Neythri Futures Fund (NFF) - A Tryst for South Asian Women to Come Together to Deploy Capital and Share Expertise With Women Entrepreneurs
Mythili Sankaran- Indiaspora member and Founding Managing Partner of Neythri Futures Fund(NFF) experienced a rampant and recurring social phenomenon in South Asian social events and get-togethers. Men would gather in the living room and talk shop (business) and women would huddle in the kitchen-cooking, serving or taking care of children. “Not once do I remember having a conversation with another woman about my professional interests,” tells Sankaran.
She decided to break the stereotype and sit in the living room with the men and participate in the business discussions.
This recurrent common practice and her own experiences as a first time entrepreneur opened the doors for the need for a new paradigm and a place for professional women of South Asian descent to come together to talk business, professional development goals and a peer network of support.
Neythri.org- a non profit community for networking of South Asian professional women was started by Sankaran and two of her close friends who also felt the need for a professional networking organization for South Asian women. Neythri is a Sanskrit term meaning female leader and shining light.
While distinct from Neythri.org (the non-profit), the Neythri Futures Fund was set up as a sister organization, a year later.
The fund leverages the talented and growing base of South Asian female leaders and entrepreneurs represented in the Neythri community.
“The last two years have been very hectic, crazy and full of learning. The first eight months were spent in setting up the fund, fundraising and in administrative and operations activities,” recalls Mythili Sankaran-the founder and Managing Partner of the fund.
The Neythri Futures Fund that caps at ten million dollars invests in South Asian female founders and enterprises with diverse founding teams based in the US building innovative enterprise tech-enabled solutions for the global market. South Asian women are 80% of the investors and stakeholders in the fund.
“By design, it's a ten million fund because the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows you to have up to 249 investors for a fund under ten million. I wanted to have as many women as possible as LPs (limited partners). For many limited partners, this is their first foray into the venture capital ecosystem. For founding 50 LP’s the initial investment was $10,000. Now it's been raised to a minimum of $25,000,” tells Sankaran.
She has purposefully kept the fund small and in the US to keep things simple and not get into taxation and other complexities that arise from cross border fund management.
Due to her own background, the fund focuses on enterprise tech for easier due diligence. “We co invest with other top tier VCs as NFF is a small fund and I do not have the staff to do the same level of due diligence that a bigger VC can do. Our check sizes range between $100K-500K. Our USP is our LP network. These women bring in a wealth of experience and expertise and are eager to share it with entrepreneurs. For many of us-it's our way to give back and pay it forward,” tells Sankaran.
“Venture investment is very risky by nature.It has been very heartening and promising to see the risk appetite amongst the younger South Asian women. I have a lot of young South Asian women reaching out and asking if they can invest,” tells Mythili.
The Neythri Futures Fund offers South Asian women the opportunity to expand their knowledge base, amplify their influence, and strengthen their financial position by entering and participating in the investment arena.
It offers an opportunity to do all of this while advancing the representation of both South Asian women investors and diverse teams of entrepreneurs.
The fund has invested in an eclectic mix of companies with female founders like Rupa Health-an administrative portal offering a simpler way to order speciality lab work wanting to disrupt the digital health ecosystem helmed by Tara Vishwanathan and Cacheflow that aims to simplify and streamline to SaaS buying experience headed by Sarika Garg to Virtualness -a mobile-first platform making it easy for any creator or brand to scale their business and easily capture the value-creation opportunity that blockchain presents started by Kirthiga Reddy.
Speaking about her career journey and the power of sponsorship, Sankaran feels that supportive allies in positions of power help turn the tides dramatically.
“My husband gave me the confidence to fail. While I had been an angel investor and a limited partner in other funds, being a General Partner in a venture fund is a totally different ball game and It’s not easy.” says Sankaran.
While appreciating mentorship and advice on running a fund, she feels that sponsorship (endorsements) by venture capital gurus like Naveen Chhadha and Neeraj Gupta have added immense credibility to the fund. These veteran investors helped via not just suggestions on running a fund but also by introductions to their contacts and active endorsements.
Sankaran is seeing a rise in South Asian female entrepreneurs taking on problems for its niche demographics like skin care and women's health issues etc. “I also see many middle career women wanting to start their companies. Not all might be venture scale companies. Some maybe just lifestyle enterprises, but the hunger to do something on their own is there and risk appetite is growing. I see various flavors of entrepreneurs,” concludes Sankaran.
Shalini Kathuria Narang is a software professional and a freelance journalist. She has reported for national and international newspapers, magazines and news sites. She is also a poet and her poems have been published in several anthologies including Starry Nights: Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley and Pixie Dust and All Things Magical. She is a monthly contributor to Masticadores USA and has been published on Spillwords Press and San Antonio Press. She is originally from New Delhi and currently resides in the Bay Area, California.
