In this episode, we sit down with ⁠Sheel Mohnot⁠, co-founder of ⁠Better Tomorrow Ventures⁠ (BTV), a San Francisco-based $350M AUM fund that leads pre-seed and seed rounds in fintech companies globally, typically writing first checks ranging from $500K to $4M.

BTV also runs The Mint Accelerator, a program providing mentorship, resources, and community support for fintech founders. At its core, BTV invests for a better future, driven by the belief that fintech can genuinely improve people’s lives.

Sheel is an operator-turned-investor. He built and sold FeeFighters, a Stripe-like payment gateway and processor product called Samurai, which was acquired by Groupon pre-launch in 2012, as well as Innovative Auctions. He also co-founded Thistle, a healthy meal delivery company that raised minimal VC funding and now employs over 500 people.

In this episode, we dive deep with Sheel to uncover the lessons he’s learned from building and exiting two businesses, the profound influence of family on his journey as both a founder and now an investor, and why he believes seed-stage investing allows BTV to have the greatest impact.

He shares candid insights about what it means to be the first call for his founders, the perks and challenges of being an operator-turned-investor, and the importance of portfolio diversification.

Sheel also reflects on traits of an ideal investor, finding life’s purpose, and even tells a story about the time he smoked a cigarette just to close a deal as a founder.

Whether you’re an aspiring investor, an entrepreneur, or just someone looking to grow as an individual, this episode is packed with stories, lessons, and actionable insights. It’s the perfect way to kick off the year—leaving you inspired and introspective!

After 150 audio-only episodes on Spotify & Apple Podcasts, The Desi VC is finally stepping into the world of video! The first video episode drops on January 1st. Join host Akash Bhat every fortnight as he interviews:

Get ready for:

🎥 Subscribe now to see unfiltered, unscripted conversations that will inspire, educate, and entertain!

Dhruv Dhanraj Bahl is the Founder & Managing Partner at Eternal Capital, a 120-crore fund investing in transformative startups across technology, healthcare, and consumer sectors in India. He is the former COO of BharatPe, and a leader with extensive experience in scaling businesses and driving operational excellence across Airtel, PayTM, and Fortis Hospitals, where he spearheaded growth and strategy initiatives.

This is the first of a two-part series, with the second part coming out next week. Stay tuned!

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Dhirendra Mahyavanshi is the Co-Founder of Turtlemint, an online insurance platform backed by Nexus Venture Partners, Peak XV, Jungle Ventures, GGV Capital, Blume Ventures among others. The company is on a mission to makes it easy to understand and buy insurance.

Before founding this company he held leadership positions at Quikr and ICICI Lombard. He holds an MBA degree from The IIM Calcutta.

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Archana Jahagirdar is the founder and managing partner of Rukam Capital, to find out. Set up in 2019, the Delhi-based venture capital firm invests in early-stage consumer products and services companies with significant growth potential. The VC has funded as many as 20+ startups, including noted brands such as Go DESi, Sleepy Owl Coffee, Burger Singh, BECO, The Indus Valley, Curefoods and more.

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Anshuman Singh is the Co-founder of ⁠Scaler⁠, an edtech company designed to upskill college graduates and young software engineers in advanced computer science topics. The company has raised $55M from Lightrock, Peak XV Partners and Tiger Global Management, at a valuation of $700M.

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Sagar Kochhar is the Co-founder of Rebel Foods, and CEO of Eatsure. After completing his engineering degree from NIT Kurukshetra and an MBA from SCMHRD Pune, he began as a design engineer with Larsen & Toubro, then moved to Perfetti Van Melle and Vodafone in marketing roles. At Rebel Foods, he initially joined as Sr. VP of Operations, playing a crucial role in building brands from scratch to multi-million-dollar valuations. Since becoming Group CMO in 2016, Sagar has led brand growth across geographies, focusing on innovative campaigns and community engagement to strengthen brand equity and deliver memorable consumer experiences.

In 2020, he launched and became the CEO of Eatsure, a food delivery platform and brand created by Rebel Foods that focuses on providing safe, quality-assured food from a curated selection of restaurant brands. It’s known for its "100% Safe Food Guarantee," where every meal is prepared following strict hygiene and safety protocols. Eatsure's app aggregates multiple brands under one platform, offering a wide variety of cuisines through a virtual food court concept. It also uses technology to track and assure quality across Rebel Foods’ cloud kitchens, enabling customers to order from different brands in one single order.

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⁠Karthik Prabhakar⁠ is the Managing Partner at ⁠PeerCapital⁠, an early-stage investment fund in India focused on seed to Series A rounds. Karthik has been a part of the Indian tech ecosystem since 2005, with a wealth of experience in venture capital, product development, and marketing. Prior to PeerCapital, Karthik was the Managing Director at Chiratae Ventures (formerly known as IDG Ventures).

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⁠Aditya Nambiar⁠ is the co-founder of ⁠Fennel⁠, a modern feature engineering platform that enables you to author, compute, store, serve, monitor, and govern both real-time and batch ML features, backed by Foundational Capital. Before diving into entrepreneurship, Aditya built products at Google and Facebook, and is an IIT-B alumnus.

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Mayuresh Raut is the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Seafund, investing in pre-Series A startups in India with investments in companies such as Wigzo, Inc42, Zippee, ClooTrack among others. SEA Fund’s mission is to help the next set of technical founders, with small amounts of early capital in getting to market to build efficient and scalable businesses. He is an Engineer and an MBA and is an alumnus of Virginia Tech and INSEAD, has over 21 years of leadership experience with global clients in Manufacturing, Construction & Analytics in Financial Services & Healthcare and has been investing in startups for over 10 years.

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