Indian Angel Network Recasts Funding Strategy For Start-Ups

Indian Angel Network, a community of early-stage seed investors, has recast its strategy for funding and mentoring early stage start ups in mobile and Internet space by bringing down the minimum threshold of investment.

The network that currently prefers investments of Rs 2-3 crore in companies will now also invest lower amounts in early stage firms. Under the new strategy, it now proposes to invest around Rs 75 lakh each in the early stage firms, the network said in a statement today.

IAN said it has been getting a large number of requests from real early stage companies, especially in the mobile, Internet and e-commerce space whose startup requirement is much smaller. "Indian Angel Network has therefore re cast its strategy for funding and mentoring early stage start ups in mobile, Internet space and proposes to fund around Rs 75 lakh each for the first about two dozen start ups," it said.

Besides providing the funds for the budding entrepreneurs, the community would offer valuable mentoring support and participate in helping build businesses, refining the product strategy and shaping growth of the new companies early on, it said.

Incorporated in April 2006, IAN is India's first angel investment network and looks to invest up to $1 million or around Rs 5 crore, though its preferred range is between Rs 2-3 crore.

It has already invested in 25 companies across multiple sectors, such as Druva and InnovizeTech Software from Pune; Kwench, a Library solutions start-up; Karmic Life Sciences, an oncology focused CRO; Jigsee, a mobile video streaming company for feature phones; Groffr, a real estate group buying pioneer from Mumbai; an embedded software developer Vyavaya from Belgaum; Hungry Zone in Bangalore and TaxSpanner and Vienova in Delhi.

The community boasts of over 170 members drawn from across the country and some from overseas, including leading successful entrepreneurs and successful CEOs from diverse sectors. IAN members include Jerry Rao, Saurabh Srivastava, Pramod Bhasin, Raman Roy, Rajan Anandan, Rehan Yar Khan, Harish Mehta, Rajiv Luthra, Pradeep Gupta, Sunil Munjal, Arvind Singhal and institutions such as IBM, SIDBI, Spice Televentures and Intel.