these new tools to connect directly with fans and build their own communities. Knorish’s offering stands to benefit from this trend and has got off to a good start. We expect Knorish to build out offerings that will make it a critical omnichannel gateway for creators.”
Knorish co-founder and CEO Kinner N Sacchdev said on the funding announcement quotes, “When the creators set on their monetisation journey, their biggest challenge is not content creation or basic setup. The challenge, instead, is building sales funnels, which Knorish aims to solve. We are extremely excited to partner with Silverneedle Ventures and the team is already working harder towards closing our Series A round.”
“We’ll truly see a creator in every home at some point in the near future, and in order to enable millions of creators to live better lives with the newfound monetisation, we need to train them, handhold them. Monetisation is just like any other skill, it can be learned. We are glad to have SNV as one of our investors, and looking forward to our partnership with them,” said Knorish co-founder and CBO Rakhi Wadhwa.
