Who are we?

Malpani Ventures is a family office funding frugal innovation in India.

What are our preferred sectors?

We prefer investing in B2B SaaS, Healthcare, and Education.

What is our stage of investment?

We invest in pre seed & seed stage startups in India.

Pre seed: Healthcare (will prefer a working prototype backed by intellectual property for pre seed).

Seed: B2B SaaS, Healthcare, and Education (will prefer traction in users, and MRR of 5-10 lacs for seed).

What is our ticket size?

We invest between Rs 1 - 2 cr as the first cheque. Our average ticket size for the last 3-5 deals has been north of Rs 1.5 cr.

Do we follow on?

Yes we do. We reserve approx. 2x the amount of our first cheque to participate in follow ons. We have made follow on investments in 1 out of every 3 portfolio companies, and over the next 2 years see this becoming 2 out of every 3.

What is our preferred investment method?

Our preference will be priced equity rounds or priced CCPS rounds. Being a family office, we can offer flexible structures. We have offered revenue based financing, non convertible debt without collateral, structured financing, and milestone based funding to portfolio companies.

What valuations do we pay?

Valuation is a dynamic construct. Valuations in our last 3-5 deals have ranged from ~15 cr post money to ~35 cr post money for first cheque.

Do we lead investment rounds?

Yes, we are comfortable being lead investors. And also comfortable co-investing.

What does our portfolio look like?

We have ~20 companies in our portfolio

B2B Software: IKS Health, Creditas, Callify, Clodura, Vdocipher

Education: Avaz, Bibox, Dux Edu, Multibhashi, HabitStrong

Healthcare: Plus91, Biomoneta, Stealth (unannounced)

Consumer: Stay Vista, Fab Box, Leaf

Mobility: Garageworks, Ajjas

Proptech: Zipgrid

Supply chain: Tessol

Apart from direct investments, we are also LPs in select VC funds we respect - Aavishkar Bharat, Inventus, India Quotient, Sketchnote Partners

How can we add value?

We honestly believe investors can not add a lot of value to investee companies. However, what we can offer is patient, long term, and flexible capital. We do not have to return money within a fixed time frame allowing us the liberty to stay invested. We offer better financial reporting, tracking metrics and discipline to founders which can enable them to be prepared to raise follow on money whenever they are ready. We can offer a sounding board, and a mirror to founders and relay inputs from other founders, investors in the ecosystem. We can offer introductions to other investors and funds for when founders are ready.

We have a motto - "Founders know how to run their business best, for everything else we can offer our assistance".

What do we expect from founders?

We expect complete alignment of interest. We expect to meet founders in person once a quarter. We expect to see monthly updates which take care of finance, team, key issues, etc. in a timely manner. We enter investments with a learning agenda and would like to exit not only financially richer, but intellectually richest.

Illustrations of value add

Finance & metrics- Company was trying to expand into multiple cities. Our team sat down and created a burn plan by city to help understand cash flows, cash utilization, peak burn per city, breakeven points, and consequent funding requirement. Company has since raised $1mn, crossed $1mn in run rate, and currently trying to expand to multiple cities.

Ecosystem views- Company was trying to raise a large Series A which we were unsure of considering stage of the company. We tried to understand the point of view of Series A investors and investment bankers to see if the company will be able to do what it wants to. Relayed back the information, connected with multiple investment bankers, and prepared a fresh fundraise plan.

Short term capital- Two companies were trying to fund significant orders which required working capital. We offered a very short TAT of working capital which enabled them to close orders.

Storytelling- Company trying to raise a Pre Series A. We sat with the founder to crack the story and narrative of the company from the point of view of company, customers, and customer advocates within large organizations.

Recruiting- We often conduct interviews of key team members before founders issue the final offer letter providing an added external perspective.

What does our team look like?

Dr Aniruddha Malpani- He is the founder, principal investor, and sits on the investment committee. He is an active angel investor since 15+ years.

Manish Gupta- He sits on the investment committee and runs a public equity fund Solidarity. He has worked with Boston Consulting, and ran Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's private equity investments before starting his own fund.

Siddharth Shah- He worked with Solidarity in public equities before moving to Malpani Ventures in 2019. He has an experience of 4 years as an investor.

Dhruv Sane- He started his career with 3 years at Deloitte in Forensic Accounting, and 3-year stint in investment banking with Lodha Capital before joining Malpani Ventures in 2021.

Founder NPS

We recently ran an anonymous NPS exercise where our founders gave us an NPS of 46. You can read more about it here. Over the next year, we'd like to improve this metric to 50.

Reach us

If you feel we are the right investors for you, please feel free to reach out to Siddharth or Dhruv with your pitch or one pager.