Whos the best seed money in India?

As an active Series A/B investor, most companies I like have been supported by great angel investors and
seed funds. They help founders quit their day jobs, build a team and get to their first revenue. Having that
right first investor back you is life changingthey

can set the tone for many investments to come and
provide you with the credibility and advice you desperately need.

Needless to say, not all early investors are the same.

Below are a group of people doing great work. I have categorized them into three different
groupsangel

networks, fundraising platforms and seed funds. Over time, group two will eat
group one ( la Angel List). Each group behaves very differently in how they source and make
decisions. If I missed you, ping me (@sandhya) and Ill look you up.
Who have I not included? Accelerators. Not that they arent relevant, just that there are very
few awesome ones and they dont give you much cash. Here they are: Pankaj Jain
at 500Startups, Abhishek Gupta at TLabs, Vijay Anand at theStartupCenter and Rajesh Sawhney
at GSF. There are new accelerators popping up everyday like these guys. I will add the ones I
have worked with and liked to in this list over time.
Angel Networks
While IAN and Mumbai Angels are the largest networks, how a group is run and who is in it are
far more important than how many angels you can get access to. Small exclusive groups where
investors themselves are easy to reach and give you quick feedback will help you make better
decisions as a founder:

Indian Angel Network (born 2006) - Padmaja Ruparel runs IAN and knows just about
every angel investor in India. Dont just submit a form on their website. Get a warm
introduction to one of their 290 members and your pitch is more likely to be read and
shared and invested in. Like this. The entrepreneurs who have worked with them have
great things to say about Sanjay Jha and Sharad Sharma.

Powai Lake Ventures (born 2011) Largely IITB alumni crew of awesome people. You
will love their application process. Just send them a short email. No forms, no business
plans. Zishaan really knows what questions to ask when he is not busy running Toppr.

Mumbai Angels (born 2006) While they have old hits like inMobi and Myntra in their
kitty, I see fewer exciting deals led by them in 2014. Their website definitely needs a
revamp. They have some great new angel investors leading deals though like Phani.

I3N (born 2009) Aditi, who runs Intellecaps Impact Investing Network works very
hard to get founders funded. Fabulous coach for the first time CEO. If your startup has
high socio-economic relevance, put her on your fundraising list for angel $$.

Other City-based Angel networks are still less active with a handful of investors truly
active in each of these groups: Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata(+ Seeders.in) and newly
launched Mangalooru Angels led by Mohandas Pai. Dont think they even have a website
up yet but he also invests though Aarin Capital.

Individual Powerhouse angelsCEOs

and entrepreneurs with a great wealth of

experience to help you launch: Rajan Anandan, Ravi Gururaj, Vishal Gondal, Ganesh
Krishnan, Pallav Nadhani, the Bansals its harder to get their attention but if you are
looking for that perfect angel backerthese

are two good places to start searching for
them: Quora-threads, Angellist/India

Fundraising platforms
I am really excited about the potential of Angel List-like platforms in India where startups are
more geographically dispersed and its often harder to get meetings quickly for founders.
Platforms are efficient, help standardize terms and give more power to entrepreneurs. We need
some of that. I already see IAN members rapidly signing up on these sites.

Lets Venture (born 2013) fabulous work by Shanti Mohan. With 23 deals closed, they
are leading the charge of the platforms so far.

Termsheet.io (born 2014) Love their pitch zero friction seed deals (hey, it doesnt
hurt to have the right goals). Claim to fame: the Bansals just invested in Ather through

termsheet.io. Join the other 700 startups now listing there and let me know what your
experience was!

Ah! Ventures (born 2012) They have been around longer seeding investments but
launched their platform in 2012. Nice portfolio of B2C and B2B tech platforms in
learning, gaming, collaboration. They seem to like network effects. And who doesnt
when it works?

Globevestor (born 2014) This team particularly focuses on helping NRIs and HNIs
abroad invest in Indian startups as well and have closed five deals already including
Zoomcar. The good news: no commission

Seed Funds
Everyones doing seed investments at this point so nothing, apparently, is too early for
institutional capital. Accel, SAIF, Kalaari, IDG, Accel, Helion, Sequoia, Matrix, Nexus, Inventus,
Intel, and Qualcomm I begin to think even Tiger Global might make a seed investment in the
right team given the exuberant environment in India. If you have their attention, you are winning
already and dont need this article.
That said, here are the guys whose only job is to lead seed rounds and who will still be making
seed investments when things get tough:

Blume Ventures (born 2011) I like where their portfolio is going and they are just
flush from their Zipdial exit. Easy to reach, just tweet at @arpiit and he will tell you
whats what.

Unitus Seed Fund (born 2012) Awesome guys. They have an impact agenda and are a
great fit for startups in education, health, payments and generally inclusive business
ideas. They have just launched an accelerator program too: Speed2Seed. Best way to
reach them is be introduced by someone they know but you can also try Radha over
Linkedin.

India Quotient (born 2013) Entrepreneurs themselves, fabulously easy to reach. Use
twitter or just email Anand Lunia from their website. As someone who also shares her
email id on linkedin and my website and gets her inbox down to zero every week, I really
respect angel/seed investors who share their contacts. If you still cant pitch something
that gets my attention, you need to work on your pitch.

Orios Venture Partners (born 2014) Started by successful angel investor Rehanyar
Khan, their website features many of his past angel investments like Olacabs.
However, Venu says they are actively looking for seed opportunities. They have already
made 12 investments but only announced Yumist amongst their seed bets.

Kae Capital (born 2011) Sasha is awesome and an old hand at the investing game
having started Mumbai Angels in 2006. Again, super reachableeveryones

email ids
are on their website.

Seedfund (born 2006) They were probably Indias first seed fund and have led some
very successful investments with redBus and Carwale. Not the easiest team to reach
though. Try Bharati Jacob They have slowed down (stopped?) in 2014 so I should check
whether they are raising money again.

Jungle Ventures (born 2012) Jayesh Parekh was an active angel investor way before
he started running Jungle. Their team makes investments across Asia and has some cool
operating experience. Not the easiest to reach for a seed fund and possibly moving to
Series A.

I will keep updating this list with the experiences of other entrepreneurs and my own. In
particular, as the larger VC funds I have referenced continue to stay active in making seed
investments.