Organized angel investor networks in India largely work in isolation but that seems to be changing. Some of the country’s top angel networks have come together to form an association dubbed the Angel Association of India (AAI). The outfit was formally instituted on November 21 in a closed door meeting on the sidelines of the recently concluded Asian Business Angel Forum in Mumbai. The leading members of the association include Indian Angel Network (IAN), Mumbai Angels, Chennai Angels, Hyderabad Angels and Harvard Business Angels, among others. “We’re still early into articulating the operating guidelines for the association. However, this association gives us a country-level platform to address some of the key issues that affect angel investments,” IAN president Padmaja Ruparel toldStartupCentral. The meeting on Novemebr 21 was part of a series of such meetings that executives from these angel networks have been having since 2012. “Somewhere last year we met with an objective to form an association on the lines of the IVCA (Indian Venture Capital Association). Until now, we didn’t have any representation on any platform. Everybody, each angel network, had to act independently,” said Anil Joshi, who stepped down as president of Mumbai Angels a couple of weeks ago. Joshi was also instrumental in putting together the Asian Business Angel Forum last month. Apart from Joshi and Ruparel, other angel investor network representatives at the November meeting in Mumbai included Sasha Mirchandani, co-founder of Mumbai Angels and founder of KAE Capital; IAN founding member Saurabh Srivastava; Srini Koppolu,…
