The Desi VC: Indian Venture Capital | Angel Investors | Startups | VC (Akash Bhat)

Rohit Sood is the Partner at Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), an investment firm that invests in companies in the digital, education, media, and services sectors. The firm also focuses on early-stage, as well as growth-stage investments. Rohit was the founding team member and has been part of Bertelsmann from Day 0 having seen the growth of the fund over the last decade as well played an instrumental part in shaping India’s startup ecosystem. Prior to Bertelsmann, he spent some time at Deutche Bank and holds an MBA from IIM-Kohzikode with a Bachelors from IIT Delhi.

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Episode Notes:

1. Intro (1:50)
2. Why did Rohit pick a career in venture (3:42)
3. Trading vs venture capital (7:30)
4. Indian growth story: 2010-present (10:37)
5. Learnings from backing companies that haven’t scaled as per expectations (16:10)
6. How does Berterslman conduct its post mortem on startups (20:40)
7. How does one build a great working relationship with their portfolio founders and guide them (28:06)
8. How and what do investors mean when they talk about market? (32:42)
9. Can the market be manipulated (35:42)
10. Thoughts on investing in the ‘Valley of death’ (41:15)
11. Exits for VCs (50:10)
12. Insights from investing in winners (54:50)
13. What can we expect from India in the coming years (1:03:01)
14. How has Rohit evolved as an investor over the years (1:07:30)

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Social Links:

BII on Twitter: https://twitter.com/biifund

Rohit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/doostihor

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash 

Navin Honagudi is the Managing Partner at Elev8 Venture Partners, an India-focused $200M Growth-stage fund. Elev8 focuses on Series B and C rounds of financing in hyper growth companies. He bring 18+ years of experience investing in early and growth stage technology firms and also held the positions of Co-founder and Partner at Kae Capital.

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Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (1:48)
2. How Naveen entered venture capital (2:24)
3. Comparing entrepreneurs: 2000s vs. today (4:45)
4. Indian VC landscape & expected exits/returns in the 2000s (8:38)
5. What Elev8 looks for in founders (11:45)
6. Why India is exciting today (18:01)
7. Opportunities in offline to online transition in India (25:30)
8. Emerging sectors like faith-tech (28:15)
9. Next billion dollar opportunities: alcohol, sex-tech, betting, gaming (32:25)
10. Summarizing investment experiences: CVC, consumer VC, and growth-stage VC (37:25)
11. Investing in early-stage vs. growth-stage (42:15)
12. Advice Naveen would give his younger self (45:28)

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Social Links:

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠Navin on Twitter⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠Navin on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Prayank Swaroop is a Partner at Accel, and joined the firm in 2011.

He focuses on cybersecurity, developer tools, marketplaces, and SaaS investments. Some of the investments led by him are - Aavenir, Bizongo, Maverix, OnsiteGo, Securden, Slintel, Skeps, and Zetwerk.

Prior to Accel, he worked at Adobe and Standard Chartered Bank in India and Singapore. He held positions across engineering, product marketing, pre-sales, and product management.

He has an integrated master's degree in Mathematics and Computing from IIT Delhi and an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

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Episode Notes:

1. What made Prayank take a bet on venture as a career path (3:38)
2. Naivety in venture capital (7:10)
3. Where is venture as of October 2023, post the global slow down (9:50) 
4. Sectors that have shown massive potential in spite of it being a dull year in terms of venture activity (18:18)
5. Insights gained by Prayank over the course of his ten years of investment experience (22:15)
6. How to evaluate people as an investor (27:38)
7. How would Prayank rebuild his career as an investor if given a chance to restart (38:37)
8. Advice to founders (48:15)

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Social Links:

1. Follow Prayank on Twitter
2. Follow ⁠Prayank on LinkedIn⁠
3. Follow ⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠
4. Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠
5. Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Nitin Jain is a well-known name in the Indian startup ecosystem as the co-founder and Chief Business Officer of OfBusiness, a tech-enabled platform that provides raw material procurement and credit solutions to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. With a strong background in structured solutions trading, Nitin has played a key role in OfBusiness' success, helping the company raise over $875M from top investors like Tiger Global, SoftBank Vision Fund, and Matrix Partners, among others. Today, OfBusiness is valued at around $5B and has become a leading player in the Indian SME ecosystem. Nitin Jain is an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and has had a successful career prior to his entrepreneurial journey.

Episode Notes:

1. Nitin Jain discusses his journey into entrepreneurship (2:10)
2. Discovering Co-Founders and Creating the OfBusiness Idea (3:55)
3. Nitin Jain shares his perspective on what's more critical: the team or the idea (6:30)
4. The Early Days of OfBusiness: A Look Back at the "Aha Moment" (9:15)
5. Coping with the Struggles and Insecurities of Being a Founder (12:30)
6. Understanding the Composition of Winning Founding Teams (16:30)
7. Nitin Jain's Unique Leadership Style and Approach (23:10)
8. Fostering a People-First Culture at OfBusiness (27:10)
9. Developing a Strong Company Culture as Companies Grow (29:18)
10. How to Maximize the Benefits of Your Investors (32:22)
11. Overcoming the Toughest Days as a Founder (39:20)
12. Nitin Jain's Biggest Lesson as an Entrepreneur (41:57)
13. Advice to His Younger Self: What Nitin Jain Would Have Done Differently (46:03)

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Social Links:

OfBusiness on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ofbusiness_com

Abhishek Goyal on Twitter: https://twitter.com/njain351

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Karan Desai is the Founder and Managing Partner at Interface Ventures, an early-stage venture fund based out of Mumbai, India. He’s an operator turned investor who brings a diverse skill set that encompasses extensive experience in operations, investment banking, and financial consulting.

Prior to Interface, he was the Joint Managing Director at Trucap Finance Ltd., a rapidly expanding NBFC listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange which specializes in providing finance to MSME businesses in India.

In addition to this, Karan founded exerFIT, a globally recognized lifestyle nutrition and supplementation brand endorsed by top athletes and Bollywood stars.

Throughout his career, Karan has held key roles at distinguished brands such as Bank of America, PwC, Centrum Capital, and the HEAL Institute. His academic credentials include a Masters from the University of Westminster, London, and a Bachelors from Narsee Monjee College, Mumbai, where he graduated with distinction.

Episode Notes:

1. Intro (2:28)
2. Journey into venture capital (3:53)
3. How is Interface Ventures structured? (11:20)
4. Looking back at Karan's founder stint: ExerFit (17:55)
5. How to keep things lean and bootstrap (25:06)
6. How does Karan invest, knowing what he knows today as a former founder? (29:25)
7. How has venture impacted Karan as a person? (36:11)
8. Learning from founders that Karan has invested in and worked with (40:56)
9. Advice to a younger self (45:49)

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Social links:

Interface Ventures on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/interfaceven/

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Rajat Tandon is the President of IVCA, India's apex body representing the interests of PE/VC industry, Real estate, Infrastructure and Credit funds, Limited Partners, Family offices & Corporate VC's. Rajat leads the planning, development, and implementing IVCA’s regulatory advocacy activities, while also effectively influencing regulatory outcomes in support of the alternate asset class.

Previously, Rajat was part of the leadership team at NASSCOM, where he headed NASSCOM’s 10,000 Startups initiative, providing crucial support to technology startups in India.

With his early stint as entrepreneur and extensive corporate experience in the IT & Telecom and GIS/Navigable maps, Rajat competently bridges the gap between boardroom expertise and on-the-ground experience. Over the past 25+ years, he has worked in various positions ranging from technical support, sales leadership, service delivery to strategic initiatives at Siemens, Nortel, and Nokia.

Rajat also brings with him his extensive network in the startups space, having worked closely with most of the eminent industry leaders. His knowledge of the startup ecosystem, its constituents, successes, opportunities, and challenges run deep. He is also a member of CII National Start-up Council.

A Post-Graduate in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management Technology (IIMT), Ghaziabad, Rajat also has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Pune University. When not busy with the VC-PE and startup communities, you will find him spending quality time with family or enjoying a game of Golf.​

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Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (2:00)
2. The evolution of the Indian VC ecosystem in the past decade (3:20)
3. IVCA's pivotal role in the advancement of the Indian VC ecosystem (5:06)
4. Rajat's career path (7:45)
5. IVCA's remarkable milestones and contributions (17:55)
6. Envisioning a thriving startup ecosystem (26:04)
7. Inspiring success stories from India's vibrant startup landscape (42:20)
8. Rajat's lasting legacy: Shaping the future of Venture Capital (51:29)

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Social Links:

IVCA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/indianvca

Rajat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rajattandy

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash 

Nandini Mansinghka is the CEO of Mumbai Angels, an investment firm that now operates under the 360 One umbrella. She came on board as the third Co-Founder, operating partner, and CEO in 2017. She has vast years of experience across the Investment Banking, Media, and Education industries and worked for 5+ years with J.P. Morgan in India in leadership positions in the Investment Banking research group. Before J.P. Morgan, she has worked for over 5 years with the Times of India Group. She also holds a professional degree as a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Episode Notes:

1. Intro (2:11)
2. Career trajectory (3:40)
3. The role of families in career progression (17:11)
4. Nandini's stint as an entrepreneur (23:49)
5. Growth of the average Indian angel investor in the last 5-10 years (34:15)
6. Mumbai Angels' deal flow management in the context of macro trends explained (49:53)
7. The role of Mumbai Angels in the next chapter of India's growth (57:00)

⁠Karthik Prabhakar⁠ is the Managing Partner at ⁠PeerCapital⁠, an early-stage investment fund in India focused on seed to Series A rounds. Karthik has been a part of the Indian tech ecosystem since 2005, with a wealth of experience in venture capital, product development, and marketing. Prior to PeerCapital, Karthik was the Managing Director at Chiratae Ventures (formerly known as IDG Ventures).

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Episode Notes:

1. What still excites Karthik about India today (2:35)
2. Staying ahead of trends as an investor (5:11)
3. India’s trajectory over the next 10-15 years (10:18)
4. Karthik’s evolution as an investor from the beginning to now (17:40)
5. How to build a strong network in venture capital (21:20)
6. Building a world-class institution in venture capital (26:40)
7. Measuring the factors that contribute to a VC fund’s brand (31:30)
8. The importance of branding for a VC fund (33:45)
9. PeerCapital’s success in building a brand (40:22)
10. How to genuinely add value as an investor (46:46)
11. Is competition beneficial for a VC fund? (54:30)
12. Why gaming is a focus area for PeerCapital (57:05)
13. Top 3 lessons from Karthik’s investing career (1:03:35)

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Social links

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Karthik on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Karthik on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠

Sagar Kochhar is the Co-founder of Rebel Foods, and CEO of Eatsure. After completing his engineering degree from NIT Kurukshetra and an MBA from SCMHRD Pune, he began as a design engineer with Larsen & Toubro, then moved to Perfetti Van Melle and Vodafone in marketing roles. At Rebel Foods, he initially joined as Sr. VP of Operations, playing a crucial role in building brands from scratch to multi-million-dollar valuations. Since becoming Group CMO in 2016, Sagar has led brand growth across geographies, focusing on innovative campaigns and community engagement to strengthen brand equity and deliver memorable consumer experiences.

In 2020, he launched and became the CEO of Eatsure, a food delivery platform and brand created by Rebel Foods that focuses on providing safe, quality-assured food from a curated selection of restaurant brands. It’s known for its "100% Safe Food Guarantee," where every meal is prepared following strict hygiene and safety protocols. Eatsure's app aggregates multiple brands under one platform, offering a wide variety of cuisines through a virtual food court concept. It also uses technology to track and assure quality across Rebel Foods’ cloud kitchens, enabling customers to order from different brands in one single order.

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Episode Notes:

1. The journey of Rebel Foods: From inception to today (2:50)
2. Cracking the cloud kitchen business model (24:11)
3. Insights from Sagar on India's evolving food consumption habits (31:45)
4. Leveraging technology and AI to drive Rebel Foods' operations (43:13)
5. Leadership transformation throughout the company’s growth (52:55)

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Social links

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sagar on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sagar on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠

Anish is the Co-founder and CEO of Open, a neo-banking platform which provides business banking services to SMEs and startups. With over 17 years in the fintech industry, Anish has a rich entrepreneurial background. In 2001, he co-founded his first startup, iFuturz Wireless, focusing on mobile value-added services. In 2007, he founded CashNxt, a plug-and-play mobile payment and financial inclusion platform for semi-urban and rural markets, which was later acquired by a Latin American company. In 2009, he built Neartivity Wireless, an NFC-based payment processing platform. In 2013, he co-founded Zwitch, India’s first developer-focused payment platform, which was acquired by Citrus Payments in 2015. At CitrusPay and later at PayU, Anish interacted with numerous SMEs and realized that banking was broken for small businesses, with owners struggling to track their income and expenses, leading him to found Open.

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Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (1:50)
2. Why entrepreneurship? (2:37)
3. Selling his first company (9:00)
4. Building fintech in India from 2010 to 2024 (13:45)
5. Why Open and what was the vision for the company when it was initially founded? (18:48)
6. Building trust as an early Neo bank in India (23:20)
7. Lessons from building multiple startups (28:20)
8. Building and nurturing culture (33:20)
9. Building during the years of the pandemic (40:55)
10. Growing as a leader (47:55)
11. Challenges of building a company at scale (52:20)
12. Vision for Open in the coming years (56:38)
13. Advice Anish would have given himself early in his career (58:55)

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Social Links:

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Anish on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Anish on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Swati Bhargava is the Co-Founder of CashKaro.com, India’s largest Cashback & Coupons site, backed by Kalaari Capital, Korea investment partners and Affle. Swati first started Pouring Pounds with her husband Rohan Bhargava in the UK in 2011. Seeing the huge opportunity in India they launched CashKaro.com in April 2013. Swati is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and has worked at Goldman Sachs in London for 5 years before embarking on the path of entreprneurship. In this episode we’ll cover her decade long journey building a consumer business and all things she’s learned about being a founder and growing as leader.

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Episode Notes:

1. Swati's journey into entrepreneurship (2:54)
2. Influence of parents on career decisions (7:30)
3. Essential advice for aspiring and first-time entrepreneurs (10:40)
4. Embracing uncertainty in entrepreneurship (15:25)
5. Founder’s evolution as the company grows (18:35)
6. Cultivating company culture (23:55)
7. Pros and cons of having your life partner as a co-founder (31:40)
8. Early days of CashKaro: Customer acquisition, attracting investors, and brand building (34:50)
9. How capital empowers founders (39:04)
10. Taking a step back to move forward (42:42)
11. Investor sentiment in 2024 (45:28)
12. Transformations in the Indian startup ecosystem over the past decade (47:45)
13. CashKaro’s larger vision and future outlook (52:54)
14. Spirituality and mental resilience as a founder (59:36)
15. The importance of vulnerability in leadership (1:02:52)
16. Advice to a younger Swati (1:09:02)

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Social links

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Swati on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Swati on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Dhirendra Mahyavanshi is the Co-Founder of Turtlemint, an online insurance platform backed by Nexus Venture Partners, Peak XV, Jungle Ventures, GGV Capital, Blume Ventures among others. The company is on a mission to makes it easy to understand and buy insurance.

Before founding this company he held leadership positions at Quikr and ICICI Lombard. He holds an MBA degree from The IIM Calcutta.

