Kunal Bahl, Sachin Bansal and many others are turning angel investors for startups. Here’s why

They started off as entrepreneurs and now have turned angel investors and are pumping in money in new born startups.

Successful entrepreneurs like Saras Agarwal, associate vice-president at VenturEast, Zishaan Hayath, cofounder and chief executive of education technology startup Toppr, Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, etc are emerging as a key source of deal flow for larger venture capital funds, becoming a stronger influence in the entire startup ecosystem.

"These entrepreneurs are seeing deals early, which are highly curated because it comes from a quality network," said Tarun Davda, director at investment firm Matrix Partners.

For instance, Hayath has built an impressive record as an angel investor. His early bets include Ola, now valued at about $4 billion (over Rs 26,000 crore), realty classifieds website Housing, online budget stay aggregator Zo Rooms and Industrybuying.

What entrepreneur-investors put their money into other startups, they are able to pass through the filtering mechanism of venture capital funds, which have been in a rush to close deals early.

While such deals appear to be lucrative, the arrangement works as early-stage investments are more of a bet on the founders than just their idea.

A marketing personalisation software for ecommerce companies, Betaout, had initially sought to raise most of a Rs 3.2-crore early-stage funding round from an angel fund. But cofounder Ankit Maheshwari eventually decided to include more entrepreneur-investors than institutional investors.

"I wanted to bring in angels who were entrepreneurs for their advice besides money," said Maheshwari, adding "Their name also helps bring in customers who see validation with their investments."

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