PedalStart to mentor 2,000 founders in FY24: Co-founder Manas Pal

A lot of budding entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for the right mentorship which can help shape up their startup journey. Gurugram-based PedalStart builds on this idea by offering a community-driven platform where young entrepreneurs can learn from the best in the industry, polish their ideas and skills, and do lots more. There is also an accelerator as an additional layer to complement the community platform.

Since its inception in 2021, PedalStart’s community has grown to 10,000 startups, over 300 mentors, and 800 founders. We spoke to PedalStart’s co-founder Manas Pal to learn more about his startup accelerator and community platform. We also asked Pal about the expansion plans, working model, revenue, and lots more.

Pal told Entrackr that PedalStart aims to build a community of highly curated startup founders, which are handpicked and not more than 1,000 founders in a year.

“PedalStart runs an accelerator on top of our community, and picks some startups in the community based on a certain selection process,” said Pal.

Sector agnostic PedalStart invests across agritech, insuretech, cleantech healthcare & network and is looking to invest in sectors such as robotics, medical science, deep-tech and others.  It has backed startups like Newtral.io, BetterSpace, Bull Agritech, OhLocal, and Rupid, among others.

“We hardly pick 80 or 90 startups for the community out of 1,000 companies and give them access for three months where they can learn a lot of things,” added Pal.

Out of these 80-90 startups, PedalStart picks 3-4% in the acceleration space and charges advisory equity of 2 to 4%. This is the main revenue model for the firm while it also charges Rs 6,000 per company when it onboards them and gives them access to a community.

Pal further said that the main intent is to only make money in equities, not in cash. The platform also invests in its accelerator startups and other companies.

Co-founded by Pal and Aditya Darolia, PedalStart has received applications for community access of more than 20,000 startups, whereas over 1,500 startups have been given entry to the community. The company claims that it has accelerated more than 80 startups and funded over 15 companies to date.

Pal said that the average valuation of its portfolio startups is between $1.2 million and $1.3 million. On average, each company raised close to Rs 60-70 lakhs. “The platform also builds a lot of small networks of investors and invests in a check-size from Rs five lakhs to 50 lakhs,” he added.

Going forward, PedalStart expects to onboard 2,000 founders to its community during this fiscal year and plans to invest in close to 20 to 30 startups at least, and accelerate close to 40 startups. It has raised $350,000 in total funding to date and as per Pal, it has no plans to raise a new round soon.