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Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (1:20)
2. Early exposure to entrepreneurship (2:16)
3. Influence of ICICI and Quikr roles on founding Turtlemint (5:15)
4. Startups in the 2010s: parallels and differences (8:50)
5. The inspiration behind starting Turtlemint (12:34)
6. The Indian insurance landscape in 2014 and VC sentiment (17:05)
7. Enhancing the insurance buying experience in India (21:20)
8. Insurance purchasing patterns across India’s diverse tiers (24:24)
9. The leadership journey at Turtlemint (28:25)
10. Mental models and decision-making frameworks (33:38)
11. Challenges in running Turtlemint (37:40)
12. Dhirendra's vision for Turtlemint’s future (40:01)
13. Influencing policy and regulation in India’s insurance sector (43:15)
14. Reflections on the entrepreneurial journey (47:47)

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Social links

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dhirendra on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dhirendra⁠⁠ on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn⁠⁠
   

Saurabh Pandey, co-founder and CEO of EloElo. EloElo is an app that enables live-social experiences through games and entertainment. It is currently among the top 10 Apps on the Google Play Store in India with over 10M downloads. It accommodates 34,000 creators and offers a staggering 400 million minutes of live content. The company has raised $15M from Kalaari Capital, KB Investment, Lumikai, WaterBridge Ventures and Better Capital.

Before Eloelo, he accumulated a decade of experience in various domains such as marketing, product and growth at Flipkart and P&G.

Episode notes:

1. Introduction (2:05)
2. Rationale behind entrepreneurship: Saurabh's motivation for founding EloElo (2:59)
3. Resilience and conviction: Saurabh's renewed pursuit of entrepreneurship following a prior setback (10:25)
4. Early Validation of EloElo (18:03)
5. Standing out in a competitive landscape: EloElo's approach to capturing attention in the content and entertainment industry (26:16)
6. Building alongside ICPs (34:14)
7. The significance of timing in the company's growth trajectory (41:12)
8. Insights gained as a CEO: Key lessons learned by Saurabh (49:18)
9. Saurabh's framework for decision making (59:42)
10. Non-negotiable principles: Saurabh's core values and beliefs (1:10:26)
11. Saurabh's reflections – advice to the younger self (1:16:55)

. . .

Social Links:

EloElo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eloeloapp

Saurabh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Saurabh65616912

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Mayuresh Raut is the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Seafund, investing in pre-Series A startups in India with investments in companies such as Wigzo, Inc42, Zippee, ClooTrack among others. SEA Fund’s mission is to help the next set of technical founders, with small amounts of early capital in getting to market to build efficient and scalable businesses. He is an Engineer and an MBA and is an alumnus of Virginia Tech and INSEAD, has over 21 years of leadership experience with global clients in Manufacturing, Construction & Analytics in Financial Services & Healthcare and has been investing in startups for over 10 years.

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Episode Notes:

1. Why pursue a career in venture capital? (2:33)
2. What excites investors about India today compared to when they first started? (4:24)
3. Improving policy-making: How India has evolved (10:24)
4. Areas where India can excel on the global stage (18:55)
5. Adopting a long-term perspective on investing (32:15)
6. Accelerating India's middle-class growth and GDP (36:17)
7. Cultivating the next generation of top entrepreneurs (43:35)
8. India's trajectory over the next decade (52:13)

. . .

Social links

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mayuresh on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mayuresh on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn⁠

⁠Aditya Nambiar⁠ is the co-founder of ⁠Fennel⁠, a modern feature engineering platform that enables you to author, compute, store, serve, monitor, and govern both real-time and batch ML features, backed by Foundational Capital. Before diving into entrepreneurship, Aditya built products at Google and Facebook, and is an IIT-B alumnus.

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Episode notes:

1. Introduction (1:40)
2. Why choose entrepreneurship? (2:32)
3. The mindset shift: Small teams solving big problems vs. hyper-focused challenges (9:05)
4. When is a product truly ready to ship? (12:10)
5. What does it take for someone transitioning from big tech to thrive in startups? (16:44)
6. Beyond technical skills: What to look for in an early startup hire (21:08)
7. The personal impact of startup life on founders (25:51)
8. Key learnings from building a startup (32:58)
9. Aditya’s life purpose (36:05)
10. How to enjoy the process of pursuing your purpose (38:25)

. . .

Social links

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aditya on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aditya on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn⁠⁠

Aloke Bajpai is the Co-founder and CEO of ixigo.com a platform that aggregates and compares real-time travel information, prices and availability for flights, trains, buses, and hotels, and allows ticket booking through its associate websites and apps. Since ixigo's launch in 2007, the company has gone from a bootstrapped startup to India’s leading travel search and planning business, with over 20 million active users every month across mobile and web.

Aloke graduated from IIT Kanpur in 2001 and started his career at Amadeus in Europe where he held key product and technology roles, building and managing large scale web-based products and networks for the first four years of his career. He then went to INSEAD for his MBA, and returned to India to build ixigo.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. Intro (2:15)
2. Why entrepreneurship (4:11)
3. What frameworks did Aloke decide to take the plunge into entrepreneurship (11:20)
4. Why did Aloke pick travel as an industry to disrupt (14:35)
5. The Aha-moment for Ixigo (17:38)
6. Conversations with VCs in the early-stages (24:15)
7. How did Aloke and team convince their first investors (30:00)
8. Leveraging VCs to grow the company (32:40)
9. Evolution of Aloke’s leadership styles over the Yeats (37:40)
10. How do you build a strong internal company culture (42:15)
11. How did Ixigo navigate the pandemic and the challenges that came with it? (46:50)
12. Overall learnings building Ixigo (55:20)
13. Advice to younger self (59:18)

. . .

Social Links:

ixigo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ixigo

Aloke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alokebajpai

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Beerud Sheth is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 30K+ developers and handles over 4.5 billion messages per month. The company has raised more than $480M from marquee investors such as Helion Venture Partners, Tiger Global, CRV, White Oak among many others.

He was previously the co-founder of Elance (now Upwork), the world's largest online services marketplace, which went public in 2018. Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and before that at Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning software agents for personalized news filtering.

Beerud earned an M.S. in computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology & a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay.

Episode Notes:

1. What made Beerud an entrepreneur? (3:48)
2. A Retrospective on the entrepreneurial journey (13:13)
3. Unpacking the drive of serial entrepreneurs (20:15)
4. The evolution of Beerud's entrepreneurial career (23:23)
5. Navigating the pressures of entrepreneurship (28:30)
6. Insights and guidance for first-time founders (32:40)
7. The distinctive traits of exceptional founders (40:52)
8. The founder's role in business pivots (43:50)
9. Words of wisdom for his younger self (51:11)

. . .

Social Links:

Gupshup on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Gupshup

Beerud Sheth on Twitter: https://twitter.com/beerud

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Priya Saiprasad is a General Partner at Touring Capital, a fund investing in enterprise-focused AI powered global startups. She co-founded Touring after 13 years in venture capital, M&A and enterprise technology.

She was most recently a Partner at SoftBank Vision Fund, where she led investments into category-defining software companies including Pixis, Vendr, Observe.ai, CommerceIQ, Sendoso and Skedulo.

Previously, Priya was at Mayfield Fund focused on early-growth investments, and a founding member of M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), where she led investments in Go1, Workboard, PandaDoc, Element AI (acquired by ServiceNow), and Bonsai (acquired by Microsoft). Prior to that, she was a Deal Lead in Square’s M&A team leading acquisitions at the intersection of software and machine learning.

Priya was recognized by Forbes in 2018 as part of their 30 under 30 in Venture Capital list. She is actively involved with All Raise, Neythri, and several prominent Women in Tech associations. Priya holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. How did Priya end up in venture (2:36)
2. What about venture surprised Priya the most (6:00)
3. Insecurities as/of an investor (11:25)
4. Learnings as an investor when investments haven’t really worked out (17:02)
5. How can one acquire the skills to assist founders, even if they haven't personally experienced those challenges? (25:05)
6. Investing is personal: Do investors derive guidance from aspects of their life when making investment decisions? (29:35)
7. How does competition drive investors (34:52)
8. Prestige and perception in venture (41:30)
9. Advice Priya would give her younger self (47:20)

. . .

Social Links:

• Follow ⁠Priya on Twitter⁠
• Follow ⁠Priya on LinkedIn⁠
• Follow ⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠
• Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠
• Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Dheeraj Jain is the Founder and Managing Partner at Redcliffe Capital, an investment firm focusing on innovative, technology businesses in global markets. Dheeraj has invested in over 32 startups including PeeSafe, LifCare, The Man Company, Drivezy, Coho, Coutloot and Qdesq, among others. He’s also had some notable exits along the way, namely Innov8, Burger Singh & Supr Daily.

You can follow host Akash Bhat on Twitter (@bhatvakash) and visit us at thedesivc.com to know us better.

…

In this episode, we cover:

1. How Dheeraj’s journey in Venture Capital began

2. What special situation investment firm is?

3. How venture capital has evolved as an asset class in India

4. How Dheeraj builds his investment thesis

5. What Redcliffe Capital looks for in the founding team during investment

6. Consumer market in India and why Dheeraj is bullish about it

7. How Redcliffe Capital thinks about false positives/false negatives during an investment

8. Reasons why investors fall in love with startups in the consumer sector

9. Possible exit scenarios for consumer brands – what it could look like, what might be the cycles and when can VCs expect brands to give them returns

10. Redcliffe Capital’s Investment timeline – from first conversation to transfer of funds

Karan Mohla is Executive Director and Head of Consumer Media & Technology sector at Chiratae Ventures where he heads the sector focus and strategy on Consumer Media & Technology investments. He has been investing in Indian companies since 2009 and has over 15 years of experience in the technology industry across India and the US.

Prior to Chiratae Ventures, Karan worked with QVT Finance LP, a US based hedge fund and was a founding member of their Asia-Pacific practice. He earlier worked in the technology banking group at Jefferies & Company (formerly Broadview International) in Silicon Valley, where he advised several technology companies in Internet, Mobile and Enterprise Software on capital raising, M&A as well as strategic partnerships.

About Chiratae Ventures: Chiratae Ventures, formerly known as IDG Ventures was founded in 2006 by Sudhir Sethi and T.C. Meenakshisundaram, and has so far backed 76 companies including Flipkart, Myntra, FirstCry, XpressBees, Newgen, Lenskart, Manthan, NestAway, PolicyBazaar, and Yatra, among others. The firm rebranded itself in 2018 to signify its focus on staying agile and sharp, like a ‘Chiratae’, or leopard, in the ever changing startup ecosystem.

You can follow Karan on Twitter (@KaranMohla) and while you’re at it you can also follow our host, Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash)

…

In this episode, we cover:

1. Covid-19 Impact on Investments and Venture Capital

2. Karan’s Background and Journey in VC

3. Evolution of Venture as an Asset Class in India

4. Exit Scenarios for VCs in India

5. Evolution of Business Models in India

6. Shift from Ad-based Model to Subscription-based Model

7. Rise of Digital Media Marketplaces in India

8. Purchasing Trends in Consumer Markets – Media, e-Commerce, Finance

9. Learnings from within Chiratae Ventures’ Portfolio

10. Where is the Next Big Innovation in Consumer Market going to come from?

Rama Bethmangalkar is the Director at Qualcomm Ventures. He joined Qualcomm with 17 years of experience spanning technology investing, R&D and product management. Previously, he was Principal at Ventureast, a premier VC firm in India. His current interests include enterprise software, IoT, and machine learning among the emerging technologies.

Prior to venture capital, Rama was with Sun Microsystems in Silicon Valley for close to 7 years, initially as a systems programmer and later as a senior product manager. Rama holds an MBA from Cornell University, M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Rhode Island, and B.Engg in Computer Science from University of Mysore, India.

Follow Rama on Twitter (@Ramab323) and while you’re at it you can also follow our host, Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash).

…

In this episode we cover:

1. What corporate venture capital (CVC) is?

2. How does corporate venture capital differ from traditional venture capital?

3. What is the value proposition of a corporate venture capital?

4. What is the investment thesis of Qualcomm

Ventures India?

5. The thought process behind portfolio construction from a CVC perspective

6. Challenges that corporate venture capital presents in general and in a country like India

7. What are metrics CVCs look out for while investing in companies

Sajith Pai is the Director at Blume Venture. Sajith is a long-time media executive turned VC. At Blume, Sajith supports investments in media, edtech and e-commerce, while simultaneously helping Blume building a research and knowledge platform. Before Blume, Sajith worked at The Times of India Group, across roles in strategy, business development and marketing.

Sajith has an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, and a BA in Economics from Chowgule College, Goa.

You can follow him on Twitter (@sajithpai) and read his blogs on Indian VC on Medium (@sajithpai). You can also follow host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash).

. . .

Glossary of terms:

1. PMF: Product Market Fit or PMF is the degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Why Sajith calls himself ‘the accidental VC’

2. The opportunities and challenges within the different tiers in India

3. Product Market Fit in the context of different markets and businesses in India

4. Why Indian founders lack the storytelling capability

5. Network Effects for founders (e.g. how to get in touch with top VCs)

6. How can startup founders stand out / create a brand for themselves?

7. That one lie that VCs tell founders

Abhishek Prasad is the Managing Partner at Cornerstone Venture Partners (CSVP), an early-stage fund focused on backing startups that are ‘technology enablers’ in India and abroad. A few of the companies within their portfolio include Intelligence Node, Wizgo, Credit Nirvana and Smart Ship.

Abhishek is an IIM-B alumnus, committee member at NASSCOM and has previously spearheaded the Investment team at GenNext Ventures Fund (part of Reliance Industries Ltd.)

Follow both, Abhishek Prasad (@abhishek_csvp) and host, Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.

. . .

Glossary of terms:

1. NPA: NPA or Non-Performing Assets is defined as a credit facility in respect of which the interest and/or installment of principal has remained 'past due' for a specified period of time. In simple terms, an asset is tagged as non-performing when it ceases to generate income for the lender.

. . .

In this episode we will learn about:

1. Abhishek’s experience investing as a CVC and then now as a traditional VC fund

2. India’s value proposition to investors

3. Qualities in a startup/founding team that attracts CSVP

4. How involved an investor should be in an early stage startup

5. Areas where CSVP makes investments in

6. What is impact scaling and why is that the thesis for success at CSVP

7. False positives and false negatives with respect to investing in technology startups

8. What customer diligence is all about

Mark Kahn is the Managing Partner at Omnivore, a venture capital firm which funds entrepreneurs building the future of agriculture and food systems. Mark co-founded Omnivore in 2010 with Jinesh Shah, ex-CFO at Nexus Venture Partners. Previously, Mark was the Executive Vice President (Strategy & Business Development) at Godrej Agrovet, and also had stints at Syngenta and PFM. He earned a BA (Honors) from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.

You can follow Mark Kahn (@agri_technology) and host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.

…

Glossary of terms:

1. Upstream investments – Upstream investments refer to infusion of capital into businesses that utilize material inputs needed for production e.g. seed, fertilizers, machinery etc.

2. Downstream investments – Downstream investments refers to the infusion of capital into businesses where products get produced and distributed. e.g. e-commerce, grocery stores, logistics etc.

…

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Mark’s venture into agri-business

2. The broad definition of agri-tech and what it encompasses

3. Evolution of agri-tech as sector

4. Omnivore’s thesis for India

5. Upstream vs downstream investments in agri-tech

6. Sectors and geographies within agri-tech in India

7. Metrics Omnivore pays close attention to while evaluating for investment

8. Concepts of sustainability and how it correlates to success of the Indian agri-industry

9. Challenges within agri-tech and for agri-tech startups

10. The global opportunity for Indian agri-tech startups

Bhaskar is the Founder and Managing Partner at Unicorn India Ventures. In the past decade, Bhaskar has established himself as a well-regarded early stage investor and advisor, especially in the UK and India. He has held senior corporate positions with Times of India, Zee Telefilms and Altavista UK.

