BlueRun Ventures And Nokia Growth Partners Signal Enhanced Commitment To India
New Delhi/Bangalore/Mumbai, India - (June 27, 2005) - BlueRun Ventures (www.brv.com) and Nokia Growth Partners (www.nokiagrowthpartners.com), two venture capital firms supported by Nokia Corporation, demonstrated their commitment to the Indian market with the addition of two new investment professionals and a new investment. BlueRun Ventures is a global venture capital fund focused on early stage companies in the IT, mobile, and consumer electronics markets. Nokia Growth Partners' mid-to-late stage focus complements that of BlueRun Ventures. The firms today commented on the emerging growth of entrepreneurial talent and technology innovation in India. John Gardner, Founding Partner of BlueRun Ventures said, "We have long viewed India as one of the most exciting and advanced technology markets in the world. The value proposition for investing in Indian companies creates some of the most significant, emerging opportunities for venture capitalists. We are pleased to have been an early investor in the region and are looking forward to furthering our efforts in working with entrepreneurs to bring technology innovations that touch the global economy to market." BlueRun Ventures established its office in New Delhi in 2004 when it brought on Sujit Banerjee as a Principal. The fund invested in Pune based Nevis Networks in May of 2004. Nokia Growth Partners recently announced an investment in Bangalore based Sasken in April. In addition, BlueRun Ventures' India office has significantly increased focus and activity with the addition of Vineet Buch as a Principal, and Vasudev Bhandarkar as a Venture Partner. The two will jointly work with Banerjee to manage BlueRun Ventures' Indian operations. An experienced entrepreneur, Buch was previously an executive in Oracle's flagship Server Technologies Division, and was the co-founder and CTO of Karient, a provider of systems management software and a early member of the team at Corio, which went public in 2000 and was acquired by IBM in 2005. Buch has a B. Tech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur. Bhandarkar has more than 22 years of experience in India's business and technology markets. Most recently Bhandarkar was Chairman and CEO of Unimobile a wireless software company which was sold to EFI (Nasdaq: EFII) and prior to that he was the founding VP of marketing and business development of Selectica (Nasdaq: SLTC). Bhandarkar is actively involved with early-stage incubators in India such as IITBombay's Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), and is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a global organization with over 40 chapters and 10,000 members. Bhandarkar holds Master's degrees in Computer Science from Colorado State University and Physics from IIT-Bombay. Vas has completed course work towards an MBA at Santa Clara University and executive education at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Buch, Bhandarkar and Banerjee will operate out of BlueRun Ventures New Delhi and Menlo Park offices from where they will service all major markets in India. BlueRun Ventures' proven approach is to invest globally as a single fund in best of breed technologies and teams with the drive and ability to build leading global companies. Over the seven-year history of the firm, BlueRun Ventures has built a global platform, with offices throughout North America, European Union, and Asia, that has enabled successful global market leaders to emerge. As an early stage fund, BlueRun Ventures will invest mostly in Series A and B, with initial investment ranging from $2 to $8 million. Nokia is BlueRun Venture's largest Limited Partner. Nokia Growth Partners is a $100M global mid- to late-stage venture capital fund and focuses on investments in mobile technology companies from around the world that are already experiencing industry adoption by large companies such as Nokia. About BlueRun Ventures
About Nokia Growth Partners
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Valerie Christopherson
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