Anup Jain is the managing partner at Orios Venture Partners, a VC firm investing in B2B and B2C startups with offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. Anup leads their FMCG and Retail investments and has over 20 years of experience of building brands across countries and categories.

Follow Anup (@AnupOrios), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and the podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Covid impact on Orios and the VC industry (1:15)

2. Anup’s background (23:28)

3. FMCG & Retail investment in India (32:30)

4. FMCG investments: contrarian or not? (43:45)

5. What do investors look for in FMCG startups? (48:41)

6. Subscription vs non-subscription vs Digitally Native Vertical Brand (DNVB)? (54:10)

7. Will Orios invest in a brand that doesn’t have an online presence? (1:00:01)

8. How do you scale businesses with moats such as data, distribution and personalization (1:16:55)

9. Rapid fire (1:08:58)