AJVC’s goal has always been to support Indian entrepreneurship. With capital, we are now transforming into an enabler of entrepreneurship. Over the last decade of early-stage investing, I noticed a growing gap in India’s pre-seed ecosystem. Founders struggled to raise their first round, giving up their dreams at stage 0. In many cases, more than 20 investors were required to raise 1 Cr. Few Indian companies get a lot of capital; many don’t get any.
I want to solve this problem through a fast, approachable, pre-seed firm for Indian startups.
The aim is to build a founder-friendly institution. AJVC’s first fund received SEBI approval last week. The fund is largely committed on launch day itself. I aim to bring the decade-long learnings as an investor supporting startups to build AJVC. I have been overwhelmed by the support AJVC has received in such a short period.
Many of our supporters quote the connection with my conviction-driven opinions since 2018
I didn’t share the opinions with the goal of building a firm. The goal was to help people at scale, share insights, detail learnings from my experiences. But the impact of analysis of startups/business continues to surprise me. Many of the fund’s big supporters have been reading AJVC for years. Founders whom I plan to support through the fund are connected via LinkedIn/Twitter. The openness of AJVC was a big factor. I had never imagined a passion project could evolve into this.
But here we are, at the cusp of a huge decade for Indian entrepreneurship.
The last decade was of building maturity. Iconic exits, tech IPOs becoming real, profitability becoming a focus. India now has 10+ tech public cos, 100+ unicorns, 10K+ startups each year, $20B of annualised funding, and 1M+ startup employees. We are in a period of quiet, consolidation, and re-focus usually followed by a long period of growth.
If you’re building a startup today it’s a great time
My journey as a founder has been one of revelations. My already high respect for founders has only increased after I started my journey. You can go from being on top of the world one day to in the doldrums the next. But nothing beats the experience of building something of your own.
I couldn’t have got here without the support of people along my journey
My two alma maters and the friends I made opened my worldview. All of you on LinkedIn have been kind, supportive and a big motivation. Learnings from my previous teammates and bosses have shaped me. The AJVC team has volunteered over years and has supported hugely - including AJVC’s fresh new website in my bio. I don’t think any of this would have been possible without the support of my family. My family forms the foundation on which I take this leap
If you’re taking the leap to start, apply on the website - you, AJVC and India are just getting started
This post was originally shared by Aviral Bhatnagar on Linkedin.