11 Indian startups pitch to Harvard Angels; at least 3 to get Rs 1Cr or more each

Harvard Alumni Angels India (also known as Harvard Angels), an India-centric angel investing organisation founded by Harvard alumni Raj Chinai, Ravi Gururaj and Ramesh Shah last year, has had its first formal 'HA Pitch Day'.

The event, held at Silicon Valley Bank's (SVB) Bangalore office, saw eleven startups (mostly technology-enabled) from diverse sectors like education, event management, health and wellness and gourmet foods pitch for funding. The 11 companies invited to pitch were evaluated from over 200 business plans that the Harvard Angels team received (more on them below).

"While final investment decisions are not yet determined, we anticipate that at least three startups will receive funding as a result of Pitch Day," said Gururaj.

Chinai pointed out that while the organisation is comfortable with investing up to Rs 1 crore for larger investments, it would look to collaborate with other angels. "In most cases, we invest prior to a Series A investment from a VC fund," he said.

Harvard Angels is a global investment association with a presence in Africa, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Japan, UK and the US, apart from India. According to the organisation, over twenty active super angels from India as well as Silicon Valley were present at the event, including representatives of all top angel networks across India.

According to Chinai, the angel investing organisation has already started looking at startups for the next Pitch Day, which will take place in Feb-March next year.

In October this year, Harvard Angels along with Indian Angel Network and Orios Venture Partners had invested an undisclosed amount in Prettysecrets.com, an online lingerie site owned and operated by MTC Ecom Pvt Ltd.

Here's a quick look at the featured startups.

360Living: A digital hub for health and wellness. According to the company, it is India's first Web 3.0 social platform for mental and physical health, which facilitates and organises the search for health and wellness information.

Metamagics Computing Pvt Ltd: The startup is creating IP to fill gaps in the information supply chain. GridSense, the startup's patent-pending technology, satisfies the needs of business managers, business users and IT support team.

Dplay Mobility Lab: An MIT startup that will design and market lightweight, affordable and efficient 'last-mile' mobility solutions to emerging urban and peri-urban (Area between the suburbs and the countryside) communities.

Ayojak: Offers technology solutions and services for event management and ticketing, conference registrations, payment processing and event promotion.

Gourmet Co Retail Pvt Ltd: A retailer of packaged gourmet foods that increases the accessibility and availability of these foods in India through its online retail channel.

Visarity (Flikz.me): Flikz.me is an augmented reality creation and distribution platform for marketers. The startup is focused on the entertainment industry and connects audiences with entertainers.

Koolkart: A social shopping platform where shoppers can find exclusive curated products recommended by the community. The collection includes apparel for men and women, handbags, imitation jewellery, and quirky personal/home accessories.

47Line: A services company built by a team of professionals working in the cloud computing space for the last five years.

ContractIQ: A marketplace where enterprises can find and work with small to mid-sized mobile/web development shops that are trusted by their peers.

Harness Handitouch Pvt Ltd: Harness is pioneering a new pedagogy (art or profession of teaching) called Touch-on-Cloud, for high school, higher education and coaching segments. It is doing so by bringing tablets to every student and teacher (powered by a learning operating system in HTML5), enabling the teacher to create a collaborative learning experience.

Tuebora: It helps organisations ensure that their information assets (on-premise and cloud applications) are secure and free from risk.

(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)