How VCs Think About Startups in India w Sramana Mitra

Jishnu Bhattacharjee is Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners, a fundamentals – focused firm. Jishnu takes us through several examples of how the firm is thinking about investing in startups. Excellent conversation.

Sasha Mirchandani, Managing Partner of Kae Capital, an early stage venture fund. Sasha is also a co-founder of Mumbai Angels. This conversation is from 2016 and the next lecture is our more recent conversation. There are lessons to learn from both discussions.

Here, Sasha re-emphasized two points that we have heard before: Indian VCs only invest in India-facing B-to-C ventures and global B-to-B startups. India-facing B-to-B is not a sector that gets any investment, although we have covered exceptions like Knowlarity here that have received significant funding.

We discussed the issue of the lack of exits in India, as well as the missing late-stage funding for B-to-C ventures facing the Indian market. Global B-to-B ventures pretty much routinely start in India, but move to California or some other US location after Series A. Thus, they can tap into the global capital pool, and are unconstrained by late stage funding availability in India.

Those of you who are working out of India would do well to keep these key points in mind.

Let me refer you to Mahesh Murthy’s provocative article, Is Venture Capital Killing Indian Startups? Mahesh raises the question whether in a relatively slow-growth market like India, you can build companies within the US venture capital timeline. The article is worth reading for the valid questions it raises.

My discussions with many Indian investors, will all point you to one conclusion: most Indian VCs are aware of the fact that India is a slow-growth market, and they’re trying to tap into global growth rates, US-scale adoption when it comes to B-to-B tech companies.

In B-to-C, especially e-commerce, there is a massive gating item restricting growth: lack of acceptance of credit card transactions online. When this will change, we don’t know. If it does change, there will be massive acceleration. Until then, Mahesh Murthy’s question remains a valid one.

Sasha Mirchandani, Founder and Managing Director, Kae Capital, an early stage fund focused on India. I’ve known Sasha for over a decade, and we discussed the evolution of the Indian startup industry at length.

Mohanjit Jolly, Partner at Iron Pillar, and a long-time player in the Indian startup ecosystem discusses Exit options for Indian startups and other topics.

Anirudh Damani is Managing Partner at Artha Venture Fund. We had a terrific discussion on the Indian Startup Ecosystem and its trends.

Padmaja Ruparel, Co-founder, Indian Angel Network (IAN), and Founding Partner, IAN Fund. This is from our conversation in 2017 and the next lecture will be a more recent discussion.

Padmaja has been a key player in shaping India’s nascent startup eco-system. Must listen to interview for those interested in Indian startups and the funding trends.

Padmaja Ruparel, Co-founder, Indian Angel Network and Founding Partner, IAN Fund. The Indian startup eco-system has grown tremendously, and IAN has contributed heavily in that evolution. We did have some technical difficulties, but still worth a listen.

I'm also providing my first interview with Padmaja from 2010 as an external recource. So interesting to compare all three conversations and appreciate how much the Indian startup industry has grown over the past decade.

Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures, is a veteran of the Indian Venture Capital industry. This discussion spans historical context to current Unicorn mania. Great analysis!

Deepak Gupta, Founding Partner at WEH Ventures, discussing his fund’s pre-seed and seed funding strategy for Indian startups.

Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Founder of Malpani Ventures, is an active angel investor in Indian startups for the past decade. Wonderful conversation.

Eva Yazhari, General Partner at Beyond Capital Ventures, discusses Impact Investing in Africa and India.

Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-founder of Mela Ventures, and former CEO of MindTree, discusses the Indian Venture ecosystem.

Kanwaljit Singh is Founder of Fireside Ventures, a fund focused on building consumer brands in India. This is an excellent podcast interview about the nascent opportunity that, I expect, will be a major, worldwide phenomenon in the coming years.

Anirudh Suri, Founding Partner at India Internet Fund, talks about the funding trends in the Indian startup market during this podcast interview.

Brij Bhasin, Principal and India Investment Lead at Rebright Partners, which is a Japanese venture capital firm, discusses their India strategy. The podcast interview encompasses broader trends in the Indian startup market.

Please pick your favorite case studies from the course and run them through a validation and positioning exercise. Use the 1Mby1M Self-Assessment questionnaire and try to answer each question in it.