Meta onboards Kalaari Capital to scale early-stage startups in India

 Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta announced a partnership with VC fund Kalaari Capital to upskill and scale young, invested businesses in India by providing them with timely business skilling support.

Mark Zuckerberg‘s Meta (formerly Facebook) on Wednesday announced a partnership with VC fund Kalaari Capital to upskill and scale young, invested businesses in India by providing them with timely business skilling support. The partnership is a part of Meta’s ‘VC Brand Incubator Initiative’ for the growth of micro, small and medium businesses in the country.

“As part of this initiative, Meta has partnered with India’s largest VC funds. We are thrilled to now partner with Kalaari Capital that has been instrumental in the growth journey of many startups,” said Ajit Mohan, VP and MD at Meta in India. Kalaari Capital is an early-stage, technology-focused venture capital firm based in Bengaluru. “As startups scale, they need to leverage several tools and platforms like Meta to support their growth,” said Vani Kola, Founder and Managing Director, Kalaari Capital.

Tata will be back with startups this month, advocates open market in India

BREAKING NEWS| Ratan Tata, who will resume working with startups from February 23 after handing over the reins of Tata Sons to N Chandrasekaran, has called for India to remain an open market but with more with regulatory intervention to curb unfair competition.

"The regulators need to focus on areas where there is unfair competition, which is done to kill the newer startups but ensure that there is enough latitude and enough of a playing field that everyone has a chance," said Tata responding to a query on protectionism and capital dumping at a startup event organised by Kalaari Capital.

Tata, who is an advisor to Kalaari, has invested in over 20 startups including firms such as Urban Ladder, Ola, Madrat Games, Nestaway and Snapdeal. Since October, when the Tata Sons board sacked Cyrus Mistry as chairman, Tata had temporarily his involvement with startups and instead focused on finding a new head of the software to salt conglomerate.

Chandrasekaran, CEO of TCS will take over as the Tata Sons chairman on February 21.

Kalaari's founder Vani Kola, who was interviewing Tata on Tuesday, along with the founders of India's two most successful startups Flipkart and Ola have called for protection against so-called "capital dumping" by global rivals such as Amazon and Uber, who have committed to invest billions of dollars in India.

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