The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

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 pastIn 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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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 20212. Why he chose venture capital as a career path?3. What is deep-tech?4. Misconceptions about deep-tech investing5. 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 startups10. Exits in deep-tech

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.

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.