In 2000, he started his first entrepreneurial venture, Recreate Solutions, a company within the digital media realm and backed by Insight Partners. After scaling the business, he sold the business to a US Systems Integrator. He has since been an investor in a number of technology and media early stage business through his propriety fund, Heath Ventures, and has invested his proprietary funds in more than half a dozen start-ups in UK and India.

Follow Bhaskar (@Bhaskar_MLondon) and host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Bhaskar’s background and motivation to enter the VC world

2. Evolution of venture as an asset class in India

3. Development of investment thesis

4. Portfolio construction and best practices

5. How founders can ‘protect’ their equity during fund-raising

6. Unicorn’s time allocation strategy wrt their portfolio

7. Role of a VC as a board member

8. Due diligence required on the part of the founder(s) while choosing investors

9. If there’s any such thing as ‘raising too much money’?

10. Strategies for founders if they are not able meet fund-raising targets

Ritu Verma is one of the co-founders at Ankur Capital. She is passionate about bringing innovation from lab to the market and did that for a decade across corporates such as Unilever and Philips. She has also worked globally investing in IP-led renewable technologies. She has a PhD in physics from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from INSEAD.

You can follow Ritu (@rituverma01) and host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.

…

Glossary of terms:

1. Impact Investing: Impact investing refers to investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return.

…

In this episode we will cover:

1. Ritu’s journey from Academia to Venture Capital

2. The definition of impact investing according to Ritu

3. The bottlenecks within impact investing

4. The misconceptions about impact investing

5. The trends within impact investing

6. Ankur Capital’s investment thesis – today and going forward

7. Fund-raising for an impact focused fund

8. How an impact fund tracks and measures ‘impact’

9. Portfolio construction strategy at Ankur Capital

10. Advice to investors and startups in the impact space

Ishpreet Singh Gandhi is the Founder and Managing Partner at Stride Ventures, a venture-debt fund focused on lending to growth-stage startups with investments in companies such as Bira and Stellapps. He brings over 13 years of experience encompassing Banking, Private Equity and Venture Capital. During his last stint as Regional Head (North & East) at IDFC Bank, he spearheaded startup business by initiating lending business across Fintech, Consumer, Logistics and Agritech space. He has completed his Post Graduation from Delhi University (Delhi School of Economics) and Bachelors in Commerce from Delhi University.

Glossary of Terms:

1. Venture Debt: Venture debt is a form of debt financing for venture equity-backed companies that lack the assets or cash flow for traditional debt financing, or that want greater flexibility. A complement to equity financing, venture debt is generally structured as a three-year term loan (or series of loans), with warrants for company stock. Overall, venture debt is a form of “risk capital” that is less costly than equity when structured appropriately.

2. Covenant: Debt covenants are restrictions that lenders (creditors, debt holders, investors) put on lending agreements to limit the actions of the borrower (debtor). In other words, debt covenants are agreements between a company and its lenders that the company will operate within certain rules set by the lenders.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Ishpreet’s background and entry into venture capital

2. What are the differences between equity-based financing and debt-based financing?

3. What kind of startups qualify for venture debt

4. In spite of being founder friendly, why isn’t debt financing more popular than it should be

5. What steps is Stride Ventures taking to make debt financing mainstream?

6. How important is the cap table while evaluating a startup during debt financing?

7. When should a startup think about venture debt?

8. How does venture debt economics work?

9. How much should a startup at Series A raise in debt financing

10. Is venture debt for everyone? Are there downsides to it?

Pankaj Makkar is the Managing Director, Bertelsmann India Investments, a strategic investment arm of Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA in India, focusing on investments in the digital, education, media and services sectors. He’s spent his career at Astro, Univision and has been at Bertelsmann for the last decade. He holds a B.Comm Hons. from Delhi University and received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Bertelsmann India Investments has several startups in its portfolio including Licious, Saavn, Pepperfry, and Quikr.

Follow Pankaj (@_pankajmakkar) and host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.

. . .

Glossary of terms:

1. Growth stage: Growth stage investment firms invest in well-run, growing businesses with proven business models and solid management teams looking to continue driving the business. Series B and beyond rounds are usually termed as ‘growth stage’.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Pankaj Makkar’s background: (00:19)

2. COVID-19 impact and the current state of work: (1:26)

3. How has venture evolved in the last decade: (3:02)

4. In this new normal, what are the learning from market perspective and VC Opportunities: (6:07)

5. What is nature of conversations right now with portfolio companies: (8:17)

6. Thoughts on sectoral thesis for post COVID world: (9:16)

7. Evolution and current view of India VC market: (12:21)

8. Why is it hard to multiply fund returns: (14:56)

9. How do you do diligence for portofolio companies: (17:52)

10. What diligence data points and methodology: (18:18)

11. For companies already invested in, how do you mitiagte risk: (21:25)

12. Investing in growth stage companies for consumer vs enterprise technology companies (25:10)

13. Bertselmann’s Fund-of-Fund (FoF) strategy for investing in other funds: (26:48)

14. EdTech and the constant disruption in the space: (34:29)

15. Rapid-Fire - (40:48)

Ankita Vashistha is the Founder and Managing Partner at Saha Fund, a fund that invests in early stage tech-startups run by women entrepreneurs. Ankita comes with a background finance having spent time working in venture capital and private equity before co-founding Saha Fund along with her partner, Usha Amin.

Follow Saha Fund (@sahafund) and host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Ankita’s background

2. Covid-impact on the venture industry

3. What is Saha Fund and what’s special about it?

4. Why diversity in investing matters in today’s context?

5. How can VCs accommodate more diversity when it comes to investing in India?

6. Challenges in fundraising as a fund manager for a women entrepreneurship venture fund

7. What can Indian VCs learn from success of Nyaka, CashKaro, Rivigo

8. Sectors that Saha Fund focuses on

Alex Lazarow is the Investment Director at Cathay Innovation. Prior to joining Cathay Innovation, Alex was a Principal at Omidyar Network, a global philanthropic investment firm. While at Omidyar, he focused on investments in the global FinTech and financial inclusion space across the U.S., Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

He is also an adjunct professor specializing in impact investment and entrepreneurship at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He is a Kauffman Fellow, CFA Charterholder, and a Stephen M. Kellen Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.Comm from the University of Manitoba.

Follow Alex (@Alex_Lazarow) and host, Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.

. . .

Glossary of terms:

1. Network Effects: Network Effects is a phenomenon whereby increased numbers of people or participants improve the value of a good or service.

2. Impacting Investing: Impact investing refers to investments made into companies, organizations and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return

3. Blitzscaling: It's the science and art of rapidly building out a company to serve a large and usually global market, with the goal of becoming the first mover at scale; an accelerated path to the stage in a startup's life-cycle where the most value is created.

. . .

In this episode we will learn:

1. Alex Lazarow’s background (3:20)

2. Why did Alex decide to write ‘Out-Innovate’? (7:00)

3. What are ‘Frontier Ecosystems’? (9:34)

4. Similarities between emerging markets around the world and emerging markets within the US such as mid-West (11:53)

5. Learnings from speaking to Indian entrepreneurs about ‘sustainable’ growth (14:38)

6. Misconceptions about Blitzscaling (18:22)

7. Challenges in building global companies (22:04)

8. How should entrepreneurs think about the global opportunity and get it right? (25:15)

9. Bottlenecks in building sustainable businesses (28:10)

10. Is real innovation taking place outside the Silicon Valley? (31:16)

11. Misconceptions Alex had about emerging markets before writing his book (33:40)

12. How has Alex changed through his experience of writing the book? (35:15)

13. Rapid fire (38:10)

Vinod Murali is Managing Partner and Co-founder of Alteria Capital. Vinod has 15+ years of experience spanning Venture Debt, Mezzanine Capital & Structured finance, Corporate Banking and Branding. Prior to Alteria, he spent time as the Deputy CEO at InnoVen Capital India (prev. known as SVB India Finance), and before that, at Citigroup as part of the Corporate and Investment Banking Group where he managed large Corporate relationships across Auto, Healthcare and Consumer industries.

Follow Vinod (@vinodmur) and host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) on Twitter.

. . .

Glossary of terms:

1. Venture debt: Venture debt is a form of debt financing for venture equity-backed companies that lack the assets or cash flow for traditional debt financing, or that want greater flexibility. It is a form of “risk capital” that is less costly than equity when structured appropriately.

2. Burn: Amount of monthly cash that a company spends

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Vinod Murali’s background and the birth of Alteria Capital (03:28)

2. Reason behind Silicon Valley Bank’s exit from India (11:20)

3. History of venture debt in India (14:44)

4. Reasons venture debt doesn’t sit well with traditional banking institutions (22:25)

5. Parallels between venture debt and equity financing (29:05)

6. How are debts structured? (33:27)

7. What are debts repaid? What is the typical interest rate? (36:00)

8. How are warrants / dilution structured? (38:01)

9. Debt arrangements that have gone well and those that haven’t and why? (40:38)

10. Why don’t debt financiers usually take board seats? (44:28)

11. Are personal guarantees eligible in a venture debt scenario? (48:00)

12. How does a deal like Dunzo come along? (49:44)

13. Rapid fire (52:36)

Rohan Malhotra is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Good Capital, a Delhi-based early stage fund which takes a bottom-up approach to problem-solving and values first-principles thinking. Prior to Good Capital, he co-founded Investopad, a seed-stage technology incubator that focused on ventures that were centered on solving India-centric problems.

You may follow Rohan (@r0hanmalhotra), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Intro (1:50)

2. How did the name ‘Good Capital’ come about (3:54)

3. What was the motivation in starting Investopad and then Good Capital (8:10)

4. How do two young people in their 20s start a fund without prior experience in building companies or managing funds (14:01)

5. How Investopad’s success became the foundation for Good Capital (16:38)

6. Fundraising challenges for young first-time fund managers and alignment with LPs (19:27)

7. Good Capital: Investing thesis (21:12)

8. How does a deal like Meesho come along? (22:58)

9. What is a ‘first-close’ from a fund-raising perspective? (33:07)

10. How long does it take to close the complete fund-raise for a fund? (34:55)

11. Portfolio construction at Good Capital (38:22)

12. Rapid fire (40:42)

Piyush Puri leads the Brand Capital International team in Silicon Valley as Vice President of BWI, the strategic investment arm of The Times Group – India’s largest multimedia conglomerate. Before leading Brand Capital’s US office, Piyush was an investment banker in Mumbai, India focusing on investments in the energy, ancillaries, and the environment spaces. Piyush received his degree in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), has an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur, and a Master’s Degree in Psychology of Leadership from Penn State University.

Follow Piyush (@Piyushpuri13), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Piyush’s background (2:59)

2. How does Brand Capital International help startups tap into the Indian market? (5:56)

3. What do startups get wrong when they think about the India opportunity? (9:36)

4. How does BCI approach investments? (12:17)

5. What do non-Indian startups offer than incumbents don’t? (14:28)

6. What’s the best outcome for non-Indian startups entering India? (18:42)

7. How does BCI measure success of their portfolio companies? (19:45)

8. How do portfolio startups measure the impact of BCI? (21:06)

9. When’s the right time to think about global expansion (23:36)

10. Is having ‘feet on street’ important when startups go global? (26:00)

11. Internal reporting and accountability with respect to investments (27:59)

12. How has the pandemic affected BCI and their co-investors during the lockdown? (30:35)

13. BCI Portfolio: Does higher valuation (by non-Indian VCs) deter future investments from Indian VCs? (33:47)

14. Rapid fire (38:20)

Sushma Kaushik is a Partner at Aavishkaar Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm currently deploying out of its 6th fund and has close to half a billion dollars in AUM. She has over 18 years of diverse experience in the field of early stage investing, small business incubation and consulting across sectors.

She is an engineering graduate from RVCE, Bangalore and has an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Follow Sushma Kaushik (@sushmakaushik1), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and the podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode you will learn:

1. Sushma’s background (3:58)

2. What Sushma loves about her job as a Partner (6:21)

3. What does a Partner do at a VC firm? (7:20)

4. First check written by Sushma (9:55)

5. How do you convince fellow Partners to invest in an under-performing sector and justify the investment? (12:06)

6. Learnings from investing (13:36)

7. Aavishkaar Capital and their thesis (15:45)

8. Challenges within the Impact Investment space (21:15)

9. Should seed-stage investors also consider growth-stage investments? (24:34)

10. How do you measure impact? (26:47)

11. How often do investors track the metrics? (29:54)

12. What is corporate governance for startups? (32:35)

13. What is the relationship between investors, board members and executive leadership within a startup and who calls the shots once investors’ share in the business exceeds the founders? (41: 32)

14. How do we solve for diversity within venture capital? (44:38)

15. Rapid fire (49:00)

Anup Jain is the managing partner at Orios Venture Partners, a VC firm investing in B2B and B2C startups with offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. Anup leads their FMCG and Retail investments and has over 20 years of experience of building brands across countries and categories.

Follow Anup (@AnupOrios), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and the podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Covid impact on Orios and the VC industry (1:15)

2. Anup’s background (23:28)

3. FMCG & Retail investment in India (32:30)

4. FMCG investments: contrarian or not? (43:45)

5. What do investors look for in FMCG startups? (48:41)

6. Subscription vs non-subscription vs Digitally Native Vertical Brand (DNVB)? (54:10)

7. Will Orios invest in a brand that doesn’t have an online presence? (1:00:01)

8. How do you scale businesses with moats such as data, distribution and personalization (1:16:55)

9. Rapid fire (1:08:58)

Chinnu Senthilkumar is the General Partner and CTO at Exfinity Venture Partners, an Enterprise Tech focused VC fund with an emphasis on startups in the US-India corridor.

Prior to Exfinity, Chinnu held Senior Executive roles at Intel, SanDisk and Texas Instruments, both in the US and India. In the capacity of SanDisk’s Country Head, Chinnu spearheaded SanDisk (now part of Western Digital) India operations in the areas of R&D, Operations and IT outsourcing. Chinnu is an innovator from a young age and received "National Technology award" from President of India at the age of 21. He has received his Masters from University of Utah, Salt Lake City, US and B.E. from College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai.

You may follow Chinnu (@chinnusenthil1), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Current VC landscape in India (2:27)

2. Chinnu’s background (12:04)

3. Consumer vs Enterprise startups (16:10)

4. Investment strategy and criteria at Exfinity (22:00)

5. Dissecting deals won or lost i.e. using post mortem to analyze fund performance and strategy (27:38)

6. Corporate VC vs traditional VC (31:01)

7. The role of a GP and how they raise funds (34:04)

8. Time allocation as a GP (40:04)

9. Raising funds –– which is the toughest, the first or the subsequent ones? (44:05)

10. LP communications –– best practices with existing investors and how to handle conversations with potential LPs (45:55)

11. GP commitment and benchmarks (53:23)

12. Rapid fire (56:42)

Shruti Gandhi is the founder and General Partner of Array Ventures a data-driven venture capital firm. Six of her portfolio companies have exited to companies such as Apple, Paypal, and Samsung with 10x returns. Shruti spun Array Ventures out of True Ventures. She is also an adjunct professor in the CS department at Columbia University, featured on Business Insider, BBC, Forbes, VentureBeat, and USAToday, and host of the Array podcast.

She also has an MBA from the University of Chicago and engineering in CS at Columbia University.

