Indian Angel Network (IAN) has launched a ‘Small Ticket Funding’ programme to help startups meet their immediate funding requirements. As part of the programme, IAN will offer a fixed investment of Rs 25 lakh ($39,888) at a fixed valuation of Rs 2.5 crore ($398,883) post investment.
While the startup environment is picking up steam in India, the investment community has been slow in catching up, especially at the seed stage. Although deal sizes have gone up, the number of deals is still small compared with other countries. According to IAN, the initiative will enable young entrepreneurs and early-stage ventures raise quick funding, and they will get to interact with entrepreneurs who are a part of IAN.
“Small Ticket Funding is an opportunity for young entrepreneurs to kick-start their ideas. If the plan is shortlisted, the venture could get funding in less than two weeks,†said Padmaja Ruparel, president, IAN.
Headquartered in Delhi, IAN is an angel investor network with over 300 investors across 10 countries. IAN has already invested in startups in countries like the US, the UK, Canada, France, China (Hong Kong), Singapore and Sri Lanka, besides India. It has a portfolio of more than 105 companies across multiple sectors like IT, mobile, healthcare and education, gaming, hospitality, semiconductor and social media.
On an average, IAN invests $400,000-$600,000 in companies, while the investments can go up to $1 million. It looks to exit over a three-five-year period through a strategic sale.
Recent investments
Earlier this month, Gurgaon-based Process Nine Technologies Pvt Ltd, which offers online translation and transliteration from English to Indic via a cloud-based Application Programme Interface (API), raised an undisclosed amount in funding led by IAN.
Alok Sharma, CEO of Nature Eco Ventures and ex-CEO of Apple India, was among the lead investors in the round, which also saw participation from IAN investors Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, Saurabh Srivastava and Ajai Chowdhry. As part of the investment, Sharma has joined the board of the company.
Last month, Retailworx Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates food and vegetable retailing startup FreshWorld, raised an undisclosed amount from IAN and Kris Gopalakrishnan. The investment was led by IAN investor Nagaraja Prakasam who co-invested with Gopalakrishnan. As a part of the deal, Prakasam joined the board of FreshWorld.
Techcircle.in had also exclusively reported that Intelliber Inc., a New York-headquartered startup, which has an office in Jamshedpur, India, is in talks with IAN and other investors to raise $2 million (Rs 12.5 crore) in its Series A round of funding.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
