IDG Ventures Invests $3 Million in Vserv, More Money Coming for India

Co-founders of Vserv: Dippak (left) and Ashay (right)

IDG Ventures has invested $3 million in Vserv, an India-based mobile advertising network founded by Dippak Khurana and Ashay Padwal in 2010. Vserv has so far delivered over 500 ad campaigns and 6 billion ad requests in Southeast Asia and India.

Livemint reported that this is IDG Ventures’ fifth investment in India. The venture capital firm also has numerous tech-related investments in China, including giant search engine Baidu (which just released a new web browser) and e-commerce site Dangdang.

IDG Ventures first set up a $150 million India fund in 2006 and has plans to raise another $150-200 million for promising tech start-ups in the country. Other investment funds/firms which have entered the country include Accel Partners ($400 million) and Intel Capital (over $230 million so far).

CEO and co-founder of Vserv, Khurana, has a strong online advertising background having worked at Times of India and at Intercept Technologies. Meanwhile, CTO and co-founder Ashay is the tech-backbone of the company who has experience working at Yahoo and People Infocom.

We have increasingly featured more and more Indian tech start-ups here on Penn-Olson, and from our vantage point it certainly looks like a busy space right now.

Here are a few of our recent start-up stories from India:

• Interviewstreet Helps You Screen and Hire Developers
• Freshdesk Puts Your Customer Support Platform In The Cloud
• FusionCharts: From Start-up To Serving Google, LinkedIn, and Barack Obama
• The Start-up Story of Sahil and DeskAway
• Twtbuck, India’s Promising Social Media Advertising Platform