Pune Investment:How To Start Investing In The Indian Startup Story

How To Start Investing In The Indian Startup Story

If this is your aim, you probably want to be an active catalyst in the growth of companies that you bet on. This is a huge undertaking, and it’s wiser to do so as a part of a group when you are starting off, instead of handing out cheques alone.Pune Investment

One way to do this would be through a cohort of Super Angels. You will be looking at writing cheques in  –  deals over roughly one to two years, amounting to a corpus of over crores. These are fast-moving deals, and sometimes rounds get closed in a matter of hours, if not days.

The hiccup? Oftentimes, these super angel groups may act like a clique. It can be hard to get an introduction unless you are seen as someone who is a startup operator / successful founder and routed through an existing close associate. These cohorts may be loosely formed, but retain a high level of exclusivity.

A second way to get involved is to become a part of an angel syndicate. Typically, this would require setting aside at least lakhs that you can shell out for small-ticket cheques (roughly lakhs)in a minimum of  –  startupsKanpur Stock. You cannot invest in  –  startups and expect magic. Before we double click, it’s important to note that these are high risk investments – so it should be money you are willing to write off.

For angel investing, one can consider any of the syndicate platforms like Angel list, Indian Angel Network, LetsVenture, Anicut Capital or local groups like Chennai Angels etc. A syndicate is a great vehicle if you want to learn about everything related to investing – be it evaluating or negotiating valuations. It is flexible enough to allow you to pick selectively from a variety of deals.

If you decide to go with a syndicate, make sure you join and wait for six months before committing to any investments. After months of observing and learning how to evaluate, it is a good idea to start with a few passive investments – where you invest, watch and learn.

How do you pick when you are just starting out? One way to pick is by carefully observing and picking leads/​angels who have a good track record of helping and building good relationships with founders. Leads have an intuition that comes from years of experience – so they have a good hang of picking the right founders to back and just following their patterns could yield good results.

Alternatively, one could also follow microfunds that run syndicates – like Better Capital, Whiteboard, Titan, PointOne, x entrepreneur etc. These micro funds do a good job looking out for opportunities and hence you get a filtered set to evaluate.Indore Stock

Another strategy could be to invest in sectors that are in your area of expertise or are in close proximity in terms of geography – so you can actually be more involved/​meet with the founders in person etc.

After you make a few investments, you can progress to ​lead’ an investment – which means you pick the investment, take a board seat, and are responsible for the exit of other investors- the learning here can be enriching.

How can an individual investor help a startup? Various ways – opening doors to potential clients, helping with interviewing senior talent, referring talent, helping with finance which becomes crucial at a later stage, ensuring the team is building tech that is scalable, helping with organizational designs/​culture, , helping with negotiating with early stage VCs, and so on. Early stage founders need a lot of help and angels can play a pivotal role in this phase.

The biggest challenge with syndicates is the number of options in such a setup is overwhelmingly large, and there is a risk of making the wrong choice if you don’t pick the right leads/​angels/​micro VCs/​sectors.Varanasi Wealth Management

Kanpur Investment

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