The best time to build and invest in India is now

Shiva Singh Sangwan
3 min readDec 11, 2020

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Source: News articles

A typical way a tech hub develops is this — founders and early employees get rich in an exit and start investing in their friends and co-workers.

Founders and early employees are some of the most helpful startup advisors. They help new companies with startup experience and technical expertise.

About 10 Indian internet companies have announced to go public in the next 1–3 years. Some of these companies are Flipkart, InMobi, Policybazaar, and Zomato to name a few.

In addition to this, India currently has 34 unicorns and is on the path to have 100 unicorns by 2025.

Source: News articles

The founders and early employees at these companies either already have some liquidity or will soon have some liquidity and will start investing in their friends and co-workers.

In the coming years, we will see these founders and early employees taking one or more of the following directions:

  • Start a startup
  • Join a startup
  • Become a part-time angel investor
  • Become a full-time investor

The bottom line is that the quality of ideas, the quality of the team executing those ideas, and the quality of the investors funding those ideas would be much more superior to what we have seen up till now.

India would become one of the most competitive venture capital markets globally.

If you are a founder or an early employee at these late-stage tech companies and have some liquidity to invest in friends and co-workers.

Leading syndicates on AngelList India can be a good starting point for you.

Here’s how you can leverage AngelList India

  • AngelList India handles the back office, accounting, and legal work of your investments for you so you can focus on what matters the most to you — which is building your own company
  • AngelList India empowers you to write larger cheques so you can win competitive deals and also help the founders close the round faster
  • AngelList India helps you to invite friends, co-workers, and strategic investors to invest alongside you

There are three types of syndicate leads on AngelList India

Founders and Operators:

Founders and operators who are running large tech companies, have access to a great deal flow, have some capital to invest, and want to see friends and co-workers succeed.

  • Don’t have enough time to handle the back office, accounting, and legal work of the investments
  • Want to write a larger cheque
  • Want to exercise pro-ratas

Hear from Abhishek Nag (Director of Business Development, Netflix India & Asia) how writing larger cheques through syndicates on AngelList India has positioned him to win deals when it comes to pitching strong founding teams. Podcast link (16:00–18:05)

Aspiring Fund Managers:

Aspiring fund managers who are looking to raise a fund but don’t have a track record yet.

  • Ex founders or operators who have a great deal flow but don’t have enough capital to build a track record
  • Have worked in the venture before and are now going out on their own to start a fund

Hear from Archana Priyadarshini how she was able to build a portfolio of 15 companies within 10 months and deployed over INR 15cr across these 15 companies by leading syndicates on AngelList India, and in the process, she has also raised her first fund, PointOne Capital. Podcast link (10.45–12.40)

Fund Managers:

Fund managers who run a micro-fund.

  • Want to write a larger cheque
  • Want to exercise pro-ratas
  • Want to invite strategic investors to invest alongside them

Hear from Nitin Sharma of FirstPrinciples how he is able to bring strategic investors to invest alongside him through the syndicate, which wasn’t possible before. Podcast link (14.10–15:55)

The best time to build and invest in India is now. If you fall in any of the categories discussed above, AngelList India would love to hear from you.

Disclaimer

Any views or opinions represented in this post are personal and belong solely to the post writer and do not represent those of people, institutions, or organizations that the writer may or may not be associated within the professional or personal capacity.

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Shiva Singh Sangwan

Tennis Athlete || Entrepreneurship || Technology || Public Policy