In this episode of the ACLR8 podcast, we host one of India's most iconic startup investors: Rajesh Sawhney.

Rajesh has invested in 165 companies over the last 15 years and sits on the board of many listed companies and unicorns. In today's episode we will try to cover 3 topics:

• Trends and opportunities for young founders as we become a $10T economy
• Fundraising 101 for early stage founders
• Thinking long term about company building

We hope you enjoy the podcast today and it inspires you to kickstart your journey. Do drop a note in the comments section about your feedback on the episode. Content Timeline:-----------------

• 00:00 - Intro
• 01:22 - Rajesh investment journey over the last 15 years.
• 10:50 - Learnings from Madhu Kela and public market investing.
• 17:24 - Fundraising tips for early stage founders.
• 31:45 - Common traits between successful founders.
• 36:20 - India opportunity.
• 43:24 - Building the right idea at the right time.
• 48:00 - IPO projections for 2025.
• 54:15 - India v/s China over the next 20 years.
• 56:30 - India Spacetech opportunity.
• 58:45 - Rapidfire
• 59:00 - Renting v/s Buying a house
• 1:00:20 - Top 3 cities to live in India.
• 1:02:00 - IITs v/s IVY league colleges.
• 1:03:00 - Gambhir v/s Dravid as Indian team coach.
• 1:04:25 - Can Singularity and AGI be achieved?
• 1:06:00 - Pickelball: Serious sport or fad?
• 1:07:00 - Will Tiktok be sold to Elon Musk?
• 1:07:42 - Ranking India's last 5 PMs
• 1:10:09 - Advice to early stage founders building the next big business from India.

#startup #funding #entrepreneurship #fundraising #startupindia #accelerator #incubator #aclr8 #aclr8vc #GSF #RajeshSawhney

🚀 Coming from a small town in India to build an INR 14K crore company.🚀 Being the first Indian B2B marketplace to list publicly.🚀 Building profitably and building the technology backbone for 70M SMB’s in India.This is the IndiaMart story...Had a wonderful chat with Brijesh Agrawal, Co-Founder, IndiaMart on how they are building the technology layer for Bharat enabling millions of MSME’s to become more efficient and scale.. ❤️We talked about:✅ The initial IndiaMart thesis and how it has evolved over the last 25 years.✅ Building the business profitably, being persistent and being customer focussed.✅ Identifying categories where you can solve a high value need for a customer.✅ Critical elements for running and scaling B2B marketplace business.✅ How a founder’s role evolves as they grow from 0-1 to 1-100 to finally listing their company.🙌 The IndiaMart journey is truly inspiring for any early stage founder building in the SAAS / B2B space in the country. Building the next big thing? Apply to the ACLR8 program today! www.aclr8.vc/apply#startup #msme #smb #entrepreneurship #founder #aclr8 #aclr8vc #indiamart #ipo

Shot a super episode with Nitin Mehrotra, Founder & CEO, DressFolk on his journey of building India's most loved ethnic wear brand. We talked about:- Nitin's growing up journey and how his family background inspired him to startup in the fashion space- DressFolk evolution over the last 8 years and finding PMF- Building and scaling a D2C fashion business in India today, profitably- Raising funding from people like Ghazal Alagh and some of India's best angel investors and funds. - Way forward, future of India's handlooms and dreams of going globalDo check it out and let us know how you like the podcast!

Content Timelines:⁣⁠

• 00:00⁠ - ACLR8 Intro
• 01:16⁠ - Pre cap
• 02:27⁠ - Nitin's family history and how that inspired Dressfolk
• 12:00 - Dark side of the fashion industry
• 16:15 - Initial days of Dressfolk
• 24:50 - India's ethnic wear market and opportunities for D2C brands
• 32:25 - Supply chain challenges and capacity building with artisans
• 37:00 - Scaling D2C at Dressfolk
• 45:40 - Meta ads strategy
• 48:00 - Fundraising journey
• 1:00:30 - Rapid fire with Nitin
• 1:05:15 - Closing remarks

Follow us on Instagram: / aclr8.vc

Learn content, marketing & advertising from Ayush Wadhwa ( @AyushWadhwa ) the founder of one of India's best media companies, Owled Media ( @owledmedia9296 )

98x oversubscribed! This was the crazy demand for the ixigo stock at their recent IPO. But what many don't know is the 17 year old journey of grit, determination, never giving up in the face of innumerable challenges and always building for Bharat. ⁣

Had the immense pleasure of hosting Aloke Bajpai, Co-Founder & Group Chairman, Ixigo, to the ACLR8 Founder Academy Podcast, hosted by Karan Jindal. Aloke shared his and Rajnish's journey of getting inspired by the movie Swades and coming back to India to start Ixigo.

