Anupam Mittal to Snapdeal founders: Meet the smartest Indian angels cracking the unicorn code

• Anand Chandrasekaran is the top angel investor as per Hurun’s list of future unicorns, has invested in 16 of them.
  
• Kunal Shah has picked 12 of them, and Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal picked eight each.
  
• Shaadi.com’s Anupam Mittal too featured in the list with six companies that are expected to become unicorns in the future.
  

It’s been years since Snapdeal cracked under the pressure of competition and internal strife, and was relaunched. The hiccup did not stop the people associated with it from becoming India’s top angel investors. Three of the top five investors with the best portfolio of ‘future unicorns’ in their kitty are associated with the e-commerce player — Anand Chandrasekaran, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.

As per the ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index, the list of India’s top five angel investors also include Kunal Shah of Cred and Shark Tank’s Anupam Mittal, who founded Shaadi.com.

The list has identified 147 startups that have the potential to become unicorns in the next five years – and divided them into gazelles with a three-year horizon, and cheetahs with a five year horizon.

Here are the investors who are sitting on a fat portfolio of future unicorns.

Anand Chandrasekaran


Anand Chandrasekaran has been a young Silicon Valley success with stints in Yahoo and more after a degree from Coimbatore’s PSG College of Technology, and master's in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He was soon snapped up by Indian companies like Airtel and also worked with Snapdeal as its chief product officer before he quit in 2015.

Currently a part of the investment team at PE firm General Catalyst, Chandrasekaran however is most known for his wise investments — across 16 startups in India — all a part of Hurun’s future unicorns list.

Anand Chandrasekaran’s key investments


Kunal Shah


It comes as no surprise that Kunal Shah made it to the list of smartest investors, as he is the founder of unicorn Cred. He has invested in 12 startups that are a part of the future unicorns list by Hurun. And, two of them were added to the list last year.

The graduate from Wilson College in Mumbai had tried his hands at many companies in the fintech sector. He is also the founder of Freecharge, which was later acquired by Snapdeal. He however started his entrepreneurial journey with a startup called Paisaback that was also acquired by Ibibo.

Kunal Shah’s top investments

Kunal Bahl


The founder of Snapdeal had worked with Microsoft briefly after graduating from Wharton and Kellogg School of Management — had to come back to India in 2007, due to a visa issue. Within three years, he founded Snapdeal which had gone through many highs and lows.

He has since invested in 200 startups, as per reports. As per Hurun, he has picked eight of the future unicorns in the list.

Kunal Bahl’s top investments


Rohit Bansal

A school friend of Kunal Bahl from his Delhi Public School days, the IIT Delhi graduate is the co-founder of Snapdeal. Like his friend, he too had invested heavily in innovative and disruptive ideas and is also invested in unicorn Ola.

According to Hurun, like Bahl, he too has picked eight future unicorns from the list — and both of them have many investments in common.

Rohit Bansal’s top investments

Name	Funding raised	Sector	Stage
Bira 91	263	F&B	Gazelle
MoEngage	133	SaaS	Gazelle
Fashinza	123	Manufacturing as a service	Cheetah
AgroStar	112	AgriTech	Gazelle

Anupam Mittal

When he is not responding to Twitter trolls or looking for the next best startup idea at Shark Tank, the ‘shark’ Anupam Mittal is a serial investor. The founder of Shaadi.com has already picked unicorns like Ola earlier in the game, and has an impressive portfolio of companies in his kitty.

According to Hurun, he has picked six of them who have been featured as future unicorns in the list.

Anupam Mittal’s top investments

SEE ALSO

Indian brides go austere with lower priced, light-embroidery trousseaus this season

Over a 100 mn Indians have tried products pushed by influencers and its growing