Snapdeal's founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal have set up an investment vehicle called Titan Capital through which they will be making their future investments in startups, according to sources privy to the development.
Unlike an institutional fund, Titan Capital will not have a corpus but will invest in startups through money infused by the two founders.
"It is like a branding given in the form of this investment vehicle. So far Kunal and Rohit had been investing in their individual capacity. Now the cap-table of the portfolio companies will have the name of Titan Capital instead of the two of them," said one of the sources mentioned above.
An e-mail sent to Snapdeal did not elicit any response.
The fund is being managed by Bipin Shah, who worked as the board observer for Honasa Consumer before joining this firm.
Titan Capital claims to have invested across 70 startups. However, most of these companies are the ones where Bahl and Bansal invested in their individual capacity.
While the amount invested by the two founders across startups so far is yet to be ascertained, according to the website, their portfolio companies have raised over $4 billion from 100 institutional investors in follow-on rounds.
Titan Capital claims marquee companies such as Ola, Bira91, Netmeds as well as Snapdeal as its portfolio companies.
The source quoted abover told Moneycontrol that Titan Capital was launched earlier this year although there hasn't been much activity on the investment front.
It is learnt to be targeting investment between Rs 50 lakh to a few crore in the very first investment stage of startups.
"We don't need to see a functioning product or revenue. We want to get to know you and your vision for the business, and why it will matter," Titan Capital says on its website.
"Mostly such vehicles are created keeping tax efficient structures in mind. In such cases the owners of the vehicle can also invite other angels to participate in the investment rounds," said Atul Pandey, Partner at Khaitan & Co.
However, according to a second source privy to the development, Titan Capital has no plans to include any external angel investor in this establishment.
