TiE finds angels for start-ups

Priya Padmanabhan

BANGALORE: The stumbling block for many entrepreneurs in India is the lack of access to early stage/angel funding. For Venture capitalists, it is a risky proposition to commit millions of dollars in a start-up that is yet to prove its mettle.

To solve this issue for both the parties, industry body The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), has rolled out an initiative called the Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program or EAP.

In this unique model, TiE matches investors with the start-ups. A few well-known investors such as Kumar Malvalli, KB Chandrasekhar, Ashok Narasimhan and Sridhar Mitta have come forward to commit a seed fund of $25,000 (Rs 10 lakh) each to fuel start-ups.

“In India, we have no angel investors. Usually it takes a good team, business plan and proof of concept to get funding. The investors take care of the chosen companies for around nine to twelve months until they receive Series A funding,” said Dr Sridhar Mitta, former president of TiE Bangalore chapter.

Around a hundred people applied for the EAP program in February and a panel of TiE charter members selected four promising start-ups, including PicSquare, Salesguru, RedBus and Experience Commerce.

Besides investment, TiE is also helping these companies find space at incubators such as NS Raghavan Center for Entrepreneural Learning, IISc and STPI. Companies can also avail support from a law firm that would help in processing patents and also an executive search firm. A few TiE members would also serve as mentors for the start-ups.

Mitta hopes to make this initiative a continuous one and hopes to rope in at least one woman-led start-up into this program. “The investors appreciate this program since it allows them to keep track of the entrepreneur’s progress.”

While this program is now limited to TiE Bangalore, plans are afoot to roll this out globally. Nishant Malhotra, who looks after the TiE-EAP program said that the industry body is open to more entrepreneurs.

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