Venture Catalysts to open offices in Lucknow, Kolkata and Nagpur in July

Mumbai-based network of angel investors, Venture Catalysts looks to expand operations in tier-II cities and plans to open offices in Lucknow, Kolkata and Nagpur next month.

The network has operations in five cities including Delhi, Mumbai and Raipur, and recently expanded to Bengaluru and Surat. It claims to have about 2200 angels.

Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President, Venture Catalysts, told Livemint that his firm plans to dive deeper into tier-II and tier-III cities and draw entrepreneurs who belong to family-owned business but have so far stayed away from start-up investing to its fold.

Sharma said, "There is published data that India has 1 million millionaires. But they are not doing angel investments because the ecosystem has not fully developed yet."

He further added, "These are not your typical angel investors but are mostly second and third generation entrepreneurs with solid business acumen. In the last year, we have added at least 100 of those."

Gaurav Singhvi from Surat-based The Financial Supermarket and Vikash Agrawal, a director at Raipur-based Nandan Steel and Power Ltd are prominent angels in their areas and part of Venture Catalysts network. Other notable angels include Dheeraj Jain, a partner at Redcliffe Capital; Anupam Mittal, from Mumbai-based People Group; and FreeCharge founder Kunal Shah.