GSF Accelerator taking investing a step further by providing mentoring and funds for startups

Enterpreneurs looking for seed capital to kick-start their ideas have another reason to c h e e r a b o u t . G l o b a l Superangels Forum (GSF) joins the league of Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels to fund early-stage ventures. All the three fund early stage ventures—the comparison ends there.

GSF is planning to take investing a step further with an accelerator programme called GSF Acceletaror, where mentoring is built into the fund. Says Rajesh Sawhney, founder, GSF: “It is not just seed capital but mentorship capital— that is, money and guidance.” Sawhney was president of Reliance Entertainment prior to starting GSF.

With GSF, he plans to fund 100 companies in three years, with $25,000-30,000 of seed capital (about 6-8% equity) in each selected venture in areas of mobile, social media, local technology and cloud computing.

This year alone, beginning mid-October, GSF plans to fund a dozen ventures. Sawhney added: “So far, venture money in India has gone to copy-cat ideas–what was successful in US, got floated in India and was funded–which are essentially business ideas and not technology innovations. As India scales from 100 million internet users to 300 million in three years, we believe technology innovation will be key, hence our focus in this area.”

GSF Accelerator is backed by 30 enterpreneurs from digital companies and investors. Advisors to GSF include Naveen Tewari, CEO and Founder of Inmobi, a mobile platform; Avnish Bajaj, founder of Matrix Partners, a venture fund; Saul Klein, exfounder of Bazee (acquired by eBay), Partner at Index Ventures, co-founder of TAG and Seedcamp; Dave McClure, founder of 500 Startups, an early stage investor in the Silicon Valley; and Singapore based fund Ruvento.

Indian funds such as Kae Capital and Blume Venture have also partnered with GSF Accelerator. The accelerator programme of GSF is on the lines of the ones run by Seedcamp in 19 cities across Europe, Y Combinator in the US, and Silicon Valley-based TechStars.

GSF Accelerator will run simultaneously in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore between October-November, 2012, with each location hosting four startups. Coaching will be provided to each of the 12 GSF startups over a period of seven weeks by a mentor pool of over 200 cofounders and digital entrepreneurs from across the world, who are part of GSF Accelerator.

The GSF accelerator startups will attend 25 workshops conducted by global experts. But what about intellectual property (IP) created by the entrepreneurs, who may want the money but unwilling to share their ideas with such a large pool of people? “We are the Linux (open source software) of early stage investing. We are dealing with innovation and not research. The idea is to go to market fast, build a better product and meet smart people in the ecosystem who can scale the idea,” said Sawhney.

The idea identified by GSF Accelerator as fit for funding and mentorship will be provided with an ‘entrepreneur -in-residence’ (EIR) from GSF, who will hand-hold and mentor the entrepreneur full-time.

Raman Roy, CMD Quatrro and co-founder of IAN, said: “Enterpreneurship is just about opening up in India. We need many more funds and don’t see any competition with GSF—the market is very big and offers space for all.” Deep Kalra, founder-CEO of Makemytrip.com, added: “We need funds which go beyond their existing catchment areas to help fund ideas even from remote entrepreneurs in remote locations.”

Whatever the outcome, GSF Accelerator is set to take angel investing to another orbit.

Others in the Field

Indian Angel Network

A Delhi-based network of more than 100 firstgeneration entrepreneurs. Started in 2006, IAN invests up to $1 million in each venture and looks at exiting in 3-5 years

Mumbai Angels

Based in Mumbai and started in 2006, it invests in 11 areas including gaming, e-commerce and entertainment. It has also partnered with institutes like BITS Pilani and IIM-Ahmedabad

Angel Prime

Set up by serial entrepreneurs Bala Parthasarathy, Shripati Acharya and Sanjay Swamy, it invests between $200,000 and $800,000 in every startup in its portfolio

The Morpheus

The Chandigarh-based incubator mentors a fresh batch of fledgling ventures every six months. It also provides small sums of seed investment in the range of Rs 5-10 lakh

The Startup Centre

The Chennai-based hub and accelerator for early-stage technology startups offers a resident programme for entrepreneurs. They can work out of TSC for six months and should have a product ready by the end of that period

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