IIM Indore alumni launch fund to invest in early-stage startups

A group of prominent alumni from IIM Indore have set up the first Alumni Fund. They will back early-stage startups and help them scale-up into category leaders. The fund will invest in 10-12 startups over the next 12 months. They will also co-invest with other investors in the ecosystem. The fund is expected to announce its first investment this month as 2-3 deals are already in the advanced stage.

IIM Indore has also been at the forefront of fostering entrepreneurial activity in India. Alumni have founded multiple well-known startups like Country Delight, Stockedge, IIM-Jobs; many others hold leadership positions at unicorns.

About the IIM Indore Alumni Fund

The fund has 80+ prominent alumni including Founders, Startup CXOs, Investment bankers as LPs. The Founding Team also consists of Adarsh Sharma –Serial Entrepreneur and Leading revenue at a prominent D2C brand currently; Dr Preet Pal Thakur - Co-Founder at Glamyo, Shankar Sivan – Investment Professional with Refex Capital; Anoop N, Principal Director at Accenture Ventures; and Dhruv Bhushan, Co-founder & CEO of Habbit Health.

Talking about the fund, Anoop said, “Alumni from IIM Indore have played a key role in the Indian startup ecosystem. We have a strong presence in both the Founder community as well as the VC ecosystem. Now we're keen to have a structured initiative where we could together identify and support great founders building disruptive solutions.”

Dhruv is also an active angel investor and a founding member of the fund said. He said, “Over the past decade some of us have played active roles in startup journeys around the world. We have seen the struggles of entrepreneurs first hand. More than the money that we invest, the real value to the startups comes from our experience, and the global network of 8000+ IIM Indore alumni, whether for business development, advisory or hiring”

With more and more alumni showing interest in participating in angel investments, the Alumni Fund is expected to follow a yearly series model, with a new close every year. Further, over the next 5-7 years, the fund will have a wide portfolio of 80-100 investments and will be amongst the first port of call for any startup that leverages technology to build for / from India to raise early-stage capital.