Inflection Point Ventures, India’s most active angel investment platform, has announced 14 exits from 2023 giving a stellar IRR of 61% to its investors.
Amidst challenging market conditions, IPV has consistently demonstrated adaptability through innovative initiatives and collaborations with founders, resulting in remarkable returns.
In 2023, IPV achieved a phenomenal 217% IRR (~40x MOM) with a full exit from Project Light (name withheld). Along with 3 full exits, IPV secured partial exits from 11 other startups through the year, delivering IRRs ranging from 20% to 97%. These exits, involving over 1,000 individuals’ investments, translated into lucrative returns, with an average holding period of 1.5 to 2 years. Notable successes include partial exits from high-performing startups like Oorjaa, Devnagri, Aerem, and Ishitva generating an average IRR of 80%. With this, IPV has announced 38 exits in under 5 years.
Vinay Bansal, Founder & CEO, Inflection Point Ventures, says, “Once again, IPV has emerged as the most active angel investing platform in India despite the ongoing funding winter. With its sharp investment strategy and belief in innovative sustainable startups, IPV will continue to evaluate high potential startups in 2024.”
Amidst the cautious investment climate, IPV remained a beacon of support for startups. The company’s emphasis on post-investment assistance for startups through collaborative efforts with investors played a pivotal role in achieving these successes. Notably, IPV’s marquee LetsGrow program, continued to shine by fostering partnerships with founders and providing invaluable resources in the form of global business networks, CXO expertise, technological insights, business guidance, and unwavering support through challenging times.
Addressing startups affected by the Covid crisis, IPV, through its LetsGrow program, successfully protected investor interests. A unique M&A arrangement between its portfolio companies Sportido and Hudle exemplified this, creating a mutually beneficial outcome for founders and investors alike. Additionally, IPV’s innovative partnership programs, particularly with investment banks, contributed to the success of Koovers, an auto spare parts platform acquired by Schaeffler, delivering a remarkable 47% IRR for investors in less than 2 years.
Ankur Mittal, Co-Founder, IPV, says, “At IPV, we have always believed in investing in great founders at reasonable valuations. This eventually results in successful exits for our investors. We are a big believer of helping our founders scale up by leveraging our rich
network to help companies not only get timely capital infusion but also rich mentoring to grow their businesses.”
It has been a challenging year for the overall startup ecosystem, not only in India but globally. Despite these obstacles, IPV’s portfolio has remained robust. Startup investing is considered as a risky asset class and typically has a failure rate in the excess of 80%. However, IPV’s mission has always been to improve the success in startups by 10X and it is reflected in its high success rate. So far, out of a portfolio of 200, only 10 startups couldn’t return capital to its investors.
See the table below for a snapshot:
Name of the startup | Sector | Partial/Full | Return |
Project Light (name withheld) | Saas/ B2B | Full | 217% |
Koovers | Saas/ B2B | Full | 47% |
Sportido | Sport-Fit | Full | 11% |
Oorjaa | Logistics | Partial | 97% |
Aerem | Fintech | Partial | 86% |
Devnagri | Saas/ B2B | Partial | 77% |
Ishitva | Saas/B2b | Partial | 60% |
Kazam | Clean-tech | Partial | 53% |
Stage | Content/ Social | Partial | 52% |
Reloy | Property-Tech | Partial | 46% |
Mindler | Edu-tech | Partial | 37% |
Healthysure | Health-tech | Partial | 28% |
Bored Beverages | D2C | Partial | 20% |
Clensta | D2C | Partial | 20% |
Mitesh Shah, Co-Founder, IPV, says, “At IPV, our focus continues to discover groundbreaking startups. Since the last quarter of 2023, we’ve witnessed a strong recovery and a robust funding cycle in 2024. Our active investment thesis of 2023 will persist in 2024 too. Maintaining a strong follow-on round pipeline for startups creates a healthy exit pipeline for its investors. To further this commitment, we have launched IPV Ideaschool, an accelerator program. This initiative empowers startups to accelerate their growth and scale rapidly, benefitting from strategic guidance within IPV’s vigorous network. This will further strengthen our portfolio and enable startups to grow and scale their business rapidly with strategic guidance from IPV’s rich network.”
IPV, evaluated over 7000 startups in 2023 and funded 56 deals during the year. Of these, 10 were uprounds, thereby supporting its founders in subsequent funding rounds as well.
IPV’s member base has expanded to over 12,000 individuals across 46+ countries, offering them the opportunity to engage with IPV’s distinctive and specialized method of early-stage investing. The platform has intentionally set minimal entry requirements, aligning with its core values of democratising startup investments. Initiating angel investments with IPV is straightforward, as individuals can easily become investors with a minimum starting investment of Rs. 1,00,000 for a startup—the smallest cheque size among angel investor platforms in the community. Additionally, IPV’s knowledge sessions via masterclasses have been highly appreciated by the aspiring investors.