Startup Investment Fund For Real Estate and Smart City technologies by Lodha Group

Lodha Group has announced the launch of its maiden investment fund for startups focused on smart city solutions and the overall real estate sector. With an initial investment corpus of Rs 50 crore, the company will not only provide angel funding or venture capital, but also business opportunities, industry contacts and mentorship.   Lodha Group’s Startup Investment Fund will invest in startups at all stages of the development cycle, including early stage startups, which are focused on creating value in the real estate and smart city space in India. Within real estate, the company will look at all aspects of the value chain, right from digital marketing to analytics and from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to smart city services. The company will make all possible resources accessible to the startups, essential for their success, as long as the ideas and founders resonate with the company’s philosophy and values.   Launching the Startup Fund, Abhishek Lodha, Managing Director, Lodha Group, said, “Our fund’s philosophy is in line with Prime Minister’s three core campaigns – Startup India, Housing for All and Demonetisation. The real estate sector is unarguably an important sector for India’s economy being the second largest employer in the country after agriculture. As India ushers in a new era on the back of pathbreaking policy changes such as demonetisation, RERA and GST, the sector too will reap its benefits in the long run. Demonetisation and decline in interest rates alongside the government’s new incentives for low cost housing, will boost the overall growth of the real estate sector.”   He added, “To aid this progress, our fund will address the prevailing inefficiencies in the sector with the use of technology and smart solutions. Being the largest developer in the country, we have a deep knowledge of the sector and the inefficiencies affecting this growth – we will be able to combine this knowledge with the energy and technical know-how of startups to find pathbreaking solutions enabling India’s real estate industry to leap frog ahead and become globally benchmark-able in its innovation and practices. We have been working in a focused manner to establish this platform over the last few months. Two to three business ideas have been already vetted and the first round of investments will be completed by March 2017. With the launch of the Startup Investment Fund, the company will bring significant expertise, knowledge and resources for the technology-led solution providers, which aim to serve the smart city and real estate space and enable the real estate sector to contribute in a bigger manner to our nation’s employment and economic growth. We welcome all the players in this space to reach out to us and explore how we can work together for a win-win partnership.”