Idein Ventures to invest $6 m in seed-stage start-ups

Venture-capital funding platform Idein Ventures, which recently roped in Zoomcar co-founder David Back as ‘Entrepreneur in Residence’, is looking at investing $6 million in seed-stage start-ups in India and the UAE this year. The firm has invested $1 million in the past two years.

“We are looking at ramping up our investments this year,” Ashwin Srivastava, co-founder and Director, Idein Ventures, told BusinessLine.

“We follow several phases of filtering. We study the business model, market size of the addressable market and teams; and then go for field-level studies. After that, we do a strong due diligence and behavioural analysis before taking a final call on the investment,” he said.

Co-founded by Rajeshwar Prasad, Mahesh Vellaboyina and Ashwin, the firm, on an average, vets as many as 300 ideas to pick one candidate. “Our focus is on seed-stage start-ups and we are technology agnostic,” Ashwin said.

Ashwin said the idea is to reduce the mortality rate of hand-picked start-ups to zero. “We look at ideas that have potential to disrupt (services, products) globally.”

David Back will mentor the start-ups, bringing in his experience as a start-up founder himself.

Idein’s portfolio of start-ups includes Infurnia, which helps consumers visualise their furniture in augmented reality before making a purchase. It has also invested in Jaipur-based education start-up Qriyo that provides home tutors.