The application data has been an eye-opening experience, teaching me the following:
- I seriously underestimated the demand for pre-seed capital in India, it is a huge, underserved market
- There is massive latent demand for pre-seed investments which is hidden because the teams haven't incorporated, 37% of applicants don't even have a company because of limited capital
- Entrepreneurs are not concentrated in one city, Bangalore tops but accounts for just 27% of teams, 13% of teams are outside big metros
- Quality of top teams and ideas is incredible; there is a lot of heart/soul in the applications
- Ideas are being tried in every sector including health, education, SaaS, food, media, logistics, the spread is incredible
- 80% of applicants came through social media, just 6% from referrals, which means that warm connects can be quite hard for founders
- Founders absolutely love the 3 mins it took to fill the form and want to hear a yes/no, what they are disheartened by is no response for months after effort
- Technology/data can be a serious enabler in pre-seed investing
I will endeavour to increase the number of teams we invest in every year. I also hope there is an emergence of more such funds - there is a lot to be done
India needs enabling entrepreneurship and the backing of courage over the next decade
This post was originally shared by Aviral Bhatnagar on Linkedin.