Inside 100X.VC’s mission to make startups “fundable”

Good morning!

In 2019, investor Sanjay Mehta, who has 130+ startups in his personal portfolio, set up 100X.VC as a first-cheque fund that would back seed-stage startups and make them discoverable and ‘fundable’ for larger VCs and corporates.

"We don’t take any transaction fees. We tell the world that these are our moats, and you can join the cap table. And we make money along with other investors only when we make an exit,” he tells YourStory.

Later that year, 100X.VC unveiled its first cohort of 20 startups, having a good mix of tech startups.

In May 2021, the Mumbai-headquartered fund crossed its 50-startup milestone. 

With an average cheque size of Rs 25 lakh, 100X.VC has backed 109 founders from Proof-Of-Concept (POC) to the go-to-market stage, generated 460 jobs, and helped 60-70 percent of its portfolio companies raise follow-on funding.

The Interview

Agnikul Cosmos designs, manufactures, tests, and launches orbital-class rockets for nano satellites. The core idea of the startup is to build something quick and simple that can take small satellites and micro satellites to space. 

Srinath Ravichandran, Co-founder and CEO, Agnikul Cosmos, talks about the recent funding of $11 million from Mayfield India and plans to launch Agniban into space next year.

Editor’s Pick: How PESU Labs is helping student-led startups

Despite India producing more than one million engineering students and having more than 3,500 colleges, the country only has a handful of on-campus student-registered technology startups. This is what Bengaluru-based PESU Venture Labs aims to change. 

Launched in October 2020, the 35-member deep-tech-focused micro fund is a partnership between Bengaluru-based PES University and CoCreate Ventures and operates in the pre-prototype or pre-ideation phase, focusing on industry professionals, student entrepreneurs, and academicians. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Ensuring quality testing of agricultural produce

IIT Jodhpur alumni Tanmay Sethi, Yogesh Kumar Gupta, and Mohit Dadhich were always keen on exploring the agricultural sector in an effort to improve the lifestyles of rural folks.

This led them to start Nebulaa in Hyderabad in 2016. The startup aims to solve the problem of quality testing of agricultural produce. Its patented product MATT uses AI and Image Processing to do quality analysis in just a minute, but a lot more accurately. Read more.

News & Updates

• IBBI Chairperson MS Sahoo said the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) has rescued 70 percent of distressed assets through insolvency resolution plans and has released the remaining 30 percent of such assets through liquidations.

• The government is open to coming out with more measures to boost the economy, which has been hit by the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, said Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) KV Subramanian.

• Kutumb has raised $26 million in a Series A round led by Tiger Global. The startup has allotted 2,919 Series A CCPS shares with a face value of Rs 20 and an issue price of Rs 6.57 lakh.

• Bengaluru-based Gamut Analytics (Saarthi.ai), a deeptech startup focusing on conversational AI, has recently raised seed investment of an undisclosed amount from Lead Angels Network.

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“India lacks lead investors who can curate deals and give social proof for fundable companies. We wanted to create a discovery platform by funding the company, and having our own skin in the game.”

— Sanjay Mehta, Founder and Partner, 100X.VC

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