The NITI Aayog – Government of India’s policy think tank – had organized a FinTech Conclave in March 2019. This invitation only event brought together thought-leaders from the industry for a day long workshop to help shape the narrative of India’s strategy and policy on FinTech, and included participation of senior officials from the Government, Banking and Market Regulators and industry leaders.
Following the Conclave, a select council of 30 members met in September to take stock of and make decisions on various recommendations emerging from the Conclave. These included deliberations and decisions on Inter-Regulatory Sandbox, comprehensive solutions for e-KYC challenges, MSME loan turnaround programs, regulatory frameworks around blockchain etc.
Avaana Capital was invited to and participated in this council.

The AIWMI India Wealth Awards 2019, held on September 6, recognized outstanding achievement by individuals and organizations in the wealth management industry. The awards aim to recognize and inspire innovation and leadership across the spectrum in the sector.
The Jury for the awards consisted of industry veterans and academics, and selected winners from more than 400 organizations and individuals across various categories. Ms Anjali Bansal, founder of Avaana Capital, was invited to be part of the Jury

DFID India Development Capital Investments held an invitation-only Early Market Engagement event for select participants in April 2019. The purpose of the engagement was to share their proposed design, and gather market feedback, ahead of issuing RFPs for their Start-up and INVENT programs, that propose to support select Funds in India with a deployment target of upto £30 million.
Avaana was an invited and active participant in this discussion, and provided a few inputs to shape the thinking and operational design of the program.

SIDBI celebrated its Foundation Day with a day-long Investor meet. This was an opportunity for us to engage with very early stage start-ups, understand the activity and trends in this space, and add companies to our watch-list, for consideration over the next 12-24 months.

The Government of Maharashtra (with PwC as supporting partners) has started the FinTech Investors and Deals (FInD) program to catalyze strategic partnerships between investors, start-ups and partners. As a signatory to the MoU, Avaana will have direct access to curated deals – scored and screened by PwC on specified criteria. In addition, we will have access to continuous matchmaking platform that gives us visibility into start-ups – not only at our stages of investment, but also early stage start-ups that will be added to our watch-list.

In June 2019, Avaana convened and chaired the second meeting of the Investment Council of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform, established under the aegis of the NITI Aayog. The aim of the council for the year is look into various issues faced by women entrepreneurs, including investment education and awareness, identifying funding gaps and fund-raising for double bottom line ventures. Additionally, the focus this year is to promote entrepreneurship and financial inclusion in the FinTech domain. The Council saw participation from leading public and private sector organizations including IFC, Facebook, Google, DFID, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, amongst others. The Women Transforming India awards have been launched under this platform, and Avaana will support them.

NITI Aayog – the Government of India’s policy think tank – organized the FinTech Conclave in March 2019. This invitation only event brought together thought-leaders from the industry for a day long workshop to help shape the narrative of India’s strategy and policy on FinTech, and included participation of senior officials from the Government, Banking and Market Regulators and industry leaders.

On Women’s Day in 2018, the NITI Aayog (Government of India’s policy thinktank) had launched the Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) – an initiative aimed at building an ecosystem for women across India to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations, scale-up innovative initiatives and chalk out sustainable, long-term strategies for their businesses. WEP was envisaged during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad in 2017.
In September 2018, the Investment Council of WEP was kicked off, chaired by Ms Anjali Bansal – Founder of Avaana Capital. The Council has representatives from multilateral agencies (such as IFC), corporate India (such as Google, Facebook and Mahindra and Mahindra), other development oriented institutions (such as SEWA and Tata Trusts); and aims to identify specific hurdles faced by women entrepreneurs in accessing funds, develop a simple process to create a more equal environment for women entrepreneurs and facilitate fund raising for promising, women led businesses.

The world’s first Gender Smart Investing Summit was held in London in November 2018. The invitation only forum brought together 300 thought leaders and game changers from a range of backgrounds including leading DFIs, fund of funds, investment managers and entrepreneurs; to drive collaborative dialogue and unlock barriers to deploying capital in a gender-smart way.
Ms. Anjali Bansal, the Founder of Avaana Capital, co-led the Regional Discussion Room for South Asia.

The Ecosystem Summit by Inc42, an invite-only, 250 people summit, brought together policymakers, CEOs, founders, investors and other luminaries. The event saw the launch of a comprehensive report on the State of the Indian Startup Ecosystem, unveiling of India’s most innovative startups list and a multitude of discussions on starting and scaling up businesses.
Speaking at the session on “The Bulls and Bears of India’s VC Industry”, Anjali Bansal – Founder of Avaana Capital – said that decision making can be decentralized and informal when you start up, but as a company grows, you need to put in place systems to accommodate diverse thoughts, styles and ideas.