Why Angel Investing?

• Is it because everyone around you is one?
• Is it because you have money to invest?

This is a fair question to ask. And I am constantly perplexed with my attempt to answer this question effectively. Of course, there is no correct answer. But one thing that I love the most is, solving problems. And in my lifetime, I can solve only a limited number of problems, and this is my attempt to maximize that number 🙂.

Ideology

Traditionally angel investing is looked at as a gamble where if the bet works out, one could get returns 50 - 1000x. So that’s one way to look at it. But with Sifar Ventures, my goal is to focus more on intangible gains one gets while working with early-stage startups.

I have been a founder in the past and understand the chaos inside and around the founders. What they look for is de-risking as many things as possible to find the Problem Market Fit and Product Market Fit. When I completed the journey with a failed startup, I realized that I had learned a lot during the process. Not just about the business but the mindset to go through this one-of-a-kind journey in an entrepreneur’s career and life.

As I have worked extensively on all the layers of technology and products, I realized that I could successfully de-risk the technical and product problems of an early-stage startup. I have taken multiple attempts at helping startups for free, for minimal equity, but none of them worked out as expected. As they say, giving something for free is the most expensive thing.

Hence Sifar Ventures

@Vishwesh Jirgale and I have worked together for 6-7 years. One common theme of our conversations is what problems we face daily and how we could solve them effectively 💡. We love tech, startups and we love entrepreneurs. A year ago, while brainstorming on a few ideas, We realized that we have a distinct set of capabilities to help early-stage startups de-risk technology, marketing, hiring, and fundraising. Hence last year, we decided to start Sifar Ventures, an early-stage VC firm focussing on (but not limited to) Indian Startups.

We are proud to announce our first investment: Peerlist

There are a few problems that I would love to solve right now, and the most favorite is Professional Networking. LinkedIn is good but is no more relevant anymore.

We first need a professional network that caters to each individual differently, be it a programmer, designer, or salesperson.

The second is the Social aspect of the Professional Network. Is it necessary? And how useful is it? Whatever may be the answers to these questions, what LinkedIn has is not the solution. Instead, it has become another Facebook, with less and less relevance to Professional Networking.

The third and very critical aspect of professional networks is meaningful connections. Connecting to mutually beneficial people shouldn’t be as hard as it is right now. One can reimagine the whole ecosystem for better, faster, and efficient ways of professionally connecting.

When I was searching for the companies, I came across Peerlist via a tweet from a user. We (Vishwesh and I) quickly got in touch with @Akash and @Yogini. When we spoke to them, we understood the zeal they were building this product. After looking at the roadmap, @Vishwesh and I realized that we significantly align on the problems of the current solutions and probable solutions. We believe that Peerlist could be one of the ways of imagining how future Professional Networks should be. And @Akash and @Yogini, the company’s co-founders, have the right skills and approach to solving this problem.

Peerlist is launching the platform soon, but till then, please register for the private beta now 🙂.

If you are starting up and the domain is a matrimonial/dating network, you think we can help. Feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] or [email protected]

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