Mumbai Angel Network plans to invest in 60 early-stage startups this year

• Mumbai Angel Network aims to invest in over 500 startups in the upcoming three-five years.
• The company gets 8,000-10,000 investment pitches annually, of which 20-30 are finalised.
• It has a network of 600 angel investors, of which 100 have joined last year.

Mumbai Angel Network is planning to pump up its investments in the Indian startup ecosystem this fiscal year, by closing 50 to 60 early-stage deals by March 31,2022. This target is almost three times higher than the 20 deals the angel network has been making annually between financial year 2017-2020. It cracked 35 deals in FY2021.

The angel network aims to invest in over 500 startups in the upcoming three-five years. It aims to deploy close to ₹150 crore to ₹200 crore in the next couple of years, representing a four-fold increase compared to ₹50 crore capital it deploys annually at present.

Mumbai Angel Network’s cofounder and chief executive (CEO) Nandini Mansinghka, in an interview with Business Insider, said that they have been noticing a lot of action across a spectrum of industries, therefore they don’t really have any specific area of focus at the moment. “As an Angel Network, we don’t have any investment thesis, we focus on startups that are interesting,” she added.

“As a platform we are sector agnostic and have invested in a wide variety of investments from technology, consumer, life sciences, defence technology, space technology, electric vehicles, and we believe that these are highly promising sectors that will grow rapidly in the near future,” — Mumbai Angel Network’s cofounder and chief executive Nandini Mansinghka.

The network gets 8000-10,000 investment pitches annually and close to 1,000 on a monthly basis. Mansinghka explained that Mumbai Angels has a 12-member investment team, who go through each and every pitch and shortlist close to 20-25 deals on a monthly basis and over 120 deals annually.

It also uses an internal algorithm to screen which companies have a chance of giving higher return. This is judged based on the performance of previous portfolio companies.

The company would then share these details with the angel investors associated with Mumbai Angel Network, who then decide on which companies to invest in. Mumbai Angels manage these investments end-to-end, from completing all due diligence to figuring out the right exit strategy. However, the decision to invest in companies relies solely on angel investors themselves.

“Apart from capital, we look for investors who are open to helping entrepreneurs with connections in the industry, help with strategy, marketing, tech etc. We are trying to leverage the collective wisdom of the group hence our members consist of business owners, CXO [chief executives] folks, successful founders, family offices, VC funds etc,” Mansinghka added.

Mumbai Angel Network is a network of 600 angel investors based out of 40+ cities in and outside India. It has added 100 new members in the last one year.

The angel network was founded by Sasha Mirchandani and Prashant Choksey in 2006. Nandini Mansinghka, a former investment banker with JP Morgan, took on the role of co-founder and CEO in 2018. Mumbai Angel Network has made investments in close to 160 startups to date and exited over 70 startups to date.

Around 36 of its portfolio saw exits and next round investments in the last fiscal year. Mumbai Angel Network received 51-fold return from e-commerce platform Purplle and 8.9 times return from its investment in cloud telephony platform Exotel.

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