CoCreate Ventures raises Rs 15-crore fund to help startups in need

BENGALURU: CoCreate Ventures, a new investment firm focused on startups which are struggling, has raised a Rs 15-crore fund from high networth individuals. The firm, cofounded by TeliBrahma founder Suresh Narasimha and former partner at Ojas Ventures Pavan Krishnamurthy has made its first investment in library chain JustBooks to help the eight-year-old company revamp its digital presence.

Under the deal, newly formed company JustBooks Solutions Pvt Ltd has acquired the business and brand JustBooks from Strata Technology Services through an asset sale. Strata was running the omni-channel book renting service with over 1 million books and with a presence across 13 cities. Co-Create Ventures helped JustBooks Solutions in the acquisition.

With assistance from CoCreate Ventures, JustBooks will now revamp its digital operations, ramp up their technology piece for better customer management and loyalty programmes, bring in more human resources to manage the brand and introduce new categories in books.

“The next generation consumers are going to be more digital. We plan to revamp our operations accordingly and go from 65 stores currently to over 100 stores across the country in the next six months,” Sridhar Rajaram, chief executive, JustBooks told ET. The CoCreate Venture fund is focused on startups in the social awareness domain that are lacking funds or pivoting to new ideas.

“We are looking at startups in healthcare, wellness, education and social awareness that are going through a pivot, turnaround or spin off,” said Suresh Narasimha, partner at CoCreate Ventures. “We intend to get involved with these companies by providing financial and business assistance to help them revive.”

Narasimha said CoCreate Ventures will also work with other venture capital firms in the ecosystem to help companies that require higher level of engagement and extended support. The venture fund is also in discussion with some of the traditional businesses with interesting spin-off opportunities that leverage technology.

“We target to close three more investment rounds in the next six to nine months,” Narasimha said.