Early-stage venture capital fund YourNest Angel Fund says that it has made a first close today, raising the initial corpus from a set of 40 individual investors including angel investors and first-generation entrepreneurs. The firm, however, declined to disclose the amount raised.
YourNest Angel Fund – set up by Sunil K Goyal, along with Sanjay Pande – is looking to raise Rs 100 crore in the next 6-9 months, according to a top official. Former Bharti TeleTech CEO Sunil Goyal (currently the CEO and fund manager at YourNest Angel Fund) told VCCircle that for the first close, the fund had approached angel investors, entrepreneurs and professionals whom the fund managers knew. The fund would now approach institutions and the broader high net worth individuals’ (HNIs) market with this validation.
YourNest Angel Fund has also set up an advisory board which includes Badri Agarwal (president of Bharti Foundation), Prof MM Pant (former pro-vice-chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University and faculty member of IIT Kanpur), Alok Mittal (managing director of Canaan Parters) and R Satya Narayanan (a first-generation entrepreneur who has founded ).
YourNest Angel is registered with SEBI as a Rs 60 crore fund, with a green-shoe option to raise another Rs 40 crore. The fund will invest at post-incubation stage and plans to build a portfolio of 15-18 Indian companies by investing up to Rs.5 crore into each during the initial round of funding. While the fund is sector agnostic, it will back technology-enabled startups across various segments.
“First-generation entrepreneurs are nurturing high quality ideas. Their confidence demonstrates ‘small is the next big thing’ and that’s right for us to invest in. YourNest supports such breakthrough ideas coming from an entrepreneurial team who can surprise us with its execution skills and path-breaking use of technology,†said Goyal.
“YourNest is here to support the early-stage entrepreneurs while helping them define their businesses, re-model business plans, hire startup teams, manage the tough times of daily ups & downs and learn how to catch big fishes. In that way, it offers more beyond the traditional angel funding,†added Sanjay Pande, director & fund manager.
“To sustain a growth rate above 8 per cent in India requires multiple angel investors and early-stage venture funds. A platform like YourNest paves the way for angel investor to hold a portfolio of startups and supplement angel networks in promoting entrepreneurship,†said Alok Mittal.