IAN Launches Maiden Fund With $54.5 Mn Corpus; Plans To Invest In 160 Companies Over 4 Years

With an aim to foster entrepreneurship in the country, SEBI-registered, early-stage venture fund, Indian Angel Network has launched its first fund with a corpus of $54.5 Mn.

The fund marked its first close with around $27 Mn in its kitty. The fund counts industry stalwarts like Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder and ex-CEO, Infosys; Sunil Munjal, Joint Managing Director, HERO Corp; and Dr. Devi Shetty, founder and Chairman, Narayan Hrudalaya as part of its advisory committee.

IAN will deploy the maiden fund to invest in early-stage startups and to make follow-on investments via its angel network.

The fund is sector-agnostic and will specifically focus on areas including SaaS, marketplaces, fintech, big data, artificial intelligence, and hardware The firm will also use the fund to co-invest with other venture capital firms in their domain areas.

The fund will facilitate investments in all of IAN’s portfolio deals. The investment committee will comprise Saurabh Srivastava, co-founder and former Chairman, Nasscom and co-founder IAN; Padmaja Ruparel, co-founder and president, IAN; Ajai Chowdhry, co-founder, HCL, Raman Roy, Chairman, Nasscom, founder QUATTRO, and co founder, IAN. It will also have on board Harish Mehta, founder, Onward Group and co-founder, NASSCOM; Alok Mittal: former MD, Canaan and co-founder, IAN; Rakesh Malhotra, founder, Luminous; and Rakesh Rewari, former DMD, SIDBI, Govt of India.

Commenting on the new development, Saurabh Srivastava, Chairman and co-founder, IAN said, “IAN has revolutionised this space with its own unique model spanning seven locations in India and overseas and a global membership comprising 450 of the who’s who of marquee entrepreneurs/CEOs. The logical next step is to create the country’s largest horizontal platform in India for early-stage investments. With this fund IAN is upping the game, supporting entrepreneurs from $77K to $4 Mn (INR 50 lakhs to INR 30 Cr), co-investing with other VCs.”

As per an official statement, IAN’s investor body, with its newly launched fund, would collectively invest around $233 Mn (INR 1,500 Cr) in about 160 companies over the next 4 years. The average ticket size of the fund would range between $77K to $4 Mn. 

The angel network was launched in 2006 and usually aims at investing up to $1 Mn, with an average of about $400-600K and exiting in three-five year period through a strategic sale. Its portfolio includes companies such as Square Plums Technologies, FindMyStay, Protinus Fashion Networking Pvt. Ltd, Little Black Book, One Way Cab, Wiwigo, Roast Media Pvt. Ltd. and more. According to an official statement, IAN has made a collective investment of $32 Mn in around 60 deals over the last three financial years, from 2014-2017.

In August 2016, reports surfaced that IAN was planning to raise an early stage fund of $22 Mn (INR 150 Cr). In the same month, Ratan Tata also announced the setting up of a venture capital fund of $100 -$150 Mn in collaboration with the University of California.

As per a report from Innoven Capital, angel investment in India in FY 2016 stood at $17 Mn (INR 113.6 Cr) across 69 deals. This was a rise of about 62% in deal value and 47% in deal volume from the previous financial year. In FY15, about $10.4 Mn (INR 70 Cr) was angel invested across 47 deals.

Other prominent angel networks in India are Mumbai Angels, Hyderabad Angels, Chennai Angels, LetsVenture, Ah! Ventures and Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs.