Axilor Ventures

• It is currently based out of India with its headquarters in Bangalore.

• Founded on November 18, 2014 (Source – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axilor_Ventures )

• Axilor Ventures is a platform for supporting innovation and entrepreneurship. Through its programs which include Accelerator, Scale-up and Early Stage Funding.

• In the last two years, it has supported more than 80 startups, made 25 investments and has an active Alumni network of 150+ founders.

• Axilor works with startups in 5 sectors: Enterprise, Fintech, Consumer Internet, DeepTech/ AI and Healthtech.

• Axilor’s Accelerator program, is a 100-day program for early stage entrepreneurs. The start-ups receive working space, advice, and connections without any equity dilution during the 100-day program. Axilor has a framework that helps entrepreneurs improve their odds of success. This is focused around the following areas: launching the startup the right way, access to the right capital at the right stage, dedicated mentorship, access to the Axilor peer community of entrepreneurs, and a series of masterclasses from industry experts to help learn how great startups are built and what mistakes to avoid. As of April 2016, 19 startups have gone through the accelerator program including PlaceOfOrigin, LetsPool, StoreWalk, Awesummly, Peersome, Perapy and many others. . In addition, Axilor also invests between INR 30 lakh and INR 6 crore ($50,000 and $1 million) each in startups as part of the Scale-up and Early Stage funding programs. As of April 2016, 5 startups have been funded including Murgency, Eventshigh, Petoo, Sellerworx, and EasyFix.

• It has a portfolio of 120+ startups and a founder community of 300+

• Founded by S.D. Shibulal, S Gopalakrishnan, Srinath Batni, Professor Tarun Khanna and Ganapathy Venugopal. 

About Fund:

1. How much does Axilor invest in the seed stage?

-Axilor will look to make 5-7 new seed investments in start-ups outside of their accelerator program every year. The seed fund can invest upto 3 Cr in the first round and subsequently will look to invest more in follow-on rounds

• What sectors does Axilor invest in?

-The Axilor Technology Fund is broad-based and will look at the following sectors: Enterprise, Deep Tech/ AI, Consumer Internet, Fintech and Health Tech. We are also constantly looking for emerging themes and other frontier tech sectors to add to this list from time to time

• What are the startup metrics that Axilor is looking for at the seed stage?

-Most of our seed funded start-ups tend to have a fast growing user base, high customer engagement, early signs of product market fit and signs of repeat usage from early customers. They are typically 12 months away from being Series A ready and have the potential to become category leaders

• What are some of the benefits from having Axilor as an investor?

-Axilor is not just a seed fund but a platform. Our AXENT (Axilor Enterprise Network) program is designed primarily to help startups with market access. As part of this program, we enable startups to connect with leading corporate across industries. In many cases, this offers quick customer access and in some cases go-to-market partnerships and even funding.

With over 40+ VCs in our network (and growing), many of whom have invested in Axilor portfolio or co-invested with Axilor, the startups get the benefit of this access that improves the odds of their fund raise success.

Start-ups also get to be part of founder community of over 225+ tech founders. Whatever be the question or challenge – technical, business, tactical, strategic, fund-raise, talent (and the list is long!) – Chances are you will be able to find at least 3-4 experienced founders who can share a variety of hacks and experiences

• Who are some of Axilor’s current portfolio companies?

-Axilor has invested in 38 startups. 17 out of which are Seed and 21 Pre Seed investments.