Sanjay Mehta, an entrepreneur-turned-angel investor, has floated a venture capital firm to invest in early-stage startups in India across sectors, he said in a blogpost.
Mehta has expanded his horizons by setting up a new VC firm 100X.VC. The firm is sponsored by Mehta Ventures, the Family Office Investment arm of Sanjay Mehta.
The firm, which is registered as a Category 1 Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) with the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI), has received regulatory nod to begin operations. However, it did not disclose the target corpus but said that it seeks to invest Rs 25 lakh to 1 crore across 100 startups within a year.
The Category I funds comprise social venture funds, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) funds, infrastructure funds, VC funds and angel funds.
In his blogpost, Mehta said, the firm 100X.VC uses India Simple Agreement for Future Equity (iSAFE), which is an alternative to a convertible security note, to invest in startups. It is expected to ease the process of investing in startups by doing away with tedious documentation processes.
100X.VC is a sector agnostic and will focus on startups having disruptive business models, high growth and scale, according to the blogpost. The firm aims to be the first institutional investor in a portfolio company, it added.
Other team members of 100X.VC are Shashank Randev (founder), Yagnesh Sanghrajka (CFO), Ninad Karpe (partner) and Vatsal Kanakiya (CTO).
Mehta has invested in more than 130 startups since 2011. The list includes OYO Rooms, Zippr Smart Address, AllizHealth, Prettysecrets.com, and Poncho (Box8.in).
The launch of 100X.VC comes at a time when the number of deals in the startups segment has fallen from the highs since 2015. Though investors still feel that 2015 was a great year for startups launch, however, they have now become more selective in their investments.
According to VCCEdge, the research arm of Mosaic Digital, the number of startups that received angel and venture capital investments during the April-June period ticked up to 205 from 178 deals in the previous quarter.
Though the latest development gives the startup ecosystem a reason to be cheerful, but the previous data points a trend where highs are often followed by lows and vice-versa.