Our guest today is Adith Podhar, founder of Gemba Capital, who is just wrapping up a $10 million fund to invest early in India's next generation of tech-native startups. In today's conversation, Adith talks about going from being a restaurant owner trying to popularise crepes in India to working in private equity, to turning venture capital investor

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:56) Our guest today — Adith Podhar, founder of Gemba Capital

(01:53) A snapshot of journey from ICICI Bank to Gemba Capital via a detour into entrepreneurship selling crepes

(04:49) The story behind choosing the name Gemba — inspiration from Japan

(06:15) Early days of Gemba — figuring out an investment thesis, operating like a family office

(08:10) MyHQ — Gemba’s first investment

(09:25) Covid was tough on them and they’ve pivoted

(10:10) 2020 onwards — Gemba stepped up investments; and the plan ahead — shifting from tech-enabled to tech-native businesses

(11:55) $10 million fund — the first at Gemba

(13:12) A typical pre-seed cheque in India today

(13:40) What’s changed that’s prompting Gemba and others to commit more money at the pre-seed stage itself

(16:15) More on shifting to tech-native companies, and Gemba’s approach to investing

(20:45) Areas that Gemba wants to invest in, examples of startups the firm has already invested in

(25:25) Investments ahead, including fintech 3.0, deep tech, gaming, health tech

(26:4) What’s interesting in deep tech in India

(28:00) A bit more on a micro VC’s strategies

(30:00) Gemba Capital over the next three to five years — a second fund at $50 million or higher

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds