Dhananjay Abhang, Founder & CEO, Kisangas

I'm Dhananjay Abhang. I'm the founder and CEO of Kisangas. We are a social enterprise based in Pune, India. We mainly work in decentralized biogas technology.

I think for any startup, raising investment is very important, and it's like a regular activity. One of the few experiences about the investor meetings that I got is one of the investors actually suggested, Why are you raising money right now? Because do you really need money? That is very important.

I think during initial days, you should not actually just randomly pitch it to the investors. You should really do some introspection and internally work out, do you really need money? Apart from the investors, are there any other opportunities? For example, in India, there are different incubation centers from where you can actually have access to different grants.

Whenever you are trying to approach an investor, you should at least have a clarity about why you need money for what you need. That clarity must be there. Then you should actually do your homework before approaching the investor, whether that investor will really invest at this stage, where you are right now. That is very, very important. You should be brave enough to share some feedback, the negative feedback that you got from the customers that these are the improvements that are required in your product or service, which you can definitely execute once you get the investment. I think having transparency and sharing all the correct information to the investors, that is also very much important.

During the initial days, you keep talking to the investors, your potential investors. So have a list of all these potential investors ready with you. Keep talking to them because one is relationship building, which is also very important.

 Dhananjay’s Lessons

• Clarity is key. Ask yourself: Why are you raising money right now? Do you really need it?  

• Investment readiness can take time to achieve, so explore opportunities such as incubators and grants to support you in the early stages. 

• Nurture potential investor relationships as you grow your organization with other sources of support, and enter discussions with openness and transparency.