Indore : An IIM fellow and a Chartered Accountant from the city launched the state’s first group of angel investors aiming to support Start-Ups named ‘Swan Angel Network’ here on Friday.
Surprisingly, the group received over 40 proposals from local entrepreneurs.
Announcing the launch of the group, Abhishek Sanghvi and BP Inani said: “In last 5 years start-ups have taken India by storm, delivering unimaginable value to entrepreneurs and investors. Earlier, this new-economy phenomenon has largely been restricted to metros like Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. Many budding entrepreneurs from smaller cities like Indore had to go to metros to get funding and mentoring. Similarly, most business houses in Indore had no exposure to StartUps despite having a lot of capital.”
Angel Investors are affluent individuals or business families who invest in new start-up in lieu of equity shares. This initial investment provides fuel to a new venture to reach sufficient growth so as to attract Venture Capital funds, which then make subsequent investments in the start-up.
In addition to providing funds, these Angels are also provided mentoring and networking to start-ups. This is even more important then funding, as start-ups often have young, smart founders but lack business experience.
Swan Finance Partners, which is a leading financial advisory firm, has been helping many large companies in equity deals for many years.
Talking about the composition of Angel Investors, Sanghvi and Inani said that the network has about 30 investors with a capital of Rs 10 to 15 crore to invest in good promising start-ups. SAN has already received 40 plus proposals which we are in various stages of evaluation.
They said that our initiative like Swan Angel Network would be able to bring PM Narendra Modi’s dream of Start-up India Stand-up India to its logical conclusion for Indore entrepreneurs. Start-ups can submit their proposals to Swan on their website swanfinance.co.in
It may be recalled that Inani is a Chartered Accountant who shifted from Mumbai in 90s, and has spent 20+ years providing financial advice to top business houses in India. Abhishek Sanghvi is an MBA from IIM Bangalore who shifted to Indore from New York, and has spent 15+ years in strategy consulting for Fortune 100 companies across the world
