The high-risk high-reward game at the seed stage level, which yielded handsome returns for early investors of Flipkart, Ola, OYO, Zomato, Swiggy, and others, has helped blossom the micro or seed venture capital ecosystem in India in the past few years. Angel, seed or micro funds, clubbed in the category of micro VCs, which usually have a sweet spot of $500k-2 million per deal, have grown from 29 in 2014 to 88 in 2020. The rise in micro VCs in India has been driven by the growing number of startups across sectors, the market gap between angel investments and mid-large size institutional investors. Domestic limited partners (LPs) have also joined the party for better return potential, small cheque size requirement, deep operational expertise, flexible deal terms, and co-investment opportunities, according to a report by Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (IVCA), Amazon Web Services and Praxis Global Alliance. Some of the prominent micro VCs in India currently are 100X.VC, Pravega Ventures, 9 Unicorns, Artha Venture Fund, and more.

These micro VCs and others have invested $341 million in 730 deals across 566 startups between 2018-20. From $86 million in 183 deals across 131 startups in 2018, the ecosystem has expanded to $139 million in 310 deals across 256 startups. The top sectors attracting maximum capital were software as a service followed by consumer-focused apps and platforms, e-commerce and listing platforms, FMCG, BFSI, and others in 2020. Niramai, Open, Dukaan, Airmeet, Milkbasket, Truly Madly, Niki.ai, ECom Express, MPL have been a few of the notable portfolio companies of Indian micro VCs in the past.

Read more at: From few micro VCs backing Flipkart, Ola, others, how ecosystem has grown in number of investors, capital