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    Eight Roads Ventures names two new venture partners

    Synopsis

    The investment firm, which already counts Icertis, Whatfix, MoEngage, FarEye, and LeadIQ among its SaaS portfolio in India, has been looking to ramp up its presence across both domains in recent times.

    Eight Roads Ventures SaaS and enterprise technology investment teamsETtech
    Illustration: Rahul Awasthi
    Eight Roads Ventures has named two new venture partners - Stephanie Robotham and James Ireson, as the global investment firm backed by US-based Fidelity seeks to ramp up its presence across the broader Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and enterprise technology sectors.

    The investment firm, which already counts Icertis, Whatfix, Moengage, FarEye and LeadIQ among its SaaS portfolio in India, has been looking to ramp up its presence across both domains in recent times.

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    Both Robotham and Ireson will have focus on Eight Roads’ current and future SaaS investments in Asia’s third-largest economy.

    “They will both be focused on the SaaS space. We feel quite excited about the quality of products coming out of India. We have Icertis and Whatfix, which are recognised as global leaders in their respective segments,” Shweta Bhatia, Partner and head of technology investments at Eight Roads Ventures in India, told ET.

    “We are early growth investors and will come in at a point where the company has some product-market fit, and we help them with scale and their go-to-market strategy. What’s most important is, for companies to scale and hit that $100 million ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) number, they need to get their US and Europe go-to-market right, which is why we have brought both on board,” Bhatia added.

    The US-based Robotham is currently the chief marketing officer at Gainsight, and has previously held roles at Salesforce, Cordial Inc, Iterable and Optimizely.

    “I'm thrilled to be joining the Eight Roads team and to be working alongside such incredible founders. The creativity, ambition and customer centricity of the portfolio companies I've worked with so far is really inspiring - exciting times ahead,” she said in a statement.

    Ireson, who joined Eight Roads in 2019 as a Venture Partner from Zendesk, where he was part of the leadership for the company’s EMEA Partner Sales organisation, is based in London.

    Apart from Robotham and Ireson, Eight Roads has four other venture partners in India - Deepak Kanvinde, Shirish Belapure, Harvinderjit Bhatia and Sanjay Aggarwal.

    Globally, it counts 35 venture partners.

    “Both of them are really here to focus on the India portfolio and help them with their go-to-market strategies and take them to the next level. Eight Roads as an investor really wants to differentiate itself in the enterprise technology space, by not just providing capital, but also bringing in scale up expertise,” Bhatia said.

    Eight Roads also has online pharmacy PharmEasy, third-party logistics provider Shadowfax, dairy products startup Milk Mantra and Northern Arc, in its India portfolio.
    The Economic Times

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