The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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 team4. When should founders get in touch with attorneys wrt conflicts 5. Does success paper over the underlying cracks? 6. Mediating between various parties7. Financial fraud8. Advice to founders who have been introduced by 3rd parties on potential and future conflicts9. 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 copyrights13. When should founders get their VCs invovled 14. Disputes when it comes to sale of a company  15. Conflicts between board members16. Conflicts with vendors  and third parties

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 timers3. 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 sheet7. Exit scenarios and how to approach it in the term sheet8. How can investors protect themselves through  favorable clause sin term sheets9. 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?

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)

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)