(2 min read) A quick summary of the LetsIgnite Roadshow in Mumbai. The event was attended by Sanjay Mehta, Ajeet Khurana, Farooq Oomerbhoy and Nirav Chokski. There were 52 other investors and 4 startups at the event.
“How many of you are first time angels?”
“How many of you have invested in more than 5 startups?"
Sanjay began by doing a quick poll of Angel investors who had never invested, invested in less than 5 companies and investors with more than 5 under their belt. As the hands went up, we saw that there were a large number of first time and new investors in the crowd; a great example of a trend we’ve seen on our platform as more angel’s surface in the Indian Ecosystem. The other marquee investors present in the room included Ajeet Khurana, Farooq Oomerbhoy and, Nirav Choksi. There were 52 other investors and 4 startups at the event.
Moving on Sanjay covered topics around angel investment. He stressed on the importance of evaluating a startup and how as an entrepreneur-turned-investor he learnt to better understand a startup of interest and what key metrics to measure before investing. He shared his experiences from investing in 60+ companies and addressed the transition from being an Indian angel from the 90’s.
The discussion then focused on investment criteria and explained the importance of metrics such as geographical boundaries, development stage of the startup and only targeting business sectors of interest. Ajeet Khurana added insights on Angel/founder relations and how it evolves as the startup grows. He concluded saying that investing is a business activity and, “Do not think of your investing as an asset class.” The whole discussion was broadcasted on FB live, you can watch it here.
Up next, founders from Trell, The Great Next and Stitch Wood present their startups in a quick pitch session. It was a lively Q&A round with questions from investors targeting market size, business model and product attributes. What stood out pretty clearly was that financial projections and market opportunity were two factors Mumbai investors are very keen on knowing. Among the startups that pitched one received an investor commit and one acquired 2 customers post-event.
The roadshow came to a end with an hour long networking session over samosas and sandwiches. Our next stop is at IIT Kanpur: keep an eye on our twitter account as we’ll be broadcasting the session live on Twitter.
For questions or feedback, you can email me Amogh.lux@letsventure.com.
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