More than 30 angel funds, family offices, micro VCs and individual investors have joined hands to form the Association of Prolific Angels in India (APAII), aimed at strengthening domestic early-stage capital and creating a unified voice for the sector. According to reports from Rediff Moneynews, the national body is led by venture capitalist veteran Satish Kataria as its first Executive Director. APAII is supported by TiE Mumbai and will act as a regulatory and operational bridge between angel investors and policymakers.
India currently has more than 100 angel funds and around 1 lakh angel investors, who deployed close to USD 1 billion in early-stage investments in FY25, as reported by APAII. The association aims to expand India's angel investor base to 1 million and position the country as the world's largest unicorn hub over the next two decades.
APAII aims to mobilise USD 3 billion in early-stage capital over the next five years and scale angel participation to USD 30 billion annually by 2047, according to Rediff Moneynews. The association's President Apoorva Ranjan Sharma emphasized that to build 1,000 unicorns by 2047, the country needs not just more startups, but a far deeper, more organised base of domestic risk capital standing behind them. APAII will focus on capital formation, policy advocacy, investor education, governance and due diligence.
APAII will focus on expanding the angel ecosystem beyond major cities into tier-2 and tier-3 locations, as reported by Rediff Moneynews. The association aims to build a unified, professional and policy-engaged community of angel investors who can back Indian founders at scale, creating a more inclusive and distributed network of early-stage capital across India's diverse geographic regions.
