YourNest to pump in up to Rs 50 crore into startups this year

NEW DELHI: Even as valuations of some large Indian unicorns begin to fade and funding dries up, early stage venture fund YourNest is bullish on startups in the country and will invest up to Rs 50 crore in these companies this year.

The fund, which has so far invested about Rs 90 crore in the last four years, is looking at funding startups working in areas like Internet of Things ( IoT), automation and hardware and electronic design.

"Investment should be done in every period. The valuations are now reaching a stage where they are more realistic and not inflated. Late stage funding may be hard to come by but people will still fund ideas that have the potential to disrupt the market," YourNest Angel Fund founder and CEO Sunil Goyal said.
He added that the fund will invest about Rs 30-50 crore this year into these new businesses.

"B2B is still interesting. Also, areas like 3D printing, virtual reality, defence solutions are areas that are upcoming," he said.

Founded in April 2011, YourNest invests in companies working in areas like mobility, Internet, data analytics, software and cloud. It has an investor base of 140, which consists of many Indian individual investors as well as institutional investors.

YourNest has invested in over 14 start-ups including SmartQ, Fashalot, aahaa stores, MoMark, mycity4kids, Proof of Performance, Uniphore Software, OpKey, GolfLan, BetaOut and Rubique.com.

"We would look at investing about $0.5-1 million in about 6-7 companies. Rest of the funding will be in our existing portfolio of companies as follow-on investments," he said.

Goyal said he is still bullish on the start-ups ecosystem in the country.

"While there is a lot of funding available for startups with a consumer play. However, there are still a lot of wonderful ideas that need backing. Every week, we continue to get requests and we evaluate them for potential," Goyal said.

Besides funding, these start ups also need mentoring and guidance for growing the business and that is where early stage investors play a crucial role, he added.