Offline, a private members’ community for tech founders and CEOs for India, has raised $2 million from a clutch of angel investors including Groww’s Lalit Keshre, Razorpay’s Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Xiaomi’s Hong Feng and Alvin Tse, Ultrahuman cofounders Mohit Kumar and Vatsal Singhal, in addition to cofounders of startups such as Shiprocket, Polygon, Park+, Fashinza, GoKwik, Mosaic Wellness and others.

The community platform, launched by Utsav Somani, former India head of AngelList, will build a close-knit community of startup founders with a certain growth trajectory. “They need to meet either of these criteria to even apply – $5 million raised or $5 million in revenue or $10 million in a previous exit,” according to a statement. Microfunds such as Better Capital, DeVC, Huddle, Riverwalk Ventures, and India Silicon Valley have also backed Offline.

Somani said that tech founders typically get invited to large-scale events with 100-150 people, something that “doesn’t add as much value as the discussions that happen in private rooms and something that many founders don’t have access to.” We are bringing in the best executive coaches and trained facilitators in the country and even globally to build out a playbook that will enable us to host these monthly meetings with 6-8 founders that we will have in our member network. We will curate these very selectively, he said, adding that the selection of members will happen through a two-tier system.

“(In the first phase) the Offline team – of people that have worked at Soho House and Quorum – will be involved…following which five to six people who are respected in the startup ecosystem for building large companies will shortlist members,” Somani said. Somani added that Offline is looking to build a community of a few hundred members across Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru and will soon expand to Singapore and Dubai.

Offline’s launch comes at a time when paid communities and networks for entrepreneurs and those in the startup ecosystem are coming up. In 2020, two former Zomato executives, Ragini Das and Anand Sinha, came together to launch Leap. Club – a social platform for women professionals, which provides a membership model through which its users are able access a curated network of peers, executive coaching, upskilling programs, and mental wellness support. According to information sourced from Tracxn, Leap. The club has so far raised $2.6 million from investors, including Titan Capital, Whiteboard Venture Partners, Enzia, Artha India Ventures, and AngelList.