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Why venture capital instead of angel investing

2. Process of setting up a VC fund in the US

3. How is Array VC structured

4. Challenges that come with being a single GP Fund

5. How has enterprise investing evolved in the last few years

6. How do you evaluate moats within startups that work at the intersection of the AI, ML and data?

7. How does Shruti define AI and ML

8. What kind of benchmarks should enterprise startups hit in order to be attractive for subsequent round of investors

9. Why is data not really a moat?

10. How does Array’s network of C-level executives drive value to portfolio startups?

11. Investment opportunities within ML

12. Rapid fire

Ankur Warikoo is an angel investor, entrepreneur, mentor and public speaker. He co-founded Nearbuy.com in 2015, where he served as the CEO from 2015-2019. Ankur was previously the CEO of Groupon India + APAC, MD of at Rocket Internet India, Co-founder at Accentium Web, and a management consultant at A.T. Kearney. He also holds an MBA degree from The Indian School of Business, an MS Physics from Michigan State University and a BS from Hindu College, Delhi University. Ankur has 1M+ followers across social media is known to share videos where he often talks about entrepreneurship, leadership and is known to inspire the youth.

Follow Ankur (@Warikoo), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. How has Ankur dealt with the COVID period? (3:39)

2. What does Ankur make of the pandemic –– an inflection point or an uphill battle to restore economies? (5:54)

3. How does he feel about industries hard hit due to COVID? (8:45)

4. Ankur’s story and how it unfolded (11:50)

5. When and how did Ankur take to angel investing (15:13)

6. What made Ankur buyback Groupon India’s business and put ‘everything’ on the line? (17:15)

7. How difficult was it to champion the move to buy back Groupon India? (19:53)

8. What is Ankur’s relationship with risk and is there a personality to his investments? (23:53)

9. Why does Ankur say he’s a bad investor? (27:21)

10. What was Ankur’s (angel) investment thesis? (31:22)

11. How much of Ankur’s personality will you see in his investments? (37:38)

12. Where does Ankur source his deals from? (39:35)

13. What does Ankur’s diligence process look like? (42:12)

14. How long does Ankur take to make an investment decision? (44:40)

15. Underrated and overrated qualities in founders today (45:48)

16. How important is it for founders to sell their story and how can do they so effectively? (48:51)

17. Because Ankur is a very public figure and vocal across social, does he feel people find him intimidating to speak with? And if so, how does he make them feel at ease? (52:57)

18. Rapid fire (55:24)

Pankaj Jain is an angel investor and Ex-Partner at 500 Startups, a California-based seed fund and accelerator program. Pankaj focuses on investing in early stage startups across India, United States, and South Asia and has led investments in over fifty companies.

Pankaj spent over 12 years in the Financial industry at firms such as JP Morgan, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) and GlobeOp Financial Services in various operational roles including enterprise mortgage risk management, application development, market data infrastructure, trade management, pricing infrastructure and customer service areas.

In 2007, Pankaj’s adventures in India began, where he started a company building an on-demand, employment marketplace for the under-served. In 2008, Pankaj became a co-founder of the HeadStart Network Foundation and the led the efforts in Delhi. In late 2010, he began setting up Startup Weekend in India.

Follow Pankaj (@pjain), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash), and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter. Pankaj also runs a YouTube channel on investing titled Invest Steam.

. . .

The Desi Startups Of The Week:

1. Oropocket: Oropocket is an investment platform allowing you to invest in precious metals and digital assets.

2. Basis: India's only platform focussed on the holistic financial wellness of the urban Indian woman.

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Intro (3:51)

2. The new normal (6:15)

3. Impact of the pandemic on VC investments (8:56)

4. Pankaj’s journey into venture capital and investing (19:45)

5. Which period in his professional career does Pankaj consider the most crucial (40:26)

6. Differences between angel investing and venture investing (51:21)

7. How influential can an angel be (54:14)

8. How do angels add value (59:41)

9. How can VCs and angels work together? (1:07:23)

10. Angel investing in India vs angel investing in the US (1:12:11)

11. Founder evolution from Pankaj’s experience in all these years on investing (1:17:54)

12. How do angels measure success? (1:33:10)

13. Intangible returns for angels (1:36:53)

14. Why did Pankaj decide to run an angel syndicate rather than starting a VC fund? (1:40:08)

15. Rapid fire (1:45:52)

Melissa Frakman is the founder & managing partner of Emphasis Ventures (EMVC), a venture capital fund investing in early-stage fintech startups in India. She brings 15 years of experience participating in India’s digital revolution to bridge worlds for entrepreneurs and companies. Named on the “Global Fintech PowerList” by Innovate Finance, Melissa has led early stage investments in asia, supported new market strategy, and built partnerships worth over $1 billion for 15 of the Fortune 100 companies.

Follow Melissa (@melissafrakman), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

The Desi Startup of the Week:

Piggy: Piggy is a next generation mutual fund investment app that simplifies investments.

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Sectors within FinTech that have stood out during the pandemic (4:12)

2. Melissa’s journey so far (5:46)

3. Why does Melissa think India has a more robust and advanced FinTech ecosystem than other markets (10:48)

4. FinTech: Bundling vs Unbundling (14:00)

5. FinTech investment trends and risks associated with investing in the space (17:04)

6. The FinTech opportunity: Urban, Middle and Rural India (19:43)

7. FinTech challenges within rural India (24:05)

8. Educating the masses: Is it the role of the govt. or startups? (25:53)

9. Innovation with UPI (28:15)

10. Assessing FinTech startups (31:16)

11. Traditional financial institutions: opportunity or threat? (35:37)

12. How does EMVC add value to their portfolio (37:58)

13. Rapid fire (40:23)

14. Ways to get in touch with Melissa (48:20)

Vinay Bansal is the CEO at Inflection Point Ventures, an early stage angel investing platform. He is a finance professional and turnaround specialist with 20+ years of experience across Fortune 50 companies, private equity & startups. Last, he was Senior Advisor at TPG Global and before that CFO & CIO at Wildcraft India. He is a Chartered Accountant by qualification and spent the first 14 years of his career in leadership positions across Financial Management and Manufacturing / Supply-chain sourcing functions at GE and Hindustan Unilever.

Follow host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. Fire.Fly: Fire.Fly is a Bangalore-based learning & development startup focusing on teaching the values of creativity & compassion through online & offline workshops and experiences.

2. Leher App: Leher App is a social network built around video discussions that connects people around their interests and passions.

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Vinay Intro (2:43)

2. Covid impact –– Macro-level and portfolio-level (3:43)

3. Why has IPV been active when other VC firms have been conservative in their approach during covid (6:48)

4. Will companies getting funded now continue to see similar success post-covid? (11:21)

5. How can startups leverage the pandemic to create moats (16:21)

6. Vinay’s background (20:07)

7. Challenges of being an agnostic firm (28:58)

8. Time management for GPs (33:16)

9. What is CXO genie and how’s that unique to IPV (35:57)

10. How to measure success of a mentor-driven program? (41:29)

11. Measuring portfolio returns and communication with LPs (46:27)

12. Best practices for LP communication (52:20)

13. Rapid fire (55:13)

Rutvik Doshi is the General Partner at Inventus Capital India, early stage Venture Capital firm that invests in Pre Series A and Series A. Rutvik has participated in India’s fast emerging internet ecosystem since 2007, first with Google where he launched several products including Voice Search, Google Mobile App, SMS Channels and managed Google News globally, and most recently as the CEO of ecommerce startup Taggle in Bangalore. Before Google he spent 6 years in the US building internet management software for CA Technologies. Rutvik holds a B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur and an MBA from INSEAD, France.

Follow Rutvik (@rutvik), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. Project PIF: Project Pay-It-Forward is a cloud-based mentorship platform for graduate admissions

2. Podium: Podium is a platform that brings people closer to have virtual conversations around social issues.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

. . . (Part 1) . . .

1. Impact of COVID on fund dynamics and larger macro economic trends (5:24)

2. How did LP’s react to the pandemic (7:44)

3: Investment strategy during Covid and plans for the future (13:11)

4. How did Inventus India Capital build rapport with founders during the pandemic, in the absence of F2F meetings? (18:38)

5. Rutvik’s background and sequence of events leading up to Inventus (19:58)

6. Evolution of VC in India (28:06)

7. Investment thesis at Inventus (32:21)

8. Importance of forging strong relationships with other VC firms in India (37:17)

. . . (Part 2) . . .

9. Raising domestic capital –– Has India reached a point of comfort to invest in VC as an asset class? (42:51)

10. Why is it better to have Indian investors than global? (44:44)

11. What should emerging fund managers be prepared for when they speak to potential LP candidates? (49:02)

12. How many calls do VC’s have with potential LPs (53:53)

13. How do the Partners split fundraising responsibilities (55:53)

14. When will see a change in venture investing to bring more profitability? (1:00:09)

15. Lobbying in India (1:02:41)

16. Raising money from foreign investors or Indian? (1:05:42)

17. Rapid fire (1:08:05)

Utsav Somani is a Partner at AngelList India and General Partner at iSeed (a seed-stage fund looking to bridge successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and Indian founders in the search of money as well as the expertise and knowledge of scaling up a startup).

Follow Utsav (@somani_utsav), host Akash (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. Flatheads: Flatheads is an all-day casual sneakers designed for work wear and optimized for 14-hour comfort.

2. MoveABox: MoveABox is Bangalore-based startup helping people to vacate and relocate their homes in a personalized manner.

. . .

In today’s episode we will cover:

1. Micro VC –– overcrowded with competition or not? (7:50)

2. Recap of VC landscape during COVID (17:08)

3. Raising a fund during the months of the lockdown (21:18)

4. Takeaways from raising a fund (22:56)

5. Utsav’s background (24:14)

6. What is Micro VC and how does Utsav see it within the Indian context (27:11)

7. Why is there a rise in Micro VC funds across India? (29:48)

8. Is Micro VC more riskier? (35:13)

9. What is the value proposition of a Micro VC (37:16)

10. How does an emerging fund manager attract good deal flow? (41:54)

11. Trend –– LPs turning GPs (48:13)

12. Dissection of Utsav’s tweet on the disconnect between macro trends (51:14)

13. Rapid fire (52:02)

Sasha Mirchandani is Managing Director and Founder of Kae Capital and Co-founder Mumbai Angels. Previously, he was at Blue Run Ventures as Managing Director for the India operations. Before joining Blue Run Ventures he was CEO and Founder of Imercius Technologies. Earlier he was at Mirc Electronics (Onida) where he was Head of Corporate Affairs and new business.

Follow Sasha on Twitter (@sashamirchi), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc).

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. Aisle: Aisle is a dating app for Indians around the world

2. Sarva: India’s largest and only Yoga based wellness ecosystem

. . .

In this week’s episode, we will cover:

1. Impact of COVID personally and professionally (3:30)

2. Learnings during COVID as an investor (6:55)

3. LP sentiment and concerns (10:58)

4. Sasha’s background (15:50)

5. How did Mumbai Angels come into being? (20:05)

6. When should an angel think about raising institutional capital for his/her fund? (24:55)

7. Mistakes angels make during investing (26:31)

8. Sasha’s thesis during the early days on angel investing (28:00)

9. Evolution of investment thesis at Kae Capital across funds (29:45)

10. How do you decentralize venture capital in India to allow for more investors to enter the market (35:42)

11. Rapid fire (39:50)

Srikanth Sundararajan is the General partner at VenturEast, an India focused fund that helps tech startups looking to go global from India across segments like education, health, financial services, agritech, and Enterprise SaaS. Srikanth has 25+ years of international experience in the software product and services having worked at HP, Informix in the US, and was part of the executive leadership team at HCL, the world wide CTO at Cognizant and the COO at Persistent through its successful IPO. In the US he had also successfully founded his own startup, Pretzel Logic Software Inc., which was acquired by BEA spinoff WebGain. BEA was later acquired by Oracle. He was also part of the founding team at IDS, which was also acquired.

He is also a visiting faculty of computer science at IIT Bhubaneswar and has taught at several US universities. He also serves on national committees on technical education, an initiative of MHRD, Government of India. He was also a member of the tech committee for the Government of India initiative on indirect taxes (Customs and Excise).

He holds a B Tech degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and a MS/PhD in Computer and Information Sciences from University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. He has several publications and is the holder of patents, jointly with HP.

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. Foodwalas: Foodwallas is a Gourmet food delivery startup that lets mom and pop stores to reach a big, national audience.

2. Elo App: A vernacular audio streaming app for you to consume content if your preferred language.

. . .

In this week’s episode we will cover:

1. Learnings through investing during the pandemic (3:29)

2. Srikanth’s background (8:20)

3. What aspect of Srikanth’s past is most valuable to him today as a VC (11:17)

4. What made Srikanth join VenturEast? (21:02)

5. Investment thesis at VenturEast (24:32)

6. Disruption: Incumbents vs new entrants (34:05)

7. Is legacy software dying? (41:29)

8. Differences in investing in different tiers in India (47:45)

9. Srikanth’s preference: startups from tier 2/3 markets or those targeting tier 2/3 markets (54:25)

10. India and its deep tech ambitions (56:53)

11. Rapid fire (59:15)

Rohit Goyal is the Manager Partner at Windrose Capital, a Pune based early stage VC firm investing in India’s fast-transforming economy. He has entrepreneurial experience in Manufacturing & Technology and has set-up companies in & outside India, with people from China, Sri Lanka, UK & Germany.

He holds a Bachelor's degree in Engineering (Electronics & Tele-Com.) & Masters in Management (Finance & Entrepreneurship) from CASS Business School, City University, London. 

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. Indistractable: Indistractable is a suite of productivity apps to help you fight digital distraction, starting with a minimalist launcher.

2. Bima Garage: Bima is focused on making insurance easy for everyone in India, with a focus on hassle-free claims management service.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Last eight months at Windrose Capital (2:39)

2. Conversations with existing LPs and potential LPs during COVID (5:37)

3. Evolution of the thesis at Windrose? (19:43)

4. Rohit’s background and journey into VC (24:34)

5. Why Windrose chose Pune to be their HQ? (32:07)

6. Does the location of the fund really matter? (37:05)

7. How does a young fund manager convince LPs to invest in the firm? (39:15)

8. How did Rohit shortlist his LP candidates? (43:40)

9. What does ‘contextual fit’ really mean and represent at Windrose Capital? (47:33)

10. Determining market velocity and mapping the future of Indian VC (56:05)

11. Rapid fire (1:03:55)

Venk Krishnan is the founder of NuWare and NuVentures. NuVentures is an early stage venture fund based out of Bangalore which has backed companies such as MuSigma, BigBasket, Acko, Pocket Aces, Thrillophilia among others.

Follow Venk Krishnan (@krishnanVenk), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and the podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. BurnCal: India's First AI based home fitness trainer that can see and guide user to provide real time feedback on their pose and reps.

2. Q-Blocks: A distributed computing company building affordable supercomputers for high performance computing applications like ML model training, Running simulations, big data analytics or creating the next deep fake.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Covid related (0:47)

2. Operator VC (6:35)

3. How does being a VC help being an entrepreneur?(12:39)

4. Road to Venture Capital (17:50)

5. The MuSigma deal (26:12)

6. How did Venk get clarity on setting up a fund (30:20)

7. Thesis at NuVentures (34:30)

8. Diverse portfolio development from an LP perspective (39:25)

9. Angel investing vs syndicate/VC investing (47:40)

10. Rapid fire (56: 25)

Rahul Chandra is the Co-founder and Managing Partner at Arkam Ventures, an early-stage fund partnering aimed at Middle India –– the 400 million people just below the top of the pyramid. He was one of the earliest tech VCs in India, starting in 1998 as part of the team at Walden International's India-focused fund. He later moved to Palo Alto to invest in Silicon Valley start-ups. In 2005, he co-founded Helion Ventures and relocated to India. At Helion, he invested more than $100M in 15 companies, a list that includes Equitas (IPO), Spandana (IPO), Shubham Housing, UnitedLex, Toppr, Railyatri, MoEngage and Seclore.

He is also the author of "The Moonshot Game - Adventures of an Indian VC", a book that captures his experience of investing in India from 2006 to 2016.

