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IIMA Ventures (formerly IIMA-CIIE) has evangelised early-stage venture capital in India for over 15 years, funding over 350 start-ups and accelerating more. By supporting start-ups with investments from their inception, they position themselves as the preferred partner for these institutions from day-one.
In the upcoming year, IIMA Ventures have plans to invest in start-ups across emerging sectors. Priyanka Agarwal Chopra, Managing Partner at IIMA Ventures, tells businessline about the firm’s investment thesis and backing entrepreneurs developing disruptive solutions. Edited excerpts:
What is the strength of your current portfolio?
Our active portfolio spans over 100 companies across the pre-seed, seed and early-growth continuum. We have invested in over 300 start-ups at the pre-seed and seed stages, deploying approximately $16-18 million from our balance sheet. Additionally, we have invested in around 40 companies at the early growth stage, with a total AUM of $100 million.
What is your investment thesis?
We focus on being the foundational investor for entrepreneurs in deep tech, digital inclusion and climate tech spaces. We start at the early stage, providing ventures with their first institutional cheque to fuel their journeys. We invest through our balance sheet at the pre-seed and seed stages, and through our venture capital funds at the early-growth stage.
How do you support early-stage start-ups?
As one of the earliest entrants in the start-up support ecosystem, we step in at various intervals — from the incubation and acceleration of early-stage start-ups to providing them with seed and venture capital. Our first experiment with a platform-centric intervention was the Bharat Inclusion Initiative (BII) in 2018 in the inclusive tech space. For over five years, BII has incubated five innovations, provided acceleration support to 55 start-ups and seed-invested in over eight start-ups. Some start-ups include Jai Kisan, Riskcovry, Kaleidofin, Finarkein, and Kosh. Over the next 3-4 years, BII aims to support 35-40 start-ups with catalytic capital, customised advisory, training programs and market access solutions.
Which sectors are you bullish on?
Emerging opportunities in space tech, defence, healthcare, biotech, AI, semiconductors, robotics and advanced computing, digital therapeutics, financial services and industrial decarbonisation excite us. This year we plan to invest in 30-35 such start-ups.
What is the timeframe of your investment and the average cheque size?
We take a long-term view, typically investing for 5-6 years. Companies in frontier sectors often require this timeframe to achieve product-market fit and scale effectively. In the pre-seed and seed stages, our cheque sizes ranges from $25,000 to $200,000. For early-growth stage companies, we provide larger investments between $1-3 million through our Bharat Fund platform.
Have you had any exits to date?
We have had over 40 profitable exits including companies like Ideaforge, Riskcovry, Fourth Partner, Guvi, Biosense, Salesken and Barrix.
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