Circle of Angels (CoA) closes its first pool of funds totalling INR 25 crores, aims to invest in 200 start-ups
New Delhi: Circle of Angels (CoA), The Circle.Work backed platform connecting start-ups, mentors and investors, announced its first round of fund-raising totalling INR 25 crores. CoA is an industry-agnostic network of investors comprising senior corporate executives, HNIs, and successful entrepreneurs, driving high-quality deal flow through an online and offline investment platform, to co-invest in and mentor start-ups. The platform has attracted a highly vetted and curated list of over 200+ senior angels: investors, startup founders, and tech pundits from around the globe specializing in fields like fintech, law, finance, SaaS, digital media, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and more. The investment thesis of CoA will be to back startups with disruptive business models, and high growth and scale potential.
CoA has already on boarded 50+ angels, with key names such as Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Group Government Affairs Officer, Tata Sons Private Limited; Raghu C.V., Group General Counsel at Samvardhana, Motherson Group; Vijay Yalamanchili, Founder and CEO, Keka; Safir Anand, renowned IP lawyer and Strategist, Ashok Venkataramani, Founder of Intelligent Insights (former MD, Zee Media Corporation Limited) and Sandeep Budhiraja, Executive Director at BYLD Group. Aiming to be a transparent platform founded on two pillars: mentoring and investing in young, diverse entrepreneurs and companies, CoA wants to build a credible community of curated, trusted angels. It pledges time and money to position new companies for business success, and intends to encourage innovative risk-taking as a self-sustainable endeavour.
Commenting on the occasion, Rajiv Bathla, Chief Operating Officer, The Circle.Work, , said, “Early stage startups are prone to failure despite sound business ideas due to lack of access to funds, but more importantly mentorship and networks. Through CoA, The Circle.Work intends to invite experienced and accomplished business angels to provide valuable advice and create important connections between founders, entrepreneurs and corporations. Our role will be that of a catalyst to help start-ups navigate through the early days in their journey. Initially, we plan to work with about 10-12 company boards, and actively create a bespoke deal flow for their funding.”
The Chief Evangelist of Circle of Angels is Amit Dutta, serial entrepreneur and industry veteran of 30+ years, and in his own words the vision is- “Our country’s aspiration of achieving a 5T $ economy would be powered by the unleashing of a vibrant entrepreneurship culture. Circle of Angels is in a unique position to support this disruptive growth, by enabling budding entrepreneurs to not be shackled by concerns on access to early stage capital and providing them quality mentorship , best practices and learnings and the motivation to succeed in a road less travelled.”
CoA was founded by Karanpal Singh in 2018, and was conceptualised to drive positive change in the ecosystem of entrepreneurs, business partners, investors, business angels, venture capitalists, and crowdfunders. Membership to this network is by invite or referrals from existing members. Angels can pledge a minimum annual investment commitment of INR 5 lakhs, and can go up depending on deal size, which varies between INR 50 lakhs to 3 crores.