MeitY Partners LetsVenture To Invest In Early-Stage Startups Under SAMRIDH Scheme

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and deal syndication platform LetsVenture have joined hands to invest in early-stage startups. 

LetsVenture Foundation will partner with MeitY Startup Hub under the government’s SAMRIDH startup accelerator programme to invest up to $100K in startups. The foundation will invest in 8 startups in the first phase.

The partnership will largely focus on investing in startups from multiple domains such as deeptech, gamingtech, fintech, and software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

The announcement was made by LetsVenture on the sidelines of its flagship conference, LetsIgnite. It will launch a call for applications at the event itself, according to the syndication firm.

“Funding is a critical component for startups to scale, and having a program whereby matching funding is provided by investors can create a significant impact on the success of the startups. The expertise of LetsVenture and its deep network of investors will provide the necessary support for these startup founders to access capital and create impactful solutions,” MeitY Startup Hub CEO Jitendra Vijay said.

The selected startups will work with LetsVenture to weed out operational inefficiencies faced by founders. The selectees will also be onboarded to the syndication firm’s SaaS-based offering called Scalix that will help the startups with assistance in terms of hiring, legal, banking, technology, among issues. 

In addition, LetsVenture will also help the startups in raising their next round of funding and enable access to other founders and investors. 

“India is well poised to be at the global epicentre for startups and technology innovation. To power this change, various players need to come together to collaborate, support and accelerate this growth engine and we believe that our partnership with the MeitY startup hub is in the right direction,” LetsVenture CEO and cofounder Shanti Mohan said.

Launched in August last year, SAMRIDH (Startup Accelerators of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development and Growth) scheme is the flagship programme of the Centre that aims to provide support and funding to early-stage startups. 

As a part of the initiative, the government will match the investment by the accelerator to spur the early-stage startup ecosystem in the country.

The programme operates under the aegis of MeitY Startup Hub (MSH). As many as 3,161 startups and 473 incubators are currently registered with the MSH. 

Founded in 2013 by Shanti Mohan and Sanjay Jha, LetsVenture is a startup investment marketplace that enables investors to discover and invest in startups via its proprietary tech platform. Since its inception, companies listed on LetsVenture have raised $120 Mn across more than 560 rounds. LetsVenture claims to have 29 syndicates and more than 13,000 angel investors on its platform. 

LetsVenture is backed by marquee names such as Accel, Chiratae Ventures, Ratan Tata, Mohandas Pai, among others.

According to an Inc42 analysis, Indian startups raised $19.7 Bn in funding in the first seven months of 2022, down 8% compared to the same period last year when startups raised $21.26 Bn in funding.

Amidst the ‘funding winter’, the only positive prospect appears to be seed-stage funding. Inc42 found that seed funding saw the highest growth in terms of deals and funding, with funding breaching the $1 Bn mark ($1.35 Bn to be precise) in the first half of 2022.

Last month, Mohan launched a micro venture capital (VC) fund Propell that will invest INR 50 Cr in 30 early-stage tech startups. Earlier this month, Achieving Women Equity (AWE) Funds also launched an INR 350 Cr women-focussed fund to back early and growth startups in the country. 

Besides, as many as 15 Indian early-stage startups made it to the summer edition of Y-Combinator’s biannual cohort for 2022.