This startup helps you invest in Indian art, real estate, and hedge funds

Photo credit: Wikipedia.

When those with money invest in the same, fast-growing and immediately gratifying trends, it creates a bubble that can easily burst if things change. And in developing economies like India, things are almost always in flux.

For an ecosystem to mature and stabilize, people need to put their money in different places that move slowly, are stable, and take a long time to grow. That’s important for the wellbeing of any economy.

One way to do that is to invest in “alternative assets”. That means things that are not typically part of a mainstream investment portfolio, like real estate, artwork, and antique furniture. It also means investing in venture capital funds, hedge funds, and distressed securities – company bonds that are not doing so well.

Of course, that’s easier said than done – away from the madding crowd, there are plenty of questions about where to put money, which assets to back, and how to track progress.

That’s the tricky problem Abhinandan Balasubramaniam stumbled upon. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Altflo, a platform for investors to meet alternate asset owners that need money, and track and manage their investments once deals are finalized.

The startup has two services. The first is a marketplace that includes two tools, Dealflo and Consultflo. Together, they connect those with money with those seeking funding. It’s the marketplace side of the startup where investors find assets, and then get support from lawyers, financial advisors, and accountants.

The second is Controlflo and Dataflo, where investors can monitor their portfolios, manage equity, and see whether they’re complying with governmental regulations.

Altflo users can use any part of the platform, whether they’re VCs who just want an easy way to manage and track their portfolio companies, or they’re asset owners who want to post their offerings and wait for money.

It had four large customers when I last spoke to Abhinandan.

End to end

Photo credit: Rafael Matsunaga..

The two offerings help make Altflo a neat little package.

Putting money in a B2B company is very different from investing in a consumer-facing company, so each deal requires a slightly different service. The SaaS product is carefully tailored to fit any investor-investee agreement.