Former MakeMyTrip product head Amit Somani joins AngelPrime as Partner

Bangalore-based seed-stage VC firm AngelPrime has appointed former MakeMyTrip product head Amit Somani as a partner.

"With Somani joining our team, we now can bring even stronger operating expertise to evaluate investments and subsequently help our companies significantly," said Shripati Acharya, managing partner, AngelPrime.

"The AngelPrime looks at not just investing but working closely with entrepreneurs at the formative stages of their companies. With this role, I look forward to bringing my global experience to help build companies in India," added Somani.

Last year, Somani had stepped down from the post of chief products officer (CPO) at MakeMyTrip. However, he still plays an active advisory board role in the firm. Somani had joined MMT in January 2010. Prior to that, he served as group product manager for Google India. Earlier, he was director of engineering and product management at IBM in the US. He holds a B.Tech degree in computer science and engineering from Banaras Hindu University and a master's degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, US.

Founded in 2011 by Sanjay Swamy along with Acharya and Bala Parthasarathy, AngelPrime is investing out of its maiden under $10 million fund. It typically invests in 3-5 startups a year, and is looking to do a maximum of 10 deals with the current fund. AngelPrime also offers its startups operational expertise, mentorship and other support including business operations, PR & marketing, finance and legal.

AngelPrime's portfolio companies include cloud telephony startup ZipDial; mobile PoS firm Ezetap; online marketplace for talent discovery and recruitment HackerEarth; online marketplace for asset sellers and buyers SmartOwner; and local web marketing solutions startup Synup.

Kidswear e-tailer Unamia.com, another investee of AngelPrime, had shut down its operations a couple of years ago due to the increasing customer acquisition cost and the dominance of heavily-funded e-com players across multiple categories.

AngelPrime's Limited Partners (LPs) include Mayfield, Chamath Palihapitiya's Social+Capital Partnership, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

AngelPrime, which has been focusing on the technology services space, is now looking to broaden its focus to hardware and Internet of Things (IoT) vertical, and is already in talks with a company for a possible investment.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)