One More First For Chennai: Avendus Picks Stake In Spark Capital

Suddenly, Chennai has turned into hyper city. The listing of SaaS (software-as-a-service) firm Freshworks on Nasdaq, eliciting record bids by a little known Latent View Analytics and the attraction of huge funding by an obscure Ram Charan Company has pitch-forked the usually docile business world of Chennai into the national limelight. Is Chennai getting a new sense of importance? Not really, if one were to take a deep dip down memory lane. This part of the world has been a trend-setter in very many ways. The first corporate film company (GV Films), THE first corporate hospital (Apollo), First Leasing Company, first time-share company (Sterling Holiday), first corporate education company (Triveni Academy), first hostile takeover (Cumi acquiring Wendt India in the early 90s) – you have all of them sprout from this Dravidian land. In that way, this is a hotspot for innovation and experimentation. And, the financial services business has a strong root here. Not surprising that this Mumbai-based financial services company has developed a Spark to put its Capital into this. Avendus must be mega pleased to discover this mid-market investment bank Spark Capital in Chennai. A Spark will do Avendus a world of good in terms of its ability to provide research-oriented insight and solutions to clients’ requirements. This one is indeed a Spark(ling) move by Avendus!