[Funding alert] Circle of Angels closes its first pool of fundraising of Rs 25Cr; to invest in early-stage startups

Gurugram-based Circle of Angels (CoA) on Tuesday announced its first round of fundraising of Rs 25 crore, which will be used to fund startups across sectors. The Circle.Work-backed platform connects startups, mentors, and investors with each other.

CoA aims to drive positive change in an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, business partners, investors, business angels, venture capitalists, and crowd-funders. Membership to this network is by invite or referrals from existing members, and the angels pledge a minimum annual investment commitment of Rs 5 lakh that can go up depending on deal size, which varies between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 3 crore.

CoA claims it has already attracted a highly vetted, and curated list of over 200 senior angels, investors, startup founders, and tech pundits from around the globe, specialising in fields like fintech, law, finance, SaaS, digital media, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, among others. The investment thesis of CoA will be to back startups with disruptive business models, high growth, and scale potential.

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 startups navigate through the early days of their journey. Initially, we plan to work with about 10-12 company boards, and actively create a bespoke deal flow for their funding.”

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In a statement, CoA said it has already onboarded over 50 angels, including 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); and Sandeep Budhiraja (Executive Director at BYLD Group).

Amit Dutta, the Chief Evangelist of CoA and a serial entrepreneur, said, "Our country’s aspiration of achieving a $5 trillion economy would be powered by the unleashing of vibrant entrepreneurship culture, and CoA 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."