Yatra Angel Network Launches Maiden Fund Worth INR 90 Cr To Invest In Early-Stage Startups

Early-stage investment company Yatra Angel Network (YAN) on Wednesday (November 23) announced the first close of its maiden fund worth INR 90 Cr. The firm is looking to use the fund to invest in 8 to 10 fintech startups annually across pre-seed, seed, and pre-series A rounds.

Yatra Angel Network had received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to launch the early-stage fintech-focused Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) in July this year.

General Partner of Yatra Angel Network, Abhishant Pant, said, “We aim to catalyse the journey of fintech startups by bringing subject matter expertise and network access to allow startups to grow to their full capabilities.”

Yatra Angel Network’s limited partners (LPs) include experienced banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) professionals and senior fintech startup founders. A few of its LPs include the likes of Madhusudanan R, the cofounder and CEO of M2P Fintech; Naveen Kukreja, the cofounder and CEO of Paisabazaar; Omkar Shirhatti, the cofounder and CEO of Karza Technologies; and Prachi Dharani, the cofounder and CEO of PayGlocal.

Highlighting the role that the LPs have played, Pankaj Singh, a partner of Yatra Angel Network, said, “We work along the entire fintech value chain, and India holds great potential in fintech as the country remains underpenetrated in the distribution and inclusion of financial services.”

Yatra Angel Network’s LPs use, deploy, and track their investments via Connexdoor, which is the company’s front-end platform.

ConnexDoor is a fintech-focused investment platform that enables accredited angel investors from the BFSI ecosystem to get access to curated fintech deals. 

“We intend to become an alternate investment-focused wealth platform, giving investors a 360-degree view of varied asset classes,” said Sagrika Shah, the cofounder at Connexdoor.

Mumbai-headquartered Yatra Angel Network aims to foster entrepreneurship, especially in the fintech domain, including payments, lending, insurance, wealth, and inclusion. The firm had previously invested in startups such as OneCard, M2P Fintech, Tartan, Data Sutram, ShopSe, and PayGlocal Technologies via Fintech Yatra. 

Indian startups recorded an 82% year-on-year (YoY) decline in quarterly investments and a 90% fall in the mega deals in Q3 2022 as funding winter continues in the startup ecosystem, as per an Inc42 report. However, early-stage funding, particularly seed-stage funding, has witnessed growth in certain aspects. The seed-stage funding amount increased 21% YoY to INR 402 Mn in Q3.

Last month, Venture Capital firm SphitiCap announced the launch of its maiden venture fund for early-stage startups with a corpus of $500 Mn.

In August this year, SPVH Group’s VC arm Weave Capital launched a multi-stage VC fund of $75 Mn to lead investments in startups’ seed rounds till Series B rounds.

In June, Fundamental VC, with a target corpus of $130 Mn, launched its first fund to invest in early-stage startups.