University of Tokyo’s Utec has extended its foray into Indian VC investments by starting an accelerator in partnership with local venture fund Blume Ventures.

University of Tokyo Edge Capital (Utec), the institution’s VC arm, has joined forces with venture fund Blume Ventures to launch an India-focused accelerator and seed fund targeting deep science and technology applications, Your Story reported yesterday. The program, Blume Utec Deep-Tech Accelerator (Budha), commenced operations earlier in 2019. It provides both investment and mentoring to India-based deep science and tech startups, offering connections to the academic sector as well as corporates from both India and Japan. Budha will back seed and pre-series A stage businesses targeting spaces including healthcare, the life sciences, manufacturing, internet-of-things technology, robotics, fintech and artificial intelligence. Utec has already made two investments with an Indian dimension, including a contribution to automated electrocardiogram analysis technology developer Tricog Health in February 2018.  Though headquartered in Singapore, Tricog maintains research, development and engineering operations in India. Tricog had previously received series A funding from Blume, and is reportedly where the collaboration with Utec began. Utec subsequently led a $9m series A round for India-based antibiotics developer Bugworks Research in August 2018. Founded in 2011, Blume Ventures typically invests in angel and seed rounds. It has cumulatively raised $160m since its founding and backed more than 131 startups, securing a total of 12 exits. Sanjay Nath, co-founder and managing partner of Blume Ventures, said: “Budha is truly a cross-border, collaborative and strategic partnership between Utec and Blume. In one sense, we would like to jointly seed, grow and propel the “next Tricogs” from this Budha initiative.”

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