The angel fund will be investing not only in the most promising startups located in Startup Village but also in similar enterprises across the country. "We are looking to broad-base the investor profile with a large set of angel investors, many of whom might be first time angel investors in India," Startup Village Chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar said.

Besides Gopalakrishnan, MobME, the country's first campus telecom startup, Ravi Pillai, founder of the Rs 16,000-crore Bahrain-based RP Group, and other leading angel investors in India will be part of the fund.

Vijayakumar, who is also the co-CEO and co-founder of MobME, said the fund would be investing in the early stage category. It would invest between USD 20,000 and USD 250,000 into startups. For higher amounts, the fund would co-invest with other early stage funds.

"As the fund is investing at a very early stage, we would be focusing more on the entrepreneur and the team and less on the idea. A smart entrepreneur is what the fund would back," he said.

The fund would leave the choice with the entrepreneur whether he wants to give a board seat or not. There wouldn't be tag-along/drag-along rights that the fund would take as well.

The angel fund would be highly entrepreneur-friendly where the standard investment term-sheet would be available online for startup founders to go through and suggest changes as well."We finally aim to evolve a term-sheet, that's highly entrepreneur-friendly," he said.

H K Mittal, Head and Advisor, NSTEDB (National Science and Technology Entrepreneur Development Board), said, "Having an in-house fund would give Startup Village incubatees an edge in the technology startup ecosystem."

Additionally, the fund would be a vehicle for high networth individuals (HNIs) to participate in the creation of one of the largest technology startup ecosystems in the world, said Mittal, who was instrumental in setting up the first PPP model incubator in India.

"With over 750 applications from startups in the last 12 months, Startup Village (SV) is blazing ahead in the incubation landscape in India. The 100,000 sq ft building is under construction which would make SV the largest Internet-Telecom Incubator in the world," said Vijayakumar.

By next year, Startup Village aims to have around 1,500 applications, which itself creates a large catchment area for the angel fund, he said.

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