From Chartered Accountant to Venture Visionary: A conversation with IPV’s Vinay Bansal

Twenty years in finance teaches you a thing or two about money, but for Vinay Bansal, it revealed a glaring gap in India’s investment landscape. As a chartered accountant who had cut his teeth in private equity, he saw firsthand how the startup ecosystem offered incredible returns—but remained frustratingly out of reach for most professionals. This wasn't just a missed opportunity for investors; it was holding back promising startups from accessing a wider pool of smart capital.

Enter Inflection Point Ventures (IPV). Founded in 2018 as Bansal’s solution to democratise startup investing, it has evolved into one of India's most influential angel investing platforms. With over 24,000 members today, IPV has fundamentally reimagined how professionals can participate in startup funding. The platform’s genius lies in its accessibility—investors can start small, but through collective funding, deliver meaningful capital to startups.

But IPV’s real innovation goes beyond just pooling money. The platform has created a comprehensive support system that provides what they call ‘experiential capital’—combining funding with mentorship and access to a diverse network of successful professionals. With a portfolio of over 250 investments and a remarkably low failure rate—less than 10%, says Bansal—IPV's approach has proven that disciplined, systematic angel investing can work at scale.

In a candid conversation on the sidelines of an investor meet in Chennai, Bansal shared insights into IPV's journey, philosophy, and vision for the future of Indian startups. His perspectives reveal not just the evolution of a successful investment platform, but a deeper understanding of what it takes to build a sustainable startup ecosystem.

The following are edited excerpts from the conversation:

YourStory [YS]: Can you tell me about how the whole IPV idea came into being?

Vinay Bansal [VB]: We call ourselves accidental investors. We never thought that we'll become fund managers or IPV will be that large. When I came back from the US and so did my co-founder at different points in time, without knowing each other, we had the same problem of investing in India to manage our own wealth. No other asset class seemed good asset class to beat inflation, depreciation, etc. We knew working globally that the unlisted space has always given great returns, so I wanted to do the same in India.

The ecosystem was not very well developed then. A founder would go to 100 places, get one cheque of two and a half lakhs. Investors didn't know how to do due diligence or which founder to back. So, I started investing in unlisted companies myself and then got a few more like-minded friends. We reviewed and studied centuries worth of investment materials and guidance given by some of the best investors globally and then we built our own systems, our own ways of evaluating, our own ways of doing due diligence and investing.

YS: How did you scale this from a small group to what it is today?

VB: Till 2016-17, we continued to invest with friends and family. By 2019, we had grown to about 200 people and were managing this while doing our jobs. After seeing great returns and maintaining a low failure rate, we opened it up to the public in 2019. We have continued to grow by only word of mouth—every person who joins comes through referral of somebody else. Because they have made good returns or they have liked what we've done, they bring their friends along. Our investors became our sales team automatically.

YS: What’s your approach to evaluating founders?

VB: We have eight comprehensive pillars that guide our evaluation process. First is vision and communication—the ability to not just have a compelling vision but to effectively communicate it to rally investors and employees. It's like Steve Jobs saying he is going to change the world.

Second is passion—and the reason why you're there. If it is only for money, it's very difficult. When the money runs out, you run out. But if you’re really in for a personal problem to solve, it lasts longer. We started IPV, for example, not for money, right? It was to solve the problem of founders and investors. Because that was our own personal problem.

The third thing is the ability to work hard and the ability to get your team to work hard. So, when you say that ‘I will get this done or this report given to you by tomorrow’, if it doesn't come tomorrow, you know that the guy didn't put his full might behind it. Execution demands that you do what you say. And these small, small things will start telling you a lot of things. You know, simple things like if somebody has to come to a meeting at 1 pm and he's 10 minutes late—that gives us a small sign. It may be due to an inadvertent issue. But if he's late three times, you know.

The fourth is technical capability. If I'm a trained doctor and I want to build a spacecraft, that’s not very easy, right? So we look at technical training, we look at your passion or interest to learn that area in which you're going to make a solution. Because you're going to find a solution that nobody else has found, you better be good at it.

Fifth is stakeholder management—you have to manage investors, you have to manage founders, you have to manage the board, you have to manage the government, you manage vendors, you have to manage customers. The list goes on. Are you a dynamic personal who can keep all stakeholders together?

The Sixth is leadership. Can you attract talent? Can you keep talent? Can you grow talent? Because those are the guys who are going to grow the business for you.

Seventh is integrity—we evaluate whether founders will build good businesses and provide good returns to investors while being honest about their intentions.

And lastly, business acumen—the ability to understand businesses and how that business adds value to all stakeholders. Business acumen also demands that one understands the relationship of operations to financials and how every part of operations impacts different financial matrices and value creation. If founders go behind solving a problem, but cannot capture the value for the stakeholders, then they are not able to raise funding, despite solving a big problem.

YS: What kind of returns have you generated for your investors?

VB: On average we have returned more than 40% IRR through the life driven by very little failure rate in the market—we have less than 10% failure rate. Some of the deals where we got phenomenal returns—we got 80 times money back in BharatPe… 40 times money back in Videoverse. We have had many businesses sold to large companies.

YS: How do you approach current market trends and hot sectors?

VB: I'm not a big fan of timing because then you get biased. I’m a big fan about what's not hot and what's available at a good price and yet is important. I look at it through a lens of problems—what is the big problem waiting out there? How big, how frequent, for how many people? In Delhi we have a big problem of pollution. Healthcare is a big problem. Mental health is becoming a large problem. We have to invest in these before they become hot.

These doubts about scaling such businesses are very good for us—this is what keeps the normal investors away. By the time they realise there's value in it, it's become hot. By the time it becomes hot, it's done."

YS: What are IPV’s plans for 2025?

VB: We are looking to go global with an international fund coming up in the next couple of months. We will also be doing the final close of our Category 2 fund next year. We will be expanding our investor base from professionals and individuals to business folks, high net worth individuals (HNIs), financial institutions, and family offices.

YS: What's your investment philosophy?

VB: We say that it's a trilogy—head, heart, and hand. Head is analytics, numbers, business margins, growth, market size. Hand means ability to work, ability to get experience and through experience make an art out of it. Heart is the conviction, the willingness to go beyond your fears, the willingness to commit, willingness to back. We say investing and identifying a business is a head’s job; investing in a founder is the heart of investing. You need experience. Our learning is: always start with your heart but filter it with your head. Then you will do great.