We talked about:⁣

and so much more 🙏⁣

This episode is a gold mine of insights for any founder building a large consumer tech business in India today. Watch the whole episode now and let us know what you think. ❤️⁣

Content Timelines:⁣

If your goal is to build India's largest consumer D2C brand then this is the episode for you. 🚀 In this episode, our guest, Jatan Bawa takes us through his journey of building Perfora. 🔥⁣

Perfora is one of the fastest growing D2C oral care brands in India doing revenues of 70 crore / year and disrupting a boring and traditional FMCG category like oral care. 💯⁣

In this Jatan breaks down:⁣

Catch the full episode today and let us know if it's helpful in your journey of building a D2C brand. ❤️⁣

Content Timelines:⁣

What does ₹15 crore worth of free publicity do to the scale and trajectory of a D2C brand? 🚀⁣

Hosted the awesome @simrankhara2 at the ACLR8 Founder Academy podcast and talked about her vision of building India’s largest cleaning products company with a focus on sustainable and clean ingredients and honest claims. ❤️⁣

We talked about:⁣

🙌 We discussed Koparo’s amazing Shark Tank episode, getting funding from Aman and Vineeta and the growth the brand saw after the episode. ⁣

🙌 Simran also shared her journey of being a solo woman founder and how it is important for founders to manage their personal and work life.⁣

Full episode out now! ⁣

Content Timelines:⁣

#sharktankindia #koparoclean #amangupta #vineetasingh #brandsforbharat

Building one of India’s largest Beauty & Personal Care D2C Brand. 🚀 ⁣

Hosted the amazing Malika Datt Sadani, Co-Founder, The Moms Co, at the ACLR8 studio and discussed what it takes to build a large and loved consumer brand in India today! 🙌 🇮🇳⁣

Malika shared her insights on:

✅ Building a brand in competitive categories and creating a niche.

✅ How can founders do deep consumer research to identify their TG.⁣

✅ Thinking customer backward, understanding consumer needs and launching honest & clean products at good price points.

✅ Thinking about brand and marketing from a community first POV.

✅ How can founders be personal brand ambassadors for their brands.

We also talked about how challenging it is for new moms to start-up and the importance of building a network.💛 Malika shared insights on her angel investing journey, her favourite home grown brands from India and the sectors she is excited by in the consumer space for Bharat over the next few years. 🇮🇳🚀⁣

⁣

Full episode out now!⁣

✅ YT⁣

✅ Spotify⁣

✅ IG⁣

⁣

Content Timelines:⁣

#brandsforbharat #themomsco #mohitsadani #malikasadani

Building a large business, while reviving a cultural legacy, and providing social impact.❤️ Raising funding from some of India’s top investors, getting an all Shark Deal at Shark Tank India and all of this while just being 24 years old! 🙌 🚀⁣

Hosted the super amazing Aditya Agrawal, Co-Founder, P-TAL, on how founders can use story telling to build large consumer brands and stand out! 🇮🇳⁣

The kitchen and dining market in India is worth 30K crores and majority of the market is fragmented with larger brands doing about 5K crores in revenue. 💯⁣

There is lack of trust, lack of awareness and lack of quality products - which means a massive opportunity to build a large brand in this space. 🙌 🚀⁣

Super excited to share more about Aditya and P-TAL’s journey on how they are looking to build a large brand and revive India’s only UNESCO listed art form. ❤️⁣

Checkout the full episode now. 🙌 ✅⁣

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aclr8.vc/⁣

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aclr8/⁣

Building the next big consumer business from India, apply to the ACLR8 cohort today. www.aclr8.vc ❤️

Content Timeline:

Today’s guest at the founder academy, is someone who has been a founder and investor. ⁣

As a founder, Arjun founded Dr. Vadiya’s. Scaled it to one of the fastest growing Ayurveda D2C brands in the country and sold it for 100 crores in 4 years. ⁣

As an investor, Arjun founded V3 ventures and raised over $100M to invest in some of India’s best consumer brands. ⁣

In this episode we discussed:⁣

⁣Catch the full episode and let us know what you think.⁣

------------------⁣

⁣

Content Timelines:⁣