Our focus has always been to go wherever the startups and investors are - and the tags of a tier-1 or tier-2 city just did not matter to us. In fact, we have actively engaged with cities such as Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Kochi and Pune to ensure that we are always working to discover good quality startups and investors. Now, after over three years, LetsVenture has expanded to Delhi-NCR and we are looking to actively tap into the entrepreneurial activity in the region.

#PanIndia #LVDelhi

Delhi, 14 February, 2017: LetsVenture, since its inception has been based in Bangalore, although we have been actively travelling and engaging with the startup ecosystem across the country. Our focus has always been to go wherever the startups and investors are - and the tags of a tier-1 or tier-2 city just did not matter to us. In fact, we have actively engaged with cities such as Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Kochi and Pune to ensure that we are always working to discover good quality startups and investors. Now, after over three years, LetsVenture has expanded to Delhi-NCR and we are looking to actively tap into the entrepreneurial activity in the region.

It’s strategic.

“LetsVenture is a global platform with strong curation, personalization and Tech at play. Having a virtual platform allows us to overcome geographical barriers. We have 400 angel investors in NCR registered on LetsVenture and 55% of them have made at least one investment through the platform. Given the tremendous entrepreneurial activity in NCR, we felt this was a great time to grow local presence. We have put a strong, experienced team in place that will help us further grow our presence in the NCR region.”, said Shanti Mohan, Founder & CEO, LetsVenture."NCR has emerged as the top investment destination for angel investors, overtaking Bangalore in the number of seed investments. We already engage with a large number of investors and startups in NCR. Almost 30% of our portfolio companies are based in Delhi-NCR region. Having local presence will help us build and cultivate stronger relationships with all stakeholders. We are very excited about the possibilities.", said Charu Sharma, Director Delhi-NCR, LetsVenture.

Bengaluru is revered as India’s ultimate startup destination and it is, without doubt. But when deal data from the past 3 years is considered, NCR startups have actually caught up with or overtaken Bangalore in terms of both number and value of deals.

$ of deals by city

2015 saw Bengaluru pulling in majority of investments, $860 million more to be exact. By 2016 this changed drastically with a $0.02 Bn difference between both cities. Delhi caught up, almost.

# of deals by city

We saw similar trends with number of deals by city except in 2016. Delhi closed 67 more deals than Bengaluru.

The deal data on LetsVenture platform mirrors the behaviour in the ecosystem. However, one key difference is that NCR has been leading Bangalore for all 3 years. Here is some data to show the same:

No. of Startups from NCR on the Platform = 2,921
No. of Startups from Bengaluru on the Platform = 2,923
No. of Angels from NCR on the Platform = 394
No. of Angels from Bengaluru on the Platform = 361

$ of deals by city on LetsVenture

# of deals by city on LetsVenture

The graphs clearly highlight Delhi as the top performer; something we definitely want to nurture. In 2014 and 2015 Delhi had a clear lead. In 2016 we see investments from Bengaluru catching up, a likely result of increased adoption of our platform in the ecosystem. However, investments from Delhi maintain steady growth and it important for us to work with this momentum.

Being the third largest and fastest growing start-up ecosystem in the world, India is poised to take over. The angel community will play a crucial role in promoting this growth and enabling entrepreneurs across Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. As a platform committed to enabling the ecosystem we see Delhi’s Angel ecosystem as a key player in driving this growth.

A big Hi from our Delhi Team

Charu Sharma is the Delhi-NCR Director with LetsVenture, where she is responsible for growing LetsVenture’s presence in the region. She is a member of the core team at LetsVenture and manages engagement with key stakeholders in Delhi-NCR. Her overall experience of 13 years spans across various roles. Prior to LetsVenture, Charu managed the Citrix Startup Accelerator in India. 5 startups graduated from the batch, of which 2 startups raised their angel rounds and 1 startup was selected in the US-based Alchemist accelerator. Charu previously worked with Dell and Evalueserve in strategic roles. She started her career at Hewlett-Packard and is active on Twitter @charu_tweet

Vivek Khare, Lead for the LetsVenture Delhi chapter, will be driving investor engagement and acquisition across North India. An industry veteran, Vivek , is no stranger to the startup ecosystem and has a stellar track record from both the startup and investor perspective. He is mentor and investor in companies like Zomato, Happily Unmarried and Jaypore. In his most recent role, Vivek was Executive Vice President at Infoedge.

If you’re an Angel Investor or startup from the NCR region, reach out to us at investors@letsventure.com. We’d love to get a conversation started and work with you. Stay tuned for updates :)