MFC planning to close 12 investments in 2012

Company is visiting campuses across country,scouting for deals and disruptive ideas that are scalable.

Newly launched seed capital fund MyFirstCheque (MFC) is targeting 12 investments in 2012 and expects a fourth of them to be start-ups promoted by students,a top official said.

“We are looking at making 12 investments in 2012. The scene on campuses is buzzing with ideas presently and we are sure that three of the investments will either be garage start-ups by students or from the campuses,” fund partner Gautam Sinha said over the phone from Dubai.

He said the company is already visiting campuses across the country,scouting for deals and disruptive ideas that are scalable. Typically,the fund started by Sinha along with his two friends,invests Rs 20 lakh to Rs 25 lakh in a newly incorporated company at a very nascent stage,making the investment a high risk game.

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Sinha said MFC typically picks up a 10 to 30 per cent stake in the start-up and is looking toward staying invested for up to three years,following which it will sell its stake to a larger venture capital fund.

The fund,launched earlier this year,made its third investment in a Bangalore-based web start-up,OfferGrid Networks,recently and is in advanced stages of doing two more deals,which will be closed before end-2011,Sinha said.

“We are a distribution network for discounted deals and will help businesses set up discount shops online. The idea is to get a deal closer to a buyer as he goes through some reading material on a product by advertising,” OfferGrid Chief Executive Deepankar Biswas said.

OfferGrid,which got incorporated only last month,already has a tie-up with 10 ‘publishers’ and eight companies that put up their products for discounted deals,which gives it the power to float up to 6,000 offers everyday,he said.