Hyderabad Angels (HA) Invests upto $1 Million in Technology-Based, Asset Light and Scalable Business Models Interaction with Esha Rao and Mounika Nimmagada who are part of the investment team at Hyderabad Angels.

In this traditional male bastion of angel investments and venture capital, women are no longer strangers to the idea of mentoring new ventures. With women having made significant inroads into technology, even their investment counterparts cannot be left behind when it comes to choosing ventures that have stable models driven by next-generation technologies.

In this regard, Entrepreneur India interacted with two professionals who are a part of the investment team at Hyderabad Angels and are actively involved in sourcing and evaluation of startups.

These investment professionals; Esha Rao and Mounika Nimmagadda actively source startups with a special focus on disruptive technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and more.

Check out below, Esha's and Mounika's insights on how they approach (and get approached) by new ventures having potentially sustainable technology-driven ideas.

Determining the differentiating factors while choosing new ventures

As a whole, Hyderabad Angels (HA) invests in promising early stage companies with revenues and traction both in India as well as globally. Esha and Mounika state that HA are sector-agnostic and location agnostic. Investments range from 150K- USD 1 million in asset light and scalable businesses.

As per Esha and Mounika, the investment team at HA receives anywhere between 250-300 proposals in a month; out of which the team selects 3-4 ideas (ventures) to proceed to the Angel meetings.

"Once we have sufficient interest post the Angel meeting, we conduct a Business, Legal and Financial Due Diligence. Subsequently, we also monitor our portfolio companies closely. We handhold the company through its entire life cycle focusing primarily on strategy and execution," state Esha and Mounika.

Investment Parameters

The investment parameters, according to Esha and Moukia, that HA considers are:

• Founders and the core team
• A scalable business and revenue model
• Market potential and competitive advantage over other players operating in the same sector
• Traction achieved.

Key technological aspects – From the investors perspective

"While we are sector agnostic, the current sectors that interest us are Artificial Intelligence (AI),Internet-of-Things (IoT), Enterprise SaaS, BlockChain, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Machine Learning (ML), Fintech and Robotics," add Esha and Mounika in unison.

Empowering women investors in India

At this instant, it is worth noting that at HA, one-fifth of the investors are women, in a 130 member strong team. Both Esha and Mounika are optimistic when they state that the entrepreneurship spirit among women is at an all time high in today's times.

The entrepreneurship spirit among women today is at an all time high as per leading venture capitalists..

"The key for women to become investors is financial independence," emphasize Esha and Mounika.

"While, we are based out of Hyderabad and continue to be an active part of Hyderabad startup ecosystem which includes THub (one of the largest incubators in India), We-Hub (A Telangana Government initiative to nurture women entrepreneurship in India launched by Honourable IT Minister KTRama Rao on 8^th March 2018) among others; we source and invest in opportunities from all over India and USA," sign-off Esha and Mounika.

A brief investment portfolio of Hyderabad Angels:

HA has invested roughly INR 40 crores across 25 companies in the last 5 years. This portfolio comprises 22 companies including Indian Money, Nowfloats, Healthsutra, Spareshub, Twigly, Explara, Betaout Inc., Innovapptive Inc, amongst others.

Thrillophilia, ZineOne Inc. and Evibe are led by women entrepreneurs.

HA's first exit was in August 2015; from Edutor, with a 3.5X return over a three year period.