Lead Angels Network: India's Pioneer Alumni Angel Network — Your First Institutional Cheque

Lead Angels Network is a Mumbai-headquartered, sector-agnostic angel investment network founded in 2014 by Sushanto Mitra (Founder & CEO, ex-founding CEO of SINE at IIT Bombay and former director of Hyderabad Angels) together with C. Amarnath and Bipin Kumar — all three IIT Bombay alumni. Described as "India's first privately owned angel network", it was built to be the first institutional cheque in a startup, with an alumni-focused investor base spanning Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Hyderabad chapters.

Investment thesis

Lead Angels is sector-agnostic by design, writing early cheques where the founding team and the idea matter more than sector tailwinds. Its investor base of successful entrepreneurs across sectors gives founders operator-angel capital at the stage it matters most. Through its fund arm, it also pursues a focused SaaS, medtech and fintech mandate.

Sectors & stages

Early-stage / seed. Historically invested across agriculture, ecommerce, education, hospitality, internet, gaming, retail, semiconductors, entertainment, transportation, logistics, food-tech and D2C; the Lead Angels Fund focuses on SaaS, medtech and fintech.

Fund size & cheque sizes

The network reports ~400 angel investors from India and overseas, 80 investments and 19 rounds led (2023), with an average angel ticket size of ₹1–1.5 crore (per Sushanto Mitra, 2019). Separately, the Lead Angels Fund is a ₹300 crore SEBI Category-I AIF launched in 2022 (₹5 crore first close in January 2022 from ~20 investors), writing average cheques of ₹1.5–2 crore with a 10-year lifecycle. Caveat: as of October 2026 the official domain leadangels.in resolves to a parking page — the site is currently down, so some figures are point-in-time press statements.

Notable portfolio

Reported investments and exits include Supr Daily (exited — acquired by Swiggy), Planet Superheroes (exited — acquired by Nazara's NODWIN Gaming), Belita (exit), Aha Taxi (acquired by Ebix India), plus Shopkirana, PlanetSpark, SkyeAir, Dhruva Space, Moonshine Meadery, OckyPocky, PurpleDocs, Saarthi.ai, Hello Verify, Godesi and KidEx (a ₹1.6 crore investment — the fund's first).

Partners & team

Sushanto Mitra is Founder & CEO and the managing partner of the Lead Angels Fund's 7-member investment team. The network runs Lead Advisory, an arm assisting companies with fundraising, compliance and governance, plus LA Management & Professional Services for portfolio support. A 2019 MoU with the IIT Madras Alumni Association extended its alumni-investor model beyond IIT Bombay.

Programmes run

City chapters across Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Hyderabad anchor the network's activity, alongside Lead Advisory and the SEBI-registered fund itself. No structured accelerator or cohort programme was verifiable.

Credits & perks

None found — no credits or perks programme is publicly advertised.

How to engage

Not verifiable: with the official website down, no current application process, criteria or contact flow could be confirmed from credible sources. Founders historically engaged through chapter networks and regular pitch events.