Early-stage investment firm India Quotient gets commitment for $4.7M

Early-stage investment firm India Quotient has raised $4.7 million as first close of its maiden fund. The funds were raised from domestic entrepreneurs and fund managers including Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder, One97 Communications as well as a few entrepreneurs from Europe. Additionally, Madhukar Sinha, earlier senior investment manager at VC firm Avishkaar has also joined the fund as a partner. Yourstory first reported the development.

The fund will invest in companies operating in consumer facing businesses targeting mass markets. The investment sectors will include food, fashion, education and healthcare. According to Sinha, the fund will invest in around 3-4 companies by the end of this year, while the investment amount would range in the Rs 25 lakh to the Rs 1 crore.

"The target is to make around 20-25 investments in the next 12-18 months," said Sinha.

"The three things that we will look in a company before investing in them will include a solid team, a good product and an eye for creating a domestic brand," he added.

Former Seedfund partner Anand Lunia started the fund along with a group of entrepreneurs and investors that includes Kashyap Dalal of Inkfruit, Mohit Dubey, the founder of Carwale, among others.  Lunia's investment in five companies in his personal capacity were transferred to the fund. These included IIMJobs, a job portal for business graduates; personalised gifting startup Engrave; shopping network RedQuanta, at-home beauty and personal care services firm Belita, and TheAppKiosk.

In the initial days, as much as 10 per cent of the total corpus raised had come from Lunia's own money. "What makes this fund different is that we are looking to invest into companies at a very early stage. In fact, there are companies who might have been rejected by other early-stage VC funds for being too early, but India Quotient will invest in those," he had told Techcircle.in in June.

(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)