Follow Rahul Chandra (@rahulchandra77), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. Qshala: Qshala is a curiosity platform consisting of live online courses designed to foster life-skills & curiosity in children. The Quriosity curriculum helps your child develop critical thinking, improve communication skills, and enhance their ability to learnIt’s a one-stop-shop for all the skills you wish you were taught at school.

2. Clergo: Clergo makes it effortless to start a discussion around a topic, eliminating the need for ad-hoc and unplanned meetings to discuss something specific.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. How COVID has impacted Rahul and Arkam Ventures (3:51)

2. What’s changed in the diligence process (6:57)

3. Has covid impacted deal flow and investments? (10:13)

4. LP Concerns: Institutional LPs vs new-age entrepreneur LPs (14:53)

5. Rahul’s motivation to be a VC and starting a second fund (17:13)

6. LP mentality in 2005 vs LP mentality in 2020 (25:00)

7. Why Rahul believes India is promising market for LPs (32:51)

8. Is Middle India today the India of 2005/06 that Helion first began investing into (34:40)

9. Biggest misconception of middle India from an LPs and founder perspective (43:57)

10. How does the macro-economic trends affect the middle India opportunity? (49:06)

11. Rahul’s thoughts on the movement to bridge the gender gap within middle India (54:35)

12. How can manufacturing sector amplify middle India’s potential at scale like China? (59:51)

13. How much of a say does the VC community have in policy ma

Kris Gopalakrishnan is the co-founder and former CEO of Infosys, and currently serves as the chairman of Axilor Ventures, an early-stage seed fund based out of Bangalore. He is recognized as a global business and technology thought leader and was voted the top CEO (IT Services category) in Institutional Investor’s inaugural ranking of Asia’s Top Executives and selected as one of the winners of the second Asian Corporate Director Recognition Awards by Corporate Governance Asia in 2011. He also was selected to Thinkers 50, an elite list of global business thinkers, in 2009. He was elected President of India’s apex industry chamber Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for 2013-14, and served as one of the co-chairs of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2014.

In January 2011, the Government of India awarded Kris Gopalakrishnan the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian honor.

Follow Kris Gopalakrishnan (@kris_sg), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

The Desi Startups of the Week:

1. PLUC: India’s first mobile storytelling platform for meaningful stories by unfound mobile creators.

2. Pathway Ventures: A new VC fund focused on the human side of the future of work. They’re investing in companies that drive economic mobility through innovative models of earning, learning, and community building.

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. What is Kris hoping accomplish as the first chairperson of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH)? (3:55)

2. What can founders today learn from the Infosys story? (7:50)

3. Building long-lasting, sustainable businesses in today’s world (14:09)

4. Guarding your investments as a VC (17:48)

5. How has the pandemic impacted Axilor Ventures (20:30)

6. When and why did Kris decide to start a fund? (25:03)

7. What has surprised Kris the most about the venture ecosystem (28:13)

8. How much pressure was on the Axilor team to deliver exceptional results given their stellar reputation (31:25)

9. How much has Kris’ risk appetite changed from his days as operator to now as a vc 32:34)

10. What risk is Kris willing to take? What is he not? (35:26)

11. Insights from Axilor’s portfolio construction (38:43)

12. What are the core economics of venture capital that all entrepreneurs need to understand? (44:00)

13. How do you build a ‘successful’ business without venture funding (47:14)

14. What can India’s policy makers do to support and grow the momentum within the startup ecosystem (50:35)

15. Are SPACs one way of retaining businesses in India? (56:24)

16. Rapid fire (59:00)

Munish Randev is the Founder & CEO at Cervin Family Office. He brings in over 25 years of experience in investment management and family offices. He has advised over 80 families with over $3.2B in financial assets and has worked with many business families in structuring their family governance platforms. Well known in the Indian investment industry for his unique expertise and ethical standards he has been part of many family investment committees and family office boards.

Follow Munish (@MunishRandev), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Munish’s insights from the year that was 2020 (1:57)

2. Munish’s background and the key milestones that led to the founding of Cervin Family Office (6:17)

3. How have Family Offices evolved over the years in India (12:22)

4. Why are Family Offices attracted to investing in tech startups? (20:29)

5. Who is developing the thesis within Family Offices? (27:29)

6. What kind of returns do Family Offices expect from a) directly investing into startups and b) investing into VC funds as an LP (35:01)

7. Subtle nuances of managing a Family Offices and what must an external fund manager be aware of? (41:00)

8. Things LPs look out for when investing into a new fund manager? (51:34)

9. The average timelines and cycles that Family Offices undertake while reviewing fund managers (56:55)

10. Differences in approach between Cervin and other Family Offices (59:10)

11. Rapid fire (1:03:15)

Adith Podhar is the Managing Partner at Gemba Capital, a fund which invests in angel rounds of tech firms focused on India consumption and cross-border SaaS.

Prior to Gemba, Adith has worked at Motilal Oswal PE fund in Mumbai, and spent time at ICICI as a Product Manager.

Follow Adith (@adithpodhar), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Covid impact on investing (1:47)

2. How does Adith look back on 2020? (6:43)

3. What might the next 24 months look like? (11:47) 

4. Sectors within India that Adith is bullish on (14:26)

5. Adith’s background and journey into VC (18:00)

6. Learnings as a founder and how it’s helpful in VC today (21:11)

7. How have different investing experiences influenced Adith’s investor persona? (30:11)

8. How did Adith write his first check and what was the process behind it ?(34:18)

9. Gemba’s current investment thesis (38:29)

10. Raising money from domestic LPs (43:01)

11. Challenges of raising money from within India (45:41)

12. How does Gemba add value to startups? (48:37)

13. Portfolio support & time allocation (53:15) 

14. What does it take to be a good investor? (55:56)

15. How does Adith evaluate companies and founders of similar profiles (58:24)

16. Time spent on due diligence (1:00:13)

17.  Rapid fire (1:02:55)

Pratik Poddar is the Principal at Nexus Venture Partners.

As an entrepreneur turned VC, Pratik is excited about working alongside technology entrepreneurs to create an impact on the lives of millions of people in India. He is most passionate about consumer, community/content, education, e-commerce, financial services, and healthcare startups.

Prior to joining Nexus, Pratik spent three years working on his startups in social e-commerce and content marketing spaces where he experienced firsthand the challenges of building a company. Earlier, he worked as a quant analyst and algorithmic trader at Morgan Stanley, and private equity analyst at Blackstone. Pratik has a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Look back at 2020 (2:15)

2. Will VCs look at portfolio constructions differently post the pandemic? (4:50)

3. What signals is Pratik looking for from an investment deal? (6:12)

4. How should VCs protect themselves so as to not fall prey to bad deals? (9:01)

5. What does a Principal at a VC firm do? (11:47)

6. How does Pratik add value to startups (14:50)

7. Opportunities and challenges of bottoms-up investing (18:55)

8. How does operating experience help investors in VC? (23:05)

9. Products vs Platforms: How can founders of today think about converting products into platforms? (30:27)

10. What don’t founders realize about building for India? (39:49)

11. What don’t VCs understand about middle India? (46:05)

12. How does Nexus look at new sectors and what is their approach to investing? (51:16)

13. Rapid fire (55:25)

Vinod Shankar is the Co-Founder and Partner at Java Capital, an investment syndicate investing in sectors such as healthtech, consumer internet, deep tech, SaaS and EdTech. Prior to founding Java Capital, Vinod was the Associate Vice President at Kalaari Capital and before that was the Head of Sales & Marketing at Just Books Inc.

In this episode we cover:

Why launch an investment fund in the middle of the pandemic? (1:57)

Challenges of raising a fund during the pandemic? (5:29)

Vinod’s journey into VC (11:23)

How do you do cold outreach to VCs (19:10)

Chief Hustle Officer –– what do you mean by that? (29:30)

Sourcing startups – Cold vs Direct (35:43)

Experience at Kalaari (39:09)

Experience which had the most impact on Vinod’s life (45:41)

Responsibilities that VCs bear on nurturing the ecosystem (54:30)

How do you encourage sustainable businesses within VC? (1:01:14)

Rapid fire (1:09:35)

The startup ecosystem in India remains robust and is rapidly growing. The Indian government introduced several regulatory programs to boost the Indian startup ecosystem. Flagship programs such as StartupIndia, Digital India and the Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee continue to improve the economic landscape for startups and investors. However, despite all this, India continues to remain in the shadows of Silicon Valley. On this panel, we discuss what it would take for India to break away from the shadows of the west and evolve into a mature VC ecosystem in the coming years.

Empathy is going to become a key undertone of investing. Investors who have run companies and raised capital bring empathy that an investor coming from a consulting background just can’t. Founders are becoming smarter about who they raise capital from. On this panel, Siya Raj Purohit (General Partner, Pathway Ventures), Revant Bhate (CEO, Mosaic Wellness) and Utsav Somani (Partner, AngelList India & iSeed) discuss why some of the best investors in the future are going to be investor-operators.

Kiran is the Principal at UTEC (Japan), a $550M deep-tech VC firm affiliated with The University of Tokyo. Since joining UTEC in 2018, Kiran has led investments of close to $25M in frontier science & deep-tech companies incl. Tricog, OPALai (SG/FinTech AI), Bugworks Research, and Agara.


Before joining UTEC, Kiran was the head of India/SEA Operations at Deloitte Tohmatsu Venture Support (DTVS) Japan. He has supported over 50 deep-tech Asian startups by connecting them with Japanese corporations and also worked closely with METI Japan, to lead a project called CEATEC IoT Acceleration for Asian startups. Prior to that, he co-founded a student-led social enterprise named 'Kriya'.

In 2020, Kiran was featured in the prestigious FORBES Asia 30 Under 30 list in the Finance & Venture Capital category.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Kiran’s thoughts on the VC landscape: Second half of 2020 vs Q1 2021

2. Why he chose venture capital as a career path?

3. What is deep-tech?

4. Misconceptions about deep-tech investing

5. What do you look for in a deep-tech founding team?

6. When does a deep-tech startup achieve PMF?

7. Learnings from his own investments and portfolio 

8. The role of the Govt. in growing deep-tech sciences 

9. Mental Models for evaluating and building startups

10. Exits in deep-tech

Kunal is a serial entrepreneur & investor with 20+ years of global experience. His previous ventures include Carnation (exit to Mahindra Group), Laurus Labs (IPO NSE & BSE), Aptuit Inc., InfoPro Solutions Inc. (exit to Aptuit), Razorfish and Vodafone. Kunal has completed his Economic (Hons) from Delhi University, MBA from FSM and MS from Northwestern University’s Kellogg & Medill Graduate Schools.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Learnings from 2020 (2:40)

2. Where are the opportunities within the mobility sector (9:02)

3. The future of EV in India (22:50)

4. How can VCs influence regulation within the mobility sector (40:50)

5. Opportunities and pitfalls within the last-mile and middle-mile delivery sector (51:07)

6. Why did Kunal decide to become an investor? (1:07:40)

7. Importance of sector focused funds vs generalists (1:15:00)

8. Rapid fire (1:28:02)

Salone has 14+ years of experience as an interactive media VC investor, game entrepreneur and ex M&A banker. She has seen companies from different vantage points ranging from seed to IPO stage. Prior to Lumikai, she was a Principal at LVP, Europe’s pioneering seed stage games VC where she was involved with multiple companies in the gaming ecosystem across content, platform and technology bets.

Salone was also Co-founder and CEO of TrulySocial, a venture backed gaming company for female audiences out of Europe and India. She was responsible for product vision, overall commercial strategy and new market growth striking up novel partnerships with global strategics, celebrities, influencers and brands.Earlier to that, she worked across global financial institutions as Vice- President, Global COO Office at Barclays Bank and M&A at Morgan Stanley, amassing $10B of M&A transaction experience.

Salone has been recognised as Top 30 Women in Mobile, Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech, Iconic Women Leaders by WEF and Jury Member, Bafta Games in 2017. Salone is also a renowned thought leader on “Innovating in New Game Genres” and “Building Games for Female Audiences”. She has an MBA from IESE Business School, Spain.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

The year 2020 at Lumikai (2:12)

The impact of a fund’s thesis on the fundraise (4:43)

Challenges of raising a fund during a pandemic (8:57)

Salone’s journey and the genesis of Lumikai (13:31)

What’s hot within gaming in India (18:51)

How do you solve for monetization at scale within gaming in India (28:23)

How do you devise an India strategy if you’re a gaming startup (38:25)

How are LPs looking at gaming in general? (53:00)

What role will the later stage funds play in the gaming ecosystem? (59:08)

What role do VCs play in drafting the regulatory framework within gaming in India (1:01:00)

Fantasy and gambling: Game of skill vs game of chance? (1:04:35)

Monica heads the Wadhwani NEN and Inspire programs of the Foundation. An education entrepreneur (2000-2009), she completed her MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. Prior to joining the Foundation, Monica was a Director at Omidyar Network, where she spearheaded the education/skill investments and grants in India. Monica has also been the Founding Partner at Kaizen Private Equity, a $70 Mn fund, where she drove investments to the tune of $25 Mn in the education and skilling sector. Monica has also been the board member for reputed institutions like Akshara Foundation, Mount Litera School, Varthana, Aspiring Minds, Kalorex, to name a few.

About Wadhwani Foundation: Wadhwani Foundation is a not-for-profit, founded by Dr Romesh Wadhwani, with the primary mission of accelerating economic development in emerging economies by driving job creation in India and other emerging economies through large-scale initiatives in entrepreneurship, small business growth, innovation, and skilling.

Anjali Sosale is a Partner at WaterBridge Ventures, an early-stage VC firm based out of Bangalore and Delhi. Anjali began her career at EY, going on to becoming the Vice President over the course of a ten-year stint, before moving on to Myntra where she led their Brand Accelerator Program for three years.

In this episode, we will cover:

Impact of the Covid second wave on investments (2:20)

Challenges founders are facing especially wrt their workforce and bench strength (7:25)

Anjali’s journey into VC (15:11)

Thesis evolution in general within the consumer world (27:33)

Covid induced trends within consumer sectors (32:00)

Learnings from building communities in India (43:36)

How does community “fit” into a fund’s thesis? (50:01)

Fund-raising during the second wave and thesis development (1:00:43)

Red flags during fund-raising –– for founders (1:07:01)

Pearl Agarwal is the Founder and Managing Director of Eximius Ventures, micro venture fund looking to create a thriving global entrepreneurial community and nurture young talent in India. Prior to founding Eximius, Pearl has spent time in PE and Investment Banking in the US and UK, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Corporate Finance from The University of Texas at Austin – The Red McCombs School of Business.

You may follow Pearl and Eximius on Twitter.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Experience raising capital and managing a fund during two different phases of Covid lockdowns in India (2:54)

2. Learnings from conversations with portfolio startups (10:10)

3. Covid impact on a fund’s investment thesis? (14:29)

4. Why did Pearl decide to launch her own fund (19:20)

5. What does a young emerging fund manager today need to know about the investing landscape in India before thinking about setting up a fund (28:36)

6. How welcoming is the ecosystem to new comers? (32:19)

7. What does Pearl mean when she says Eximius is an agile micro fund? (36:00)

8. How do you be agile in VC? (41:35)

9. Why does Eximius have a dedicated HR person on their portfolio support team? (51:53)

10. What kind of support should founders provide so as to maximize their VC’s efforts? (59:48)

11. Advice to founders when fundraising (1:08:01)

Anvesh is a Managing Director at MassMutual Ventures (MMV) and co-heads MMV’s investment efforts in Asia. Prior to MMV, Anvesh was a Director and Head of Investments at Openspace Ventures, where he was part of the founding team. He started his career at Citi in the TMT Investment Banking team, during which he spent around 8 years in Hong Kong and Mumbai on M&A and financial advisory work with clients in the APAC region. Anvesh holds a BE in electronics and communications engineering from Anna University and an MBA from T.A. Pai Management Institute.

