LetsVenture launches women-focussed angel network

LetsVenture, a platform for angel investors said on March 8 that is launching a women angel network- meant for more women to both invest, as well as mentor startups.

“India has about 10,000 angel investors and less than 1 percent of them are women. In the entire venture capital and private equity industry, less than 2 percent are women,” said Shanti Mohan, CEO and Co-Founder of LetsVenture.

This program wants to onboard at least 100 female investors by the end of the year, who can invest as little as Rs 2-3 lakh in a startup. The money is part of a larger round- startups raise at least a few crores in their first (seed) funding round. These 100 investors can invest together in a startup as part of LetsVenture- in whose name the investment is made.

“Having spoken to several women investors as well as those that are suited to fall into this bucket, we found that the biggest impediments were the lack of access to networks where knowledge and startup deal flow is shared. So, an important pillar of the programme is to create a rolling investor education series while opening up the platform for women to actively assess and access startup investments. The other key aspect of the programme is to provide a platform for women angels to also actively mentor startups and provide guidance to founders in their areas of expertise,” said Sunitha KR, President - Early Stage, LetsVenture. 

LetsVenture also announced the initiative on International Women’s Day. Moneycontrol wrote about the state of women founders and investors in India’s startup ecosystem here 

“LetsVenture started in 2013 with the aim of democratising access to angel investing and we have done decently at a group level, for instance in 2020 alone, we had over 700 angel investors join the platform and 35% of them are new to the asset class and over 45% are ‘professionals and CXOs’.  But Even within these buckets, the ratio of female participation is abysmally low and we believe there needs to be concerted effort to change this and therefore we are launching a dedicated program for women angel investors,” Mohan said.