London-based PaaS company Laminar raises $5.11 million in funding led by AIV

London-based Laminar, a platform-as-a-service company that enables content owners to launch Over the Top (OTT) services, has raised $5.11 million in a seed round, led by Artha India Ventures (AIV).

Leo Capital, Garuda Ventures, Cloudcap, and Sampson Acquisitions Inc also participated in the round.

The funding is expected to help the company accelerate its product development and market expansion plans.

Founded in 2020 by Narendra Nag, Raheel Khursheed, Tirthraj Singh, Kumar Shorav, and Yin Shanyang, Laminar enables content owners to launch a global OTT service in 12 weeks or less. It helps create back-end technologies for OTT players.

This is AIV’s first syndicated deal in the European market.

“As the market grows, we expect an increasing number of founders to opt for such syndicated capital,” said Anirudh Damani, director, Artha India Ventures.

Around 40 family offices from India and overseas participated in the deal, Damani said.

Earlier this month, Artha invested in the African market. It made a pre-seed investment in Kenya-based Badili, an online buy-back platform for smartphones.

AIV currently has a portfolio of over 80 companies spread across India, the United States, Israel and Africa.

It has invested in segments such as ed-tech, content platforms, e-commerce, auto, and health-tech.

AIV has exited from companies such as Oyo Rooms, Tala, Baby Chakra, Rapido and Coutloot. It is set to make 100 direct investments by 2023, Damani said.