Kyt Ventures makes startups fly

Flying the kites of the next billion dreamers, dreams and aspirations is Kyt Ventures, an early stage angel investors network. Karmaya Advisers Pvt Ltd, founded in June 2019 by Dr Anu Gupta, is a startup itself, enabling other startups.

A curious wanderer, Dr Anu Gupta wanted to see the life beyond the life of a doctor. Also, she wanted to create a bigger impact for which she wanted to learn and gain exposure to the things from which the impact could be created.

She shifted from being a physician in the national capital to pursue MBA from Indian School of Business - in the land of entrepreneurs, Hyderabad. After completing Masters, she joined the drug development department of Novartis.

Speaking with The Hans India, Dr Anu Gupta, says: "As an individual doctor the scope is limited -- the real problem lies beyond patient care.

The problems, challenges and solutions are beyond the scope of a doctor. And, while in ISB, I learnt that there are various other areas where one can contribute by combining medical knowledge with management skills."

Dr Gupta, further added, "during my tenure with Novartis, way back in 2014 in Switzerland, I noticed that the startup ecosystem in India was making huge waves. So, I decided to get involved in the startup ecosystem here."

From 2015, she has been an active angel investor and mentor for startups. "There were few startups in the healthcare segment, wherein the founders were not from medical fraternity but started a healthcare venture and were looking for advisors with medical knowledge.

This way, I entered the startup ecosystem as a mentor," she says. After having donned the hat of a mentor and advisor to healthcare startups, she started investing in healthcare ventures.

Dr Gupta claims, "I have been an angel investor for nearly five years and hold a portfolio of more than 10 startups in early stage investments out of which we have already seen one exit."

Her husband, Gagan Gupta is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and the co-founder of Kyt Ventures. Before founding the network, Dr Gupta tried her hands on as an entrepreneur. She goes on to say, "My life has been either as a doctor or as an employee in corporate.

This life is different from that of an entrepreneur. I got the opportunity to experience that too but had to close the hyper local logistics startup in 2018, as competing with other startups from the same domain with deep pockets was tough.

I felt my real calling was to work with multiple startups as an investor and mentor rather than running a startup."

From this experience, Dr Gupta realised a gap in the angel investment ecosystem. According to her observation, "Not many are aware of angel investment as an asset.

And, very few among those involved in angel investing, work closely with the startup to help them build the business and make them ready for the VC round of funding."

To fill these gaps, another startup - Kyt Ventures took birth. The pan India angel network works with early stage startups to understand their needs and to connect them with investors.

"There are startups who need funds and mentorship, and there are also mentors, investors who are willing to help with investments and business connect.

Kyt, a startup in itself which has all the elements of any startup but at the same time the nature of Kyt is to help other startups in raising funds," Dr Gupta adds.

Kyt Ventures bring in seasoned investors to teach the art of investing to new investors. At present, they have investors from Jaipur, Hyderabad and Delhi.

Moreover, they are trying to create a pan India angel network rather than being city centric. Currently, 25 members are in the network including entrepreneurs and professionals with a career in medicine and corporate.

The founder informing about the trend of investing in startups says, "there are only about 461 unique angel investors in a country of 1.3 billion. While there is dearth of funding, we can witness a very small set of investors.

Through Kyt we intend to show that exits are possible in two to three years and early investing is an asset."

Currently, Kyt Ventures has mandate of three startups in different stages. Also, the founder has a plan to bring AIF Category one fund in the next one year, supporting nearly 18 to 24 startups a year.

The startup also is looking to bring in women angel investors into their network to invest along with providing support of mentorship to the women entrepreneurs.

As she concludes, Dr Gupta observes that angel investing is largely about taking risk and women by and large are not risk takers – a trend that needs to change.