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Mentor Partners, the Bangalore-based early-stage venture capital advisory firm, has been working with startups for the last two years. The firm usually draws into the purses of a group of individual investors whenever an investment opportunity comes up. But not having a fund of your own may not be a great idea if your full time job is to mentor startups and scout for good investment opportunities.
Mentor Partners is now planning to raise its first fund of $30-50 million in the next six to nine months, reports The Economic Times, quoting Mentor Partners managing director Ravi Narayan. Initially, it will be focused on Indian market but the funds can be used for investing in other Asian markets like Singapore and Malaysia.
Formed in December 2005, Mentor has invested in 7 companies including Ilantus Technologies, Ugenie, Bubble Motion, Atlantis Computing, atOnePlace.com and Elina Networks. It is now in the process of incubating inhouse, a firm focused on mentoring SMEs using an IT-enabled platform.
Currently there are few funds targeting the early stage investment opportunities. They include Seed Fund ($10 million), Erasmic Fund, and VentureEast Tenet Fund II.