Tuesday, June 28 2005 15:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Blue Run Ventures (BRV) and Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), two venture capital (VCs) firms supported by Nokia Corporation, hope to invest in one or two Indian start-up companies a year, senior executives said today (Jun 28, 2005).

"We are looking for one or two investments in India a year," said John Gardner, Founding Partner of BRV, a global venture capital fund focused on early stage companies in the IT, mobile, and consumer electronics markets.

Sujit Banerjee, principal at BRV added, "We are pursuing some serious opportunities. Hope one or two will go through."

NGP is a $100 million mid to late stage venture capital fund. It has earlier this year invested $3 million in Bangalore based Sasken Communication Technologies, a telecom R&D outsourcing leader.

Formerly known as Nokia Venture Partners, BRV invested $10 million in Pune-based Nevis Networks, a start up company developing a new class of enterprise security solutions, last year (2004).

Gardner said the value proposition for investing in Indian companies creates some of the most significant, emerging opportunities for venture capitalists.

BRV India Office said Vineet Buch, who was the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of systems management software provider Karient, and Vasudev Bhandarkar, who was most recently Chairman and CEO of wireless software company Unimobile, has been added as Principal and Venture Partner.