When I tell people I am an angel investor , the first question they ask is – how many successful exits have you had ? I haven’t had any I can boast about so far, because it’s still early days . The startup ecosystem in India is still very immature , and it’s going to take time for these companies to grow and become successful businesses. In any case, I am not personally looking for quick exits, and many people find this perplexing. After all, isn’t startup investing the golden road to riches ?
When I tell them about all the ones which have failed , they are even more confused as to why I continue investing. Am I stupid to put more good money after bad ? Haven’t I learned anything from my experiences ?
I don’t have money to burn , but it’s precisely because I have learnt a lot of expensive lessons during this process in the last 3 years that I want to capitalise on them ! I have paid my tuition fees, and in any case, this is a sunk cost . I want to leverage these lessons , which have made me much smarter , and therefore give me an unfair competitive edge as compared to other investors . We have a reputation of being founder-friendly, and we hope to create a model which others funders can replicate. This is why I look forward to continuing to invest actively over the next 10 years ! I am still in accumulation phase – there’s plenty of time for harvesting later on !