Hunch Ventures Launches India’s Largest Business Ecosystem ‘The Circle’ at Millennium City, Invests $10M

Venture capital firm Hunch Ventures has recently launched a collaborative and creative hub for innovation, ‘The Circle’ at India’s busiest metro station, HUDA City Centre, Gurgaon. Spread across 200,000 square feet, The Circle was envisioned keeping in mind work and social lifestyles of today’s entrepreneurs and young professionals. 

The facility provides an environment of flexible working zones, meeting areas with state of the art technology, network infrastructure and spaces for creative energies to flow unimpeded. The Circle is a collective of business and entrepreneurial minds, to forge collaborative connections across diverse capabilities.

“The Circle was conceptualised out of a need for a collaborative environment for our portfolio businesses. In doing so, we realised that just by way of getting people together we had started to find solutions and create synergies. We feel business today is a factor of work-social balance. The Circle is going to be about music, humour, conversation, opinion, creativity besides being a serious place to work from. This is going to be the bright spot in your day,” said Karanpal Singh, Founder and Managing Director of Hunch Ventures, which owns and manages The Circle.

Hunch Ventures has invested approx. $10 million in The Circle so far.  Its other portfolio companies are such as: Comprehensive Healthcare Systems (Healthcare, USA), Vmobo Inc (Retail, USA), Cloud Raxak (Technology, USA), GoodTimes (Media, India), Quintessentially Lifestyle (Retail, India), MyHealthcare (Healthcare, India), Empowertrans (Power & Technology, India), Vagupu (Education, USA), SpotDraft (Technology, India), The Quorum (Hospitality, India), TalentNext (Media, India), The Circle (Retail, India) and Kalpnik (Immersive Media, India). It focuses on investments across core sectors such as health, retail, hospitality, education, media and new age technology.

The Circle currently includes businesses across different stages and sectors including data & cybersecurity, AI & ML Technologies, Healthcare Technology, Digital Marketing, Retail, Luxury Services, Entertainment & Lifestyle media and new age technology. At present, 20 companies (~400 members) are using The Circle’s space & facilities and the company says most of them are established brands.

“We aim to curate India’s largest circle of business leaders, mentors, professionals, influencers and policy makers, while being at the cutting edge of technology and innovation. Our strategic partnerships with the industry, trade bodies and the government will help enhance collaboration and bring scale to its members,” added Karanpal. 

The Circle is offering its members a wholesome ecosystem for working and networking. Initiatives such as Friday Socials, networking events, health and fitness pop ups, yoga and cooking sessions, have been designed thoughtfully to help bring the community at The Circle together. 

With the growing demand for premium work environments, Hunch Ventures plans to expand The Circle to other cities across India and Southeast Asia. After launching in Gurugram, the company is now looking to open large scale centre in Bangalore and Bombay.

Peter Vesterbacka, a global entrepreneur from Finland with over 20 years experience of building brands and communities, has joined The Circle as the Global Advisor. Branded communities created and initiated by Peter include the HP Bazaar, Mobile Monday, Slush and Startup Sauna to name a few. He was also the Mighty Eagle at Angry Birds for many years taking that brand to unprecedented heights. At The Circle, Peter will be helping in creating the community as well as mentoring the startups.  

The Circle is also launching a Gaming & VR Centre with an aim to create solutions around education, healthcare & engineering etc. With the help of Peter who has already created games and built brands, 'The Circle' visions to give a massive immersive advertising and experiential media ecosystem. Set to be a melting pot for the best technology platforms and talent, the centre will be an outlet for the creative talent who’s having a strong technology backbone in this space. 

The other players who are operating in the coworking space segment are such as Awfis, BHIVE Workplace, Innov8, 91springboard, IndiQube, Creator’s Gurukul, GoWork, and US-based coworking startup WeWork, among others. Gurugram-based Go-Work is in the process of raising $200 million from private equity funds.

“One thing that makes us different from others is that we are looking at The Circle as a community, not as a real estate rental company,” mentioned Karanpal.