The IAN platform – comprising the Indian Angel Network and the IAN Fund – has given its investors an average eleven-time returns multiple on 11 exits made during the year, the group said in a statement.
These exits include ones from companies such as Kwench, local discovery platform Little Black Book, supply chain management company Tagbox, used-car service Spinny and fast-food chain Wow! Momos, the IAN said.
The platform claimed that it delivered a 34% internal rate of return (IRR) to its investors this year. That’s higher than the 20-30% IRR that venture capital investors typically chase in rupee terms in India.
It also said that several startups it had funded – including Coolberg, StyleDotMe and Uniphore – raised funding from prominent VC firms and strategic investors.
The platform – which was founded in 2006 – also says that its angel network and fund invested over Rs 160 crore (around $22.41 million at current exchange rates) in 44 startups across several sectors, including manufacturing, biotechnology, clean-technology, water, agricultural technology and cybersecurity.
The angel network had marked the final close of the IAN Fund in November at Rs 375 crore, surpassing its targeted corpus. VCCircle in April had reported that the IAN Fund had already raised the targeted corpus of Rs 350 crore and that it was looking to make the final close soon. The fund had the window to raise another Rs 100 crore.
The early-stage fund raised most of the money from affluent individuals, family offices, corporate houses and government institutions. Other institutions that committed money to the fund included Hyundai, IIFL, Wadhwani Foundation, the Kerala government and the SIDBI Fund of Funds for Startups.
IAN co-founder Saurabh Srivastava said that startups in the country are building scalable businesses aimed at causing a positive societal impact as well as disrupting global trends in their respective sectors.
IAN Fund founding partner Padmaja Ruparel said that the prospects look even more promising in the coming year as the network continues to promote collaborations between emerging business ventures and prominent VCs.
“We are confident that, with its current growth trajectory, IAN Fund will achieve its objective of enabling the growth of innovative Indian startups with high-quality investment opportunities,” Ruparel said.
The IAN Fund is largely sector-agnostic. But it focuses on healthcare and medical devices, software-as-a-service, marketplaces, fintech, big data, artificial intelligence and hardware segments. It invests between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 50 crore in a startup.
Other investments that the fund has made include air pollution control firm Chakr, waterless solar panel cleaning startup Nocca Robotics, cataloguing startup Flatpebble and data analytics firm Clootrack. Most recently, the IAN Fund and its angel network invested in Zypp, a Gurugram-based e-scooter startup.