Anvesh currently serves as a Director on the Boards of Biofourmis, Lynk, See-Mode, Milieu Insight and Qapita.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Has the second wave of Covid in India impacted MMV’s investment thesis? (2:00)

2. Learnings from interactions with portfolio founders during covid (3:50)

3. The rise of the enterprise tech ecosystem in Asia (8:00)

4. Leaving investment banking for venture capital, what did the landscape look like back then vs where it is now (14:37)

5. What is it like looking into different South East Asian marketing from a VC lens? (17:49)

6. How do VCs help frame regulatory structures in frontier markets? (24:01)

7. What does the LP appetite for Asia today look like? (28:54)

8. Where and how does the the fund fit into MassMutual’s macro ambitions? (32:10)

9. What could the future thesis for MMV look like? (37:18)

10. How does MMV look at the healthcare landscape across SEA? (44:04)

11. Which is a better bet – a startup in a developing or establish market? (50:05)

12 Role of regulatory framework in fostering customer loyalty (53:09)

13. Evaluating similar business models across multiple geographies (56:45)

14. What startups don’t understand about SEA markets (58:39)

Vaibhav Domkundwar is the CEO of Better Capital, an early-stage venture firm that builds & invests in category-defining businesses. Prior to his investor journey, Vaibhav was an entrepreneur, having founded and successfully exited a venture-backed startup Roamware (acq. by PE firm Audax).

You may follow Vaibhav on Twitter here.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Learnings from investing in 2020 (1:45)

2. Covid impact on decision making (6:36)

3. What value does Better bring to the table? (9:36)

4. How are founders buildings startups today vs twenty years ago? (15:31)

5. What kind of exits do pre-seed stage investors look for realistically (19:53)

6. Why did Vaibhav decide to be a solo GP in a fund as opposed to having partners? (23:34)

7. Fundraising challenges as a solo GP (31:11)

8. Retrospective insight: Building a foundation for Better Capital (36:06)

9. What is the vision for Better Capital? (49:00)

10. A little more about Vaibhav, beyond his investor persona (53:13)

Raja Ganapathy is the Founding Partner at Spring Marketing Capital, a skin-in-the-game marketing capital firm with investments in companies such as Byju, CureFit, WakeFit, Practo, 1mg among several others.

Raja has worked with founders for most of his working life of 24+ years. First with Ogilvy and Brand David, where he worked with founders including Muruga of Bharat Matrimony and Siddhartha Lal of Royal Enfield. His defining stint was with Sequoia India, where as CMO, Raja worked with founders from different stages – Byju Raveendran (Byju’s Learning App), Vikram Chopra (CARS24), Amrish and Jitendra (Citrus Pay), Virendra Gupta (Daily Hunt), Jaydeep Burman (Faaso’s), Kunal Shah (Freecharge), Sameer Maheshwari (Healthkart), Amit Kumat (Prataap Snacks), Alan and Nami (Truecaller).

The founders he worked with at Sequoia brought a variety of diverse opportunities and challenges to the table and helped Raja decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life – work closely with founders and founding teams. His raison d’être is to look at business challenges through the lens of marketing with a skin-in-the-game, long term approach to help build the brands of tomorrow. And that’s exactly what he seeks to do at Spring. Raja is an eternal optimist and believes strongly that creativity and entrepreneurship can change the world. He is thrilled that Spring has an opportunity to work with founders who hate the status quo, believe in positive impact and are never satisfied with the past

In this episode we will cover:

1. Insights from the pandemic (3:14)

2. How did fundraising differ during the first fund vs the second, which was set largely during the pandemic months (7:00)

3. Selecting LPs: What is the right strategy as a fund manager (13:51)

4. What’s motivating Spring’s LPs to join them beyond return of capital? (18:01)

5. How did Spring’s thesis come into being? (25:41)

6. Challenges that come with Spring’s thesis (32:10)

7. Where are founders in their ‘brand journey’ when they come in contact with Spring? (41:28)

8. What don’t founders understand about branding? (46:40)

9. How and why are celebrities thinking about venture capital? (50:55)

10. Why aren’t Indian celebrities more impact / value driven? (53:10)

Siddharth Mody is a Partner at Desai & Diwanji, one of India's leading law firms focusing on core areas of commercial and finance activity across PE and Venture capital among other asset classes. Siddharth has spent over 17 years in the industry and has had the unique experience of watching the startup ecosystem evolve to where it is today.

Glossary:1. Double-dipping: A liquidation event where the VC receives their money back and then gets a share of the remaining proceeds.

2. Promoters: Founders / entrepreneurs.

3. ESOP: An employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) is an employee benefit plan that gives workers ownership interest in the company.

4. ROFR: Also known as first right of refusal, is a contractual right to enter into a business transaction (in this case rights to participate in a deal) with an entity before anyone else can. If the party with this right declines to enter into a transaction, the obligor is free to entertain other offers.

5. ROFO: Also known as right of first offer, requires an owner of an asset (in this case the startup who is providing equity in exchange for capital) to negotiate the sale of an asset (equity sale) with the holder of the ROFO before offering the asset for sale or lease to a third party.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Why startup law (3:49)

2. Why do startups need a lawyer from Day 1 (8:54)

3. When should a startup first engage with a lawyer (19:49)

4. What to look for in a lawyer (25:02)

5. Should you compensate your lawyer with equity? (31:06)

6. Red flags associated with your first term sheet (36:18)

7. Template for an awkward conversation (42:35)

8. When do deals fall through wrt valuations (49:54)

9. Where can deals go wrong with ESOP construction (58:30)

10. How do you negotiate predatory behavior from VCs? (1:06:42)

11. Red flags wrt to deal negotiations – experiences from Siddharth’s career (1:15:12)

12. How to request exits from your investors (1:22:40)

13. Advisors to Emerging Fund Managers / first time fund managers (1:26:28)

Ankita is the founder of Sarvaank Associates. She brings with her a rich experience of having worked with prominent law firms as well as leading the legal and transaction team of Indian Angel Network (IAN), Asia's largest Angel Group with more than 450 HNI Investors.

While at IAN, Ankita was responsible for closing of the deals from start to finish. She played a pivotal role in handholding the Startups in further raising of funds and supporting the investors to get the right value of money. Prior to IAN, she has worked in leading law firms and gained extensive experience in advising clients on investment / restructuring transactions, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, exit transactions, company formation, debt transactions and company law matters. She has also worked with some of the IT juggernauts and the government together in the UIDAI Project colloquially Aadhaar.

Ankita's experience includes advising clients across sectors including amongst others, telecommunications, information technology, renewable energy, power, manufacturing, hospitality, FMCG, food, defense, space, real estate, logistics, fintech, healthtech and deep-tech companies.

Ankita is a practising lawyer since 2011 and is a qualified company secretary.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. What is a term sheet?

2. Nomenclature associated with TS for first timers

3. Who should set the term sheet?

4. Pre-money vs post-money

5. Cap-table construction early on

6. Common shares vs preferred in the term sheet

7. Exit scenarios and how to approach it in the term sheet

8. How can investors protect themselves through  favorable clause sin term sheets

9. Structuring Pro-rata rights

10. Super pro-rata and why it’s exercised

11. Conflicts with ROFR / ROFO

12. No shop clauses

13. How can founders protect their own equity

14. Voting rights & board structure on term sheet

15. Why shouldn’t founders haggle over board observer seats

16. Wrt the term sheet, what should founders be open to negotiating and letting go off?

Archana Balasubramanian is the founding partner of Agama Law Associates (ALA). She has versatile experience of over one decade where she has developed profound legal skills and acumen. She started her career under Senior Counsel Mr S. Venkiteswaran. She subsequently worked with Udwadia & Udeshi (now Argus Partners) and AZB & Partners prior to founding ALA.

She has a tactical transactional understanding as well as significant industry expertise across diverse sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, media, pharmaceuticals, financial services, shipping, real estate, technology, engineering, infrastructure and health.

In this episode we will cover:

1, Archana’s background

2. What constitutes a dispute?

3. Conflicts within founding team

4. When should founders get in touch with attorneys wrt conflicts 

5. Does success paper over the underlying cracks?

6. Mediating between various parties

7. Financial fraud

8. Advice to founders who have been introduced by 3rd parties on potential and future conflicts

9. Conflicts and disputes regarding intellectual property (IP)

10. Can an agreement written on a piece of paper hold up in the court of law?

11. Legal jurisdiction when companies move HQ 

12. Conflicts wrt to copyrights

13. When should founders get their VCs invovled

14. Disputes when it comes to sale of a company  

15. Conflicts between board members

16. Conflicts with vendors  and third parties

Sameer is Managing Partner of TrueScale Capital and Iron Pillar India Fund I. He has 22 years of experience in venture investing, entrepreneurship, Tech M&A, investment banking, capital markets exits, strategy consulting and leadership across geographies. Sameer was a Managing Director and senior investment banker at Citigroup, where he had a successful 15-year career.

TrueScale Capital brings in a wealth of specialist growth expertise to the Indian Venture ecosystem. This is boosted with skills and leadership experience honed across technology investing, entrepreneurship, technology M&A and IPOs, investment banking and equity research.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Why Truescale Capital (4:00)

2. How does Sameer view early-stage investors and what does he make of later-stage investors entering the pre-seed / seed stage space? (9:58)

3. What should startups raising B rounds look for from their investors (13:48)

4. Will more later-stage investors push their portfolio for exits as the Indian ecosystem matures in the coming years (19:27)

5. Are domestic investors still weary about investing in the B and C stage? (25:55)

6. Lessons learned in the five and a half years in venture (32:20)

7. Portfolio construction at Series B (36:33)

8. Biases that exist at growth stage investing (41:00)

9. Thoughts around valuations at Series B (45:40)

10. Balancing expectations: growth at all costs or being founder-friendly with growth (58:22)

11. Value-add vs proactive outreach from founders (1:05:19)

12. What changes would Sameer like to see both at the early-stages and later in India (1:22:15)

Mohanjit Jolly is the Co-founder and Partner at Iron Pillar Fund (IPF). IPF provides growth capital to founders building from India for the world.

Mohanjit has been working with and investing in technology start-ups in the US and India for over 20 years. He is one of a few VCs who has been on the ground as a partner in India and Silicon Valley. Mohanjit has led Iron Pillar’s investments in Sibros, Jiffy, Uniphore, Vyome, Ushur and CoreStack.

Before co-founding Iron Pillar, Mohanjit served as a Partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson for 9 years, establishing their India operations, overseeing the India venture portfolio and coordinating business development efforts with Fortune 500 companies for DFJ’s global portfolio. Prior to this, he was a Partner at Garage Technology Ventures, a Silicon Valley seed stage VC firm. His early years in California and Boston saw him help launch ViaSpace, a technology incubator in conjunction with Caltech and JPL and Intel Play, a joint venture between Mattel and Intel. He also worked at Itek Optical Systems, a manufacturer of high-resolution reconnaissance systems.

Mohanjit serves on the Boards of The Unreasonable Group and The SETI Institute.

Mohanjit earned his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Learnings from running a fund that operates cross-border – in the US and India (3:13)

2. How does Mohanjit view the next 10 years of venture and the ecosystem in India (7:58)

3. How did Iron Pillar build its growth and support network around its fund? (15:18)

4. Examples of leveraging growth partners 24:01)

5. How should investors build relationships with founders to advocate for transparency beyond the traditional sense? (33:20)

6. What convinced Mohanjit that Anand was the right partner to start the fund with? (43:26)

7. How does Iron Pillar think about LP construction (51:05)

8. What are Mohanjit’s insecurities as an investor (57:43)

Amit Garg is the Managing Partner at Tau Ventures, an AI-first VC fund in Palo Alto focused on three verticals that require deep expertise and are now being massively disrupted -- health, automation and enterprise.

Amit has been in Silicon Valley for 20 years — at Samsung NEXT Ventures where he seed-funded nuTonomy (self-driving cars, sold for $450M), cofounded a startup called HealthIQ (as of May 2019 a series D that has raised $120M and valued at $450M), at Norwest Ventures ($10B AUM), and doing product and analytics at Google. His academic training is BS in Computer Science and MS in Biomedical Informatics, both from Stanford, and MBA from Harvard. He speaks natively 3 languages, live carbon-neutral, a 70.3 Ironman finisher, and have built a hospital in rural India serving 100,000 people.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Decisions that led to Amit becoming an VC (3:20)

2. What made Amit pursue Google instead of becoming a doctor post his Masters (6:11)

3. Why does Amit feel it’s easier today to join a startup than it was a decade ago (11:30)

4. Comparing Amit’s venture experience ten years ago to today (15:27)

5. What should founders ask themselves before imagining their cap-table (29:10)

6. LP construction based on the fund’s ‘personality’ (40:01)

7. How does Amit look at the healthcare sector and identify trends within digital health (43:28)

8. Why is AI in healthcare a huge focus for Tau Ventures (51:07)

9. Challenges that the healthcare industry today (56:45)

10. How does Amit manage his time? (1:01:05)

This episode features Pranav Pai (3one4 Capital), Arjun Rao (Speciale Invest) and Chinnu Senthilkumar (Exfinity Ventures), and moderated by Akriti Dokania (Octopus Ventures), and was a panel at The Desi VC Summit 2021.

The panel discusses India’s potential within the deep tech and the challenges in growing this space to its global counterparts.

Nitin Sharma is the General Partner at Antler India, and brings over a decade of experience in global venture capital, having invested in 50+ tech startups in multiple geographies. Most recently, he was the founder of FirstPrinciples, a thesis-driven syndicate and portfolio of 35+ startups, including Fynd, (acq. by Reliance), OnJuno, Niki, Kutumb, SharesPost (acq. By Forge), XOKind and many others backed by marquee investors. Nitin’s investing journey has previously spanned US venture capital at NEA and being a founding team principal at Lightbox Ventures in India.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Thoughts on IndianVC in the last 18 months – fundings, unicorns, valuations & growth (4:05)

2. Are seeing an inflection point or have the last 18 months been an anomaly (9:15)

3. How are first time LPs looking at Indian VC? (19:18)

4. How to perfect the pre-seed game as an angel and as a VC? (24:35)

5. Developing an understanding of upcoming / niche sectors (30:32)

6. How does an investor embrace his/her biases to improve their judgement? (34:53)

7. Antler’s vision and strategy for India (41:04)

8. Challenges of going global from day 1? (47:03)

9. Why do we classify founders into familiar buckets while investing? (54:40)

10. Where is India in the crypto development cycle? (1:01:30)

11. Regulatory infrastructure for crypto to succeed in India (1:09:10)

12. Building mental models for VC investing (1:19:53)

13. Who will dominate Indian crypto VC market –– existing investors or new entrants? (1:25:01)

Shashank Khade is the Equity specialist of Entrust with over 20 years of cumulative professional experience in listed and unlisted equity investment management. Till September 2013, Shashank was the Senior Vice-President and Head of Portfolio Management Services division of Kotak Mutual Fund. His stint with Kotak entities including Kotak Securities and Kotak Asset Management Company was over 11 years. He headed the Portfolio Management services business since 2006 and was managing over INR 2000 Cr across various portfolio management schemes. He was part of the team conceptualizing some of the best performing PMS schemes like the Fortune Series while at Kotak. Prior to Kotak Securities, Shashank Khade worked with Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited’s private equity arm IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd (then IL&FS Venture Corporation) for 5 years.

Shashank’s passion in equity as an asset class is known by his in-depth knowledge of Indian companies across sectors and market caps. Given his past experience, he is equipped to understand and evaluate both un-listed and listed equity opportunities.

