Listen: IAN Fund’s Padmaja Ruparel on virtual dealmaking and backing the right founders during the Covid-19 crisis

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has precipitated yet another funding winter in India’s startup ecosystem. Not surprisingly, most early and later stage private capital investors active in this market have started to slow down on writing out cheques for new deals as they assess the medium to long term impact of the rapidly deteriorating environment in the country and elsewhere.

In the first episode of our special podcast series, #CapitalCall, TechCircle spoke to Padmaja Ruparel co-founder of Indian Angel Network (IAN) and founding partner of IAN Fund, on how India’s largest angel network is coping with crisis, managing risk in its existing portfolio of investments and moving the complex dealmaking process at IAN and IAN Fund online.

IAN Fund closed its maiden seed and early stage fund at about $53 million (Rs 375 crore) in November last year. Limited partners or investors in the fund include SIDBI’s Fund of Funds for startups, IIFL, Wadhwani Foundation, Gray Matters Capital, as well as individuals such as Infosys founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, former Google India chief Rajan Anandan, and Mphasis founder Jerry Rao.