4 February 2015
Amadeus Capital Partners, the technology investor, is establishing a presence in Bangalore with the appointment of Bhavanipratap (Bhavani) Rana, an experienced venture capital and private equity investor, who has joined the Amadeus team as a Partner and will lead the team’s operations in India.
Mr Rana was until recently Investment Director at Intel, where he spent 14 years leading and managing over $170m of investments in 30 companies in India, the US, Europe and Brazil, many of which have had successful exits, including (PGP, acquired by Symantec; Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR); Click&buy, acquired by Deutsche Telekom; and Nipuna, acquired by Satyam). A graduate of Sydenham College, University of Bombay, and a Chartered Accountant, Mr Rana began his career with Arthur Andersen.
Amadeus Capital Partners, established in 1997, has made over 90 investments in early stage and growth technology businesses and now has a presence in the UK, USA, Sweden, India and South Africa. Companies Amadeus has helped to build include CSR (LSE:CSR), a connectivity, audio, imaging and location semiconductors company, Transmode (ST:TRMO), an optical networking solutions business, Octo Telematics, the global leader in insurance telematics acquired by Renova Group and Lastminute.com, the travel and leisure site, acquired by Travelocity.
In 2013, Amadeus raised $75m as a First Closing for its global fund, the Amadeus IV Digital Prosperity Fund, which invests in venture and growth companies developing applications and services targeted at the rapidly expanding middle classes in growth markets, including India. In 2014, the Fund led a B round financing of US$8.9m in Brazilian online price comparison and insurance brokerage business, Bidu, and Amadeus will shortly be announcing the Fund’s first investment in a business with operations in India.
“I am delighted to join the team at Amadeus to establish their investment presence in India.” says Bhavani Rana. “Amadeus brings a strong record of technology investing, supporting entrepreneurs and growing companies; I look forward to leveraging that within the technology ecosystem in India. Through Amadeus’ investments, we aim to participate in the build-out of the Indian internet services ecosystem, as well backing Indian product companies.”
Amadeus CEO, Anne Glover, adds: “Our Indian presence will enhance the reach of the Digital Prosperity Fund team, working with existing investments and sourcing new opportunities; it will also offer increased networking opportunities for our early stage and growth investments. We are really pleased to have Bhavani on board.”
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For further information, please contact Chantal Ligertwood, PR for Amadeus,
+44 (0)7976 229 210; chantal@ligertwood.net