Shashank Khade has a Bachelors’ degree in Mechanical Engineering (B.E. Mechanical) from Sardar Patel College, Mumbai and a Masters in Management Studies (Finance) from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS).

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Looking back at the year that was 2021 (4:32)

2. In spite of the economic slow down, the Indian tech industry and stock market has performed beyond expectations. What does Shashank think about the current market dynamics and its appetite? (9:54)

3. Thoughts on rising valuation in India today and how do we justify it from an LP point of view? (18:18)

4. How do we sustain the growth in the ecosystem from a funding pov? (28:52)

5. How do family offices asses risk with respect to venture capital? (36:32)

6. What type of funds should first time family offices be evaluating and how do you do so? (44:57)

7 . Vintage funds or emerging small-sized funds –– Where does the interest lie when it comes to family offices investments? (50:52)?

8. How do family offices evaluate funds? (55:38)

9. Advice to fund managers building their funds (1:08:43)

Arjun Vaidya is the Venture Lead for Verlinvest, a leading family owned investment group with over €1bn assets under management backed by families who have together built one of the world’s largest consumer businesses.

Before embarking on his venture journey, Arjun was the co-founder and CEO of Dr. Vaidya’s, a new age Ayurveda consumer startup which was acquired by RP Sanjiv Goenka Group in March 2021.

Prior to founding Dr. Vaidya’s, Arjun spent a few years as an investor working at LVMH's private equity arm, L Catterton.

He also runs his own podcast – Direct To A Billion Consumers, where he talks to leaders building disruptive consumers brands in India.

In this episode, we cover:

1. The journey from being an operator to an investor (2:30)

2. How does a founder evaluate an acquisition offer? (11:32)

3. What does it mean to build a consumer brand in India (17:38)

4. What kind of investor is Arjun? (25:28)

5. D2C businesses from a VC lens (30:30)

6. How do the diligence cycles within the consumer space look like? (37:24)

7. Where are the opportunities within Indian consumer market? (40:41)

8. Why venture capital? (46:40)

9. When should consumer businesses raise capital (48:12)

10. How do/should you think about branding for consumer businesses? (50:35)

Misbah Naqvi is the Co-founder and General Partner at i2i Ventures, an early-stage fund investing in startups solving some of Pakistan's biggest problems.

Misbah brings over 20 years of global experience in finance, development, fintech and impact investing. She was previously Head of Market Development at Boloro Global Limited, a US-based fintech startup. While at Boloro, she led the company’s expansion to a number of markets, including South Africa, Kuwait, Pakistan, India, UAE, Nigeria, and Jordan. Misbah spent a number of years at Acumen Pakistan & USA and at Citibank Pakistan.

Follow Misbah and i2i Ventures on Twitter to stay up-to-date with the firm’s operations.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Misbah’s journey (2:54)

2. What experiences set Misbah up for a future within Venture? (9:28)

3. Is operator experience important to be a VC? (14:39)

4. What’s driving the tech innovation within Pakistan? (18:08)

5. What is the govt  of Pakistan doing to support the tech ecosystem? (26:44)

6. Where are the opportunities within Pakistan? (34:49)

7. LP appetite for Pakistani startups and funds? (49:26)

Anjali Bansal is the Founder of Avaana Capital which invests in and provides scaling up support to innovation-led startups for catalyzing impact at scale while delivering commercial returns.

Anjali has invested in and mentored various successful start-ups including Delhivery, UrbanClap, Darwinbox, Nykaa, and Lenskart. She is closely associated with NITI Aayog’s Women Entrepreneurship Platform, digital solutions, and mentor to the Atal Innovation Mission.

Anjali is former Non-Executive Chairperson of Dena Bank, appointed by the Government of India to steer the resolution of the stressed Bank, eventually leading to merger with Bank of Baroda. She was earlier a global Partner and Managing Director with TPG Growth PE responsible for India, SE Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She started her career as a strategy consultant with McKinsey and Co. in New York.

She serves as an independent non-executive director on several leading boards including Tata Power, Bata, Kotak AMC, and Piramal Enterprises. She has previously chaired the India board of Women’s World Banking, a leading global livelihood-promoting institution and on the Managing Committee of the Indian Venture Capital Association.

She has been elected as President designate, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and serves on the CII National Committee on Corporate Governance. Anjali previously co-founded and chaired the FICCI Center for Corporate Governance program for Women on Corporate Boards. She is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and charter member of TiE.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Looking back at India’s most recent boom cycle i.e. 2020-present (2:50)

2. Skeptical about this period or a believer of the potential? (7:50)

3. Evolution of Anjali’s career (11:55)

4. The role of empathy and insecurity in professional life (16:56)

5. What is Anjali’s purpose behind investing (23:21)

6. Why venture and how do you measure the impact of your own in venture beyond capital returns (28:57)

7. The India opportunity (37:54)

8. How does Avaana think about the evolving venture landscape and where to place their bets (42:25)

9. Anjali’s journey as an LP (47:01)

10. Advice for fund managers (53:18)

11. Advice for founders (56:18)

Jitesh Luthra is leads Community for Bridge, and was previously the Platforms lead at Blume Ventures. Jitesh founded his first startup while still in college at Manipal University in the media space. After graduating with a degree in Computer Engineering, he worked with KPMG as part of their business Intelligence team, before embarking into the world of venture.

At Blume, he played a pivotal role in establishing the ‘Platforms’ initiative and helping Blume’s portfolio founders problem-solve at scale.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

What is ‘platforms’ within the context of venture? (3:50)

Evolution of the ‘platforms’ service within Indian venture and what’s driving the need for it? (9:00)

How does a fund measure ‘platforms’ and its impact? (19:40)

Why does Jitesh say that ‘platforms’ is a team role (27:30)

Managing the portfolio from a ‘platforms’ perspective (34:50)

What does a typical day for someone in platforms’ role look like? (46:55)

Maintaining goodwill and relationships (56:00)

How should funds build platforms within their firms? (1:04:40)

Arjun Rao is a Partner at Speciale Invest, one of India’s leading deep-tech focused funds. He has spent over 15 years in the technology and Internet start-up ecosystem in India. He started his career with Yahoo! and later joined Ibibo as Product Manager. The entrepreneurial bug led him to start an edutech startup and also a travel tech startup, Travelyaari. He has led tech and product teams, and strategy and fundraising at all phases of a start-up lifecycle. At Travelyaari, he built the company to achieve revenues of $40mn, and raised $12mn in seed, Series A and Series B funding. Arjun’s experience spans product development, product management, and digital marketing at growth-stage companies. 

Arjun has a Bachelors in Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Suratkal and an MBA from the Indian School of Business.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Looking back at the year from a deep tech perspective (4:05)

2. Learnings from running the first and raising the second fund (18:50)

3. Putting the deep tech thesis to test (33:10)

4. Personas of LPs interested in deep tech within India (41:25)

5. Sectors within deep tech that excite Arjun (50:39)

6. Value add of angels and global mega funds within the deep tech space in India (1:05:32)

Prashant Pitti is the Co-founder and Director at EaseMyTrip, India’s second largest travel and hospitality company which provides hotel bookings, air tickets, holiday packages, bus bookings, and white-label services. In September 2021, it became a unicorn after its market capitalization crossed $1 billion.

Prashant Pitti is responsible for marketing, branding, investor relations, hotel, bus and media management at EaseMyTrip. He is graduate from IIT Madras and has approximately 16 years of experience in the travel, tourism, banking and social applications. He has also previously worked with HSBC and Capital One in the United States.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Learning from running a travel and hospitality company during the pandemic (5:50)

2. How did EaseMyTrip maintain lean cost structure and profitability during the pandemic (8:50)

3. Advantages of not raising VC money (13:13)

4. Rationale behind deciding to bootstrap and not raise venture capital (15:55)

5. Why did EaseMyTrip pivot from B2B to B2C (21:40)

6. How does EaseMyTrip maintain its operational efficiencies over various marco-economic ups-and-downs (28:30)

7. Perks of staying under the radar (31:20)

8. The IPO journey (40:43)

9. Timing behind going public during the pandemic (48:45)

10. Building generational business – vision and mission (1:06:12)

Ravi Saxena is the Managing Director and CEO of Wonderchef, one of India’s premium brand of healthy and innovative kitchen appliances. Armed with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad, Ravi began his professional career when he joined VIP Luggage as the Brand Manager for soft luggage business. His brand Skybags had been stagnant for the past many years and was a poor cousin to the main business of moulded luggage. Coming with fresh ideas, a research-based approach (branded ‘theoretical’ until proven right), and boundless enthusiasm, there was a path-breaking decision that he took which changed the course of the brand forever and it sky-rocketed over the next few years to become the mainstay of the organization.

He devoted a lot of years in spearheading and managing several brands and diverse businesses by launching as many as twelve new businesses were to name a few were VIP Luggage, Sodexo India. Ravi joined Landmark Group to head their hospitality business and launched many new brands in India and abroad like – CityMax Hotels, Gloria Jean’s Coffees, Fun City gaming zones, Yellow Chilli restaurants with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and Polynation Food Courts.

In this episode, we will learn:

1. Learnings from operating Wonderchef during the pandemic months (2:55)

2. Maintaining efficiencies in the supply chain during the pandemic (9:50)

3. Is the Indian consumer spoilt? (15:14)

4. How should D2C brands sell quality, durability and ensure conversions at scale? (28:17)

5. Consumer patterns and behavior in middle India (36:12)

6. The playbook for taking offline retail businesses online (44:44)

7. What role do VCs play in helping D2C companies scale at various stages (51:45)

8. What about Indian consumers and their behavioral patterns still surprises Ravi (1:06:52)

Pranav Marwah is the Director of Investments at the Marwah Family Office, who are investors in a number of funds and startups. He looks after cross-vertical day-to-day operations, group strategy & growth, and group company investment portfolios. Today, the group companies business interests are diversified across real estate, hospitality, sport, and investments across other asset classes. He’s also the CEO of one of India’s leading startup incubators, thinQbate.

In this episode we will cover:

Pranav’s thoughts on sustainability within venture capital (3:00)

Gauging global trends to build an India focused thesis (10:10)

Why did the family office decide to enter venture capital (16:00)

How does the family office evaluate and measure impact (35:00)

Taking a ten year lens at Indian venture (33:47)

Advice to emerging fund managers, especially when approaching family offices (51:30)

Swati Khanna is the VP of Human Capital at Sequoia India where she plays a vital role in supporting portfolio startups in attracting and retaining top talent required to build the country’s next big unicorns. Prior to joining Sequoia, Swati founded Meyrahkee, a talent advisory firm focussed on helping companies with talent solutions, and spent four years at Accel as a Talent Partner, helping Accel’s portfolio companies from inception through the growth stage. Swati has a solid reputation for being a top talent recruiter and was recognized as one of India’s Top 40 Social Recruiters in 2017.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Human capital in the context of the venture

2. Thinking about talent acquisition at various growth cycles of a startup

3. State of the industry right now with respect to talent acquisition

4. How should founders position themselves and their startups to attract the best talent

5. How to develop culture within a startup

6. How does Sequoia help young founders attract top talent

7. Talent management

8. Addressing diversity in today’s climate

9. What is the day to day of a VP of a Human capital

10. Advice to fund managers who are building out or looking to build human capital

11. How does Sequoia look at human capital with a 5-year lens

12. Productizing human capital

Radhesh is amongst the most seasoned B2B investors in India who brings with him rich operational experience in the enterprise technology space. He is Founder and Managing Partner at Suvan Ventures, a B2B focused cross-border fund. Before Suvan Ventures, he was Managing Partner of Arka Venture Labs which was created in 2018 August with the objective of investing and mentoring B2B companies between India and US corridor. The fund has made 27 investments with 4 exits and 9 uprounds (from the likes of Sequoia, B Capital, Nexus, Lightspeed, Matrix, Facebook). Prior to Arka Venture Labs, Radhesh had an 18 years long stint in IBM with strong technical, sales, and business development experience in various divisions of IBM. In his last assignment there, Radhesh was heading the Startup initiative of IBM India and South Asia.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. How did Radhesh get started into the world of SaaS investing (2:19)

2. How do you evaluate SaaS startups at the pre-seed and seed stage? (11:40)

3. Building value into a SaaS business in the early-days (16:12)

4. Best branding practices for early-stage SaaS startups (22:14)

5. Rise of vertical SaaS in India (29:11)

6. Why do VCs love vertical SaaS (37:18)

7. Evaluating market sizes SaaS (40:01)

8. Important of nailing the Pricing within SaaS (44:45)

9. How does Suvan Ventures plan to add value to its portfolio (53:18)

10. Advice to founders building from day 1 for the globe (57:00)

Varun Alagh is the CEO and co-founder of D2C unicorn, MamaEarth, a personal care brand that specializes in baby and toddler products.

Varun is a master marketer having worked for the world’s most valuable brands Coca-Cola as well as its Diets and Lights portfolio for India and South West Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka). Before this role, he worked with Diageo and managed World's No.1 spirits brand Smirnoff for India. Prior to his stint with Unilever he was in sales for 3 years managing an 800 crore in more than 20 categories spread across home care, personal care & foods.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. How do you build purpose driven brands in India 3:50

2. Building a voice over time 14:54

3. As an entrepreneur, how does one find purpose? 24:40

4. How do investors react to purpose 29:41

5. What does it mean to be a unicorn startup today? 31:53

6. What excites Varun about Indian consumers and what does he still not understand about them 34:30

Sunit Gajbhiye is the Co-Founder, Business Head at Financepeer. Prior to this he was Product Manager at EdgeVerve, Infosys. Sunit is an IIM and VJTI alumnus with 6+ years of experience in Business Operations and Product Management.

Financepeer, a Series B fintech startup backed by Aavishkaar Capital, QED Investors, 9Unicorn and Earlsfield Capital. The startup provides the entire year fee collection upfront to the School at the beginning of the year and collects fees from parents in monthly instalments that too at Zero Additional cost. Financepeer is spread across 60+ cities with over 6000+ school/ Institute partnerships. The Startup has so far impacted more than 15 lakh families by providing them no-cost-fee financing.

Financepeer's peer-to-peer lending platform connects individual borrowers to lenders digitally. It uses an algorithm that quantifies risk from credit and non-credit bureau channels by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI).

In this episode we will cover:

1. Brief overview of Financepeer

2. Structuring the fundraise (2:30)

3. How to best leverage the angel network (6:30)

4. Thinking through the seed stage fundraise and deployment of capital (8:18)

5. Managing relationships with investors (11:05)

6. Exit conversations (secondaries) and alignment (20:01)

7. When to raise Series A (21:50)

8. Why now and how much to raise (26:35)

Sunil Goyal is the Founder and Managing Director of YourNest, a deep tech and enterprise focused fund in India. Before becoming a full-time, early-stage investor and fund manager, he had gained comprehensive experience of leading complex projects in the areas of M&A, business turnarounds and strategic partnerships. He has spent over two decades working at CXO levels at Bharti group and Dabur.

As one of the country’s early angel investors, Sunil has led seed-stage investments and guided companies to successful exits: his investments which reaped healthy returns include ZipDial (9.6x acquired by Twitter), VuClip (4.4x acquired by PCCW) and Mobiquest (1.8x acquired by PayTM). A former member of The Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels, Sunil discovered an acumen for spotting high-potential startups and eventually chose to set up YourNest Venture Capital.

In this episode we will cover:

1. How does Sunil define deep tech (3:05)

2. Why did Sunil take a bet on deep tech and enterprise when very people did back in 2011? (6:10)

3. Why was early stage investing a big boys game in India back in 2011 (13:52)

4. How do you track progress in deep tech and continue to support a company’s growth (21:40)

5. Tracking progress in deep tech against the competition (25:54)

6. Best time to fundraise for a deep tech startup in India (29:21)

7. The importance of bringing on the right set of investors for a deep tech startup (34:28)

8. Advice to young first time deep tech founders (38:19)

9. The role an early-stage VC plays in building portfolios to reach later-stage (42:50)

10. How do we enable more investors to enter the deep tech investing world (45:08)

11. The role of the Indian govt in propelling the deep tech ecosystem (48:57)

Ankur Bansal is the Co-founder and Executive Director at BlackSoil Capital, a venture debt firm based in India.

He leads the execution efforts across our large corporate clients in strategic discussions, idea origination, M&A execution, investment thesis, and negotiations. Ankur is a CFA and a CA with a large network of venture capitalists, private equity investors, institutional investors, and investment bankers and has extensive investment banking experience with major banks such as JP Morgan, Citi, and JM Morgan Stanley.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Thoughts on current landscape within India (1:00)

2. Valuations, down rounds and how startups survive this tide? (6:17)

3. How long will the economic downturn last (11:25)

4. Why Ankur prefers startups that are “dhanda” type business (22:50)

5. Does timing really matter for a venture debt investor (29:40)

6. Are debt investors in India collaborative or competitive by nature? (32:14)

7. Could a founder have more than one debt investor on the cap table? (33:24)

8. Value add that debt investors bring to the table (36:53)

9. How did the Partners at BlackSoil decide the fund structure (44:19)

10. Which sectors are debt investors excited about (51:21)

11. Tidbit about the fund name - BlackSoil (1:04:01)

Vinay Singh is a Partner at Fireside Ventures, a fund specializing in early stage and seed investments in the Indian consumer space. With 7+ years at Hindustan Unilever as Marketing Manager for a multi-crore brand, extensive expertise in digital marketing at McKinsey & Co., and Bankbazaar.com, Vinay has a unique perspective on the intersection between consumer brands and technology. He has also been an entrepreneur, as the founder and CEO of Stepni.com, which was acquired by Quikr.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Vinay’s take on the market right now (3:00)

2. Does abundant dry powder allow funds to modify their thesis? (8:33)

3. How does a venture capitalist look at ‘brand building’? (14:30)

4. How can you build a global D2C brand from India? (21:08)

5. Does a startup’s mission really matter to investors? (28:45)

6. How does a founder find purpose in their idea / business? (37:46)

7. How important is operating experience for an investor (44:24)

8. For founders: How to build rapport with your investors (48:11)

9. What does Vinay and Fireside Ventures do REALLY well (53:04)

Mohit Kumar is the Co-founder and CEO of Ultrahuman, a metabolic health tracking platform that provides intelligent nudges based on glucose biomarkers and aims to improve users’ exercise, sleep and nutrition based on deep insights from the platform. Ultrahuman was founded by Mohit Kumar and Vatsal Singhal who were also co-founders at Runnr which later merged with India’s largest food delivery service Zomato.

Ultrahuman has raised over $25m to date from Alpha Wave, Steadview Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures and iSeed fund, and a range of other angel investors including Tiger Global’s Scott Schleifer.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Impact of the last two years on Ultrahuman (2:50)

2. How did the founding team come up with the idea for Ultrahuman (7:33)

3. How did the Ultrahuman team perceive the TAM? (17:25)

4. How does Ultrahuman raise public awareness about food, diet, nutrition, and lifestyle? (23:30)

5. Breaking down data for customers who are not data savvy (30:15)

6. The Science of Metabolic Score (35:20)

7. What has Ultrahuman team learned from the pandemic user data? (39:10)

8. How can men and women understand their bodies better through Ultrahuman (44:46)

9. What is Ultrahuman’s vision for the future (52:38)

10. How does Ultrahuman intend to democratize data access? (1:09:25)

11. How do investors perceive Ultrahuman? (1:11:05)

Viral Jani has been the driving force behind several challenging projects in Consumer Tech, Television Broadcasting, Digital, Social Media and Media Planning. Armed with more than 15 years of experience in media and technology, Viral plays a key role in spearheading Investment Operations at Times Bridge.

A post graduate in Communications Management, Media & Brand Management from MICA, in his previous avatar, Viral has led strategy, television and entertainment partnerships for Twitter across India and worked with key strategic partners across sectors to drive innovation and monetization.

Prior to Twitter, he was the Head of Strategy and Social Media for Times Television Network. Viral has also been associated with several other major media houses in India like NDTV, Disney, Viacom and Mindshare.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Times Bridge and its unique structure (3:12)

2. When does a company approach Times Bridge (14:50)

3. How does the deal flow at Times Bridge work? (18:57)

4. Measuring success with Times Bridge business model (25:10)

5. How does Times Bridge view competition in its portfolio? (31:30)

6. The impact of the macroeconomic environment on today's investments (35:02)

7. Learnings from the Times Bridge portfolio and the impact of macro trends on their Indian businesses (40:21)

8. The hardest aspect about being an investor (42:42)

9. Managing relationships with portfolio startups and working on the India expansion story (47:18)

10. What should companies considering expanding into India know and be aware of before entering the market? (51:40)

11. words of wisdom for his younger self (56:16)

Madhu Shalini Iyer is a Partner at Rocketship VC. Previously, she was the Chief Data Officer of Gojek and helped grow the business into a $1 billion unicorn. She was on the board and started the Singapore office. Prior to Gojek, Madhu was an operating partner at a 150M private equity fund building startups across South East Asia. She was part of the founding team of Intuit’s Quickbooks Lending Platform where she helped grow the platform to $300 million and holds 3 patents in the areas of user data augmented algorithms for financial inclusion.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Madhu's journey from Intuit and GoJek operator to board member and investor (3:00)

2. What aspect of the operator journey makes investing more pleasurable? (10:45)

3. How does Rocketship VC use data science to assist in the selection of startups for investment? (18:21)

4. How does data science influence Rocketship's thesis? (22:41)

5. Portfolio construction constraints with a heavily data-driven model (25:32)

6. Where does Rocketship stand on gut and human instinct versus data science? (30:20)

7. How did Rocketship's data science-focused fund model attract LPs? (34:05)

8. How does data and the Rocketship model adapt to macroeconomic trends? (42:27)

9. Can data be used to assess the impact of an investment on a portfolio? (46:15)

10. Why is investing so personal for Shalini (50:41)

11. Advice to founders and investors (59:25)

Abhishek Goenka is the Head & CIO at RPSG Capital Ventures, a corporate venture fund backed by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. The fund primarily invests in early-stage consumer brands in India including F&B, CPG, personal care and lifestyle goods. Abhishek brings two decades of experience across investments and M&A having spent time being part of the investments team at True North and JP Morgan. He is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Financial Analyst by qualification. 

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Lessons learned over the last two years investing in India (3:53)

2. How does RPSG Capital Ventures plan to invest in the second half of the year? (12:46)

3. What aspect of the Indian consumer story drew Abhishek in? (20:33)

4. Addressing and tackling the middle India opportunity (26:26)

5. What factors does RSPG Capital Ventures consider when investing in startups in the early stages? (32:40)

6. Tips for constructing your cap-table (44:30)

7. Advice for today's entrepreneurs and those who will start businesses tomorrow (51:20)

8. Where will RSPG invest in the coming year? (56:48)

Sandeep Patil is a partner at QED Investors, and heads the fund’s investments in Asia. Founded in 2007, QED Investors has invested in more than 180+ companies, including 27 unicorns, and has more than $5 billion under management. Notable investments include Nubank, SoFi, Credit Karma, Klarna, GreenSky, Avant, Flywire, Remitly, QuintoAndar, Creditas, ClearScore, and Konfio.

He has extensive consumer internet experience and is a global banking and financial services industry veteran. Over the course of his career, he has helped launch consumer and SME lending businesses at Flipkart, as well as contributed to the company's fundraising and eventual sale to Walmart. He was also the Managing Director and CEO for India at Truecaller, where he oversaw the Adtech, Payments, FinTech, SME/Enterprise, and Developer businesses, doubling revenue and achieving net income profitability despite the pandemic.

Sandeep brings extensive consumer credit experience from Capital One in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as experience serving global investors, banks, and insurers at McKinsey & Company.

Sandeep holds a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and an MBA from the London Business School (LBS).

In this episode, we will cover:

1. How and why did Sandeep become a venture capitalist? (3:03)

2. What are the parallels and differences between the 2007/08 crisis and the post-pandemic economic slowdown? (14:56)

3. QED's assessment of the current market and its implications for venture investing (24:15)

4. What is the balance between founder-market-fit and investor-founder-fit? (31: 37)

5. Consumer vs. enterprise in Indian fintech: where is the opportunity? (40:00)

6. From where will the winners in Indian fintech emerge? (46:55)

7. How easy is it to keep an eye on Asian markets from the UK? (51:15)

Arun Chulani is an Emerging Markets Analyst at First Water Capital, a fund focused on Indian Equities. First Water’s investment philosophy centers primarily on a long-only strategy, with a value driven and concentrated portfolio approach.

Arun is a value investor focusing on hard assets (sectors such as steel, cement, rubber, oil etc.) and cyclicals, taking concentrated bets on preferred plays. Prior to First Water he was with NIG, handling an industrials fund with $400M AUM. Arun is also a Chartered Accountant and a graduate of the LSE.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Macroeconomic view of the public markets? (2:24)

2. Mean reversal in light of the current market environment (5:06)

3. When the market is effectively underperforming, how do you invest? (7:52)

4. The economics of hedge funds and their investors' attitudes (12:47)

5. How does First Water Capital develop an investment thesis like theirs? (14:30)

6. What impact does the budget have on First Water Capital investment plan? (22:15)

7. What metrics does First Water Capital use to differentiate its sectors? (27:04)

8. How do you assure competition in industries with powerful incumbents? (27:57)

9. What factors do funds consider before investing in big businesses? (32:10)

10. Extrinsic vs. intrinsic value (36:20)

11. What according to Arun is the hardest thing for investors to evaluate (39:12)

12. Can a slowdown in one industry affect the growth of another due to the marco-climate? (43:41)

13. The effects of trickle-down (45:22)

14. Tips for making fund investments in public markets (47:49)

15. Industries that Arun is bullish on (51:11)

RK Rangan is the Chairman of BLinC Invest, a venture capital fund committed to funding EdTech and Fintech startups in India. He is a seasoned business leader with over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry across Investment Banking, Asset Management, Insurance and Consumer Banking. He is a specialist at strategic development and transformation of businesses and has held President/MD and CEO positions with large global corporates.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Current state of the industry (3:41)

2. Microtrends that influence macrotrends in investment (14:46)

3. Indian EdTech: How to create long-term business models and maintain good corporate governance (30:57)

4. Is an independent regulator required for Indian Edtech? (36:10)

5. What does it take for investors to put their investment thesis into action? (39:15)

6. What are the various challenges that a fund manager faces when implementing their thesis, and how does this change over time? (52:38)

Ankit Kedia is the Founding Partner of Capital-A. He is a second generation entrepreneur who has held senior leadership positions at Manjushree Technopack Ltd. (MTL), India's largest rigid plastic packaging company. With a penchant for institutional marketing and a credit of designing the Key Account Management program, Ankit has been instrumental in the 5x growth of revenues and EBIDTA at Manjushree, where he devoted 15 strong years. He was also instrumental in raising private equity capital from Kedaara Capital and helped in the acquisition of two rival companies, before divesting controlling stake to Advent International in 2018.

In this episode we will cover:

1. What does Ankit really love about venture capital? (3:10)

2. Ankit's perspective on India's macro economic climate (6:30)

3. Market fluctuations in the early stages of investing (8:50)

4. Founder-market fit and how it influences a fund manager's investment decisions (14:48)

5. Learnings from investing in Indian startups (17:56)

6. How to identify the best startups (22:24)

7. The most difficult thing for a fund manager of a micro VC fund (34:40)

8. Ankit's perspective on the Indian early-stage venture landscape (36:53)

9. Why did Ankit choose to invest in tech startups rather than traditional manufacturing businesses in which his family had had a lot of success? (41:10)

10. What has Ankit the LP learned about Indian VC that he can use as a fund manager today? (44:15)

11. What would Ankit advise his younger self? (46:51)

12. Advice for entrepreneurs and fund managers (48:55)​

Manish Taneja is the co-founder and CEO of Purplle, an online beauty and wellness retailer and a recent entrant into the unicorn club. He brings a wealth of experience having spent some of his finest years in venture capital (Avendus Capital), private equity (Fidelity Growth Partners India) and investment banking (Lehman Brothers), before turning a founder.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Manish's biggest takeaways from the last two years of building Purplle (4:18)

2. What has Manish discovered about himself and his role as a leader in general? (17:08)

3. As a founder, how does Manish deal with difficult decisions? (27:02)

4. Influences and influencers who have had an impact on Manish’s life (38:23)

5. Where does Manish see Purplle in the next decade (49:20)

6. Manish's advice to his younger self? (59:58)

Parag Dhol is the General Partner at Athera Venture Partners. He started his VC career with ICICI Venture, India’s first venture capital company, in 1993. He followed that up with stints at GE and Intel’s corporate venture arms. Parag joined Athera (formerly known as Inventus Capital) in 2008, shortly after the first close of Fund I. Parag is/was a Board Director/Observer at redBus (acquired), FundsIndia, Lemnisk (buy-back), eTechies (buy-back), Power2SME, PolicyBazaar (IPO), Avaz (buy-back), peel-works, Tricog, worxogo, Pixxel and Clootrack.

Parag has a B.Tech. (Mechanical Engg.) from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Venture Capital in India in the 1990s (2:55)

2. What factors influence a fund manager's temperament? (5:26)

3. Things that surprise Parag about Indian venture capital (9:58)

4. What lessons has public market investing taught Parag about private market investing? (20:29)

5. Managing investor biases and blindspots (24:32)

6. What investment advice would Parag give to his younger self? (29:13)

7. Evolution of Indian VC over the decades (35:10)

8. Considering the current venture landscape in India (43:59)

9. What continues to pique Parag's interest in the India opportunity? (51:16)

10. Athera's vision and the role Parag sees it playing in Indian venture capital (55:08)

11. How would Parag like to be remembered i.e. his legacy in Indian VC (1:00:06)

Mukesh Kalra is the CEO of ET Money, one of India's fastest growing investment and wealth management platform with a total of over $3B worth of investments under management. Mukesh has over 15 years of experience in building businesses and products from scratch in the consumer internet and mobile advertising space. Prior to heading ET Money, he was one of the core members at InMobi and helped build it from concept into the world’s largest independent mobile ad network. He then launched his own fintech firm, Moneysights, which was later acquired by Times Internet, and Times Group. 

 In less than 5 years, ET Money has built a solid customer base of over 10 million users across 1400 cities. The platform has been a pioneer in building industry-first technical solutions like paperless video KYC for MF investments, and the country’s first Aadhar-based SIP payment feature, amongst others.

ET Money is simplifying the financial journey of new-age Indians by offering easy investment for different needs like Mutual Funds, National Pension System, and safer avenues like Fixed Deposits. 

In this episode we will cover:

1. India: A macroeconomic outlook (3:38)

2. Why has India fared better than any other markets affected by the global financial slowdown? (10:20)

3. Lessons learned from black swan events (15:50)

4. What did Mukesh excel at during black swan periods? (25:12)

5. Thoughts on market manipulation in the context of content creators (42:06)

6. Why must a founder constantly evolve their mental models (54:03)

7. The vision for Indian fintech in the coming years (1:05:28)

. . .

Social links:

Mukesh Kalra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kalramukesh

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash