The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Sunit Gajbhiye is the Co-Founder, Business Head at Financepeer. Prior to this he was Product Manager at EdgeVerve, Infosys. Sunit is an IIM and VJTI alumnus with 6+ years of experience in Business Operations and Product Management.

Financepeer, a Series B fintech startup backed by Aavishkaar Capital, QED Investors, 9Unicorn and Earlsfield Capital. The startup provides the entire year fee collection upfront to the School at the beginning of the year and collects fees from parents in monthly instalments that too at Zero Additional cost. Financepeer is spread across 60+ cities with over 6000+ school/ Institute partnerships. The Startup has so far impacted more than 15 lakh families by providing them no-cost-fee financing.

Financepeer's peer-to-peer lending platform connects individual borrowers to lenders digitally. It uses an algorithm that quantifies risk from credit and non-credit bureau channels by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI).

In this episode we will cover:

1. Brief overview of Financepeer

2. Structuring the fundraise (2:30)

3. How to best leverage the angel network (6:30)

4. Thinking through the seed stage fundraise and deployment of capital (8:18)

5. Managing relationships with investors (11:05)

6. Exit conversations (secondaries) and alignment (20:01)

7. When to raise Series A (21:50)

8. Why now and how much to raise (26:35)

Swati Khanna is the VP of Human Capital at Sequoia India where she plays a vital role in supporting portfolio startups in attracting and retaining top talent required to build the country’s next big unicorns. Prior to joining Sequoia, Swati founded Meyrahkee, a talent advisory firm focussed on helping companies with talent solutions, and spent four years at Accel as a Talent Partner, helping Accel’s portfolio companies from inception through the growth stage. Swati has a solid reputation for being a top talent recruiter and was recognized as one of India’s Top 40 Social Recruiters in 2017.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Human capital in the context of the venture

2. Thinking about talent acquisition at various growth cycles of a startup

3. State of the industry right now with respect to talent acquisition

4. How should founders position themselves and their startups to attract the best talent

5. How to develop culture within a startup

6. How does Sequoia help young founders attract top talent

7. Talent management

8. Addressing diversity in today’s climate

9. What is the day to day of a VP of a Human capital

10. Advice to fund managers who are building out or looking to build human capital

11. How does Sequoia look at human capital with a 5-year lens

12. Productizing human capital

Varun Alagh is the CEO and co-founder of D2C unicorn, MamaEarth, a personal care brand that specializes in baby and toddler products.

Varun is a master marketer having worked for the world’s most valuable brands Coca-Cola as well as its Diets and Lights portfolio for India and South West Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka). Before this role, he worked with Diageo and managed World's No.1 spirits brand Smirnoff for India. Prior to his stint with Unilever he was in sales for 3 years managing an 800 crore in more than 20 categories spread across home care, personal care & foods.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. How do you build purpose driven brands in India 3:50

2. Building a voice over time 14:54

3. As an entrepreneur, how does one find purpose? 24:40

4. How do investors react to purpose 29:41

5. What does it mean to be a unicorn startup today? 31:53

6. What excites Varun about Indian consumers and what does he still not understand about them 34:30

Radhesh is amongst the most seasoned B2B investors in India who brings with him rich operational experience in the enterprise technology space. He is Founder and Managing Partner at Suvan Ventures, a B2B focused cross-border fund. Before Suvan Ventures, he was Managing Partner of Arka Venture Labs which was created in 2018 August with the objective of investing and mentoring B2B companies between India and US corridor. The fund has made 27 investments with 4 exits and 9 uprounds (from the likes of Sequoia, B Capital, Nexus, Lightspeed, Matrix, Facebook). Prior to Arka Venture Labs, Radhesh had an 18 years long stint in IBM with strong technical, sales, and business development experience in various divisions of IBM. In his last assignment there, Radhesh was heading the Startup initiative of IBM India and South Asia.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. How did Radhesh get started into the world of SaaS investing (2:19)

2. How do you evaluate SaaS startups at the pre-seed and seed stage? (11:40)

3. Building value into a SaaS business in the early-days (16:12)

4. Best branding practices for early-stage SaaS startups (22:14)

5. Rise of vertical SaaS in India (29:11)

6. Why do VCs love vertical SaaS (37:18)

7. Evaluating market sizes SaaS (40:01)

8. Important of nailing the Pricing within SaaS (44:45)

9. How does Suvan Ventures plan to add value to its portfolio (53:18)

10. Advice to founders building from day 1 for the globe (57:00)

Pranav Marwah is the Director of Investments at the Marwah Family Office, who are investors in a number of funds and startups. He looks after cross-vertical day-to-day operations, group strategy & growth, and group company investment portfolios. Today, the group companies business interests are diversified across real estate, hospitality, sport, and investments across other asset classes. He’s also the CEO of one of India’s leading startup incubators, thinQbate.

In this episode we will cover:

Pranav’s thoughts on sustainability within venture capital (3:00)

Gauging global trends to build an India focused thesis (10:10)

Why did the family office decide to enter venture capital (16:00)

How does the family office evaluate and measure impact (35:00)

Taking a ten year lens at Indian venture (33:47)

Advice to emerging fund managers, especially when approaching family offices (51:30)

Ravi Saxena is the Managing Director and CEO of Wonderchef, one of India’s premium brand of healthy and innovative kitchen appliances. Armed with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad, Ravi began his professional career when he joined VIP Luggage as the Brand Manager for soft luggage business. His brand Skybags had been stagnant for the past many years and was a poor cousin to the main business of moulded luggage. Coming with fresh ideas, a research-based approach (branded ‘theoretical’ until proven right), and boundless enthusiasm, there was a path-breaking decision that he took which changed the course of the brand forever and it sky-rocketed over the next few years to become the mainstay of the organization.

He devoted a lot of years in spearheading and managing several brands and diverse businesses by launching as many as twelve new businesses were to name a few were VIP Luggage, Sodexo India. Ravi joined Landmark Group to head their hospitality business and launched many new brands in India and abroad like – CityMax Hotels, Gloria Jean’s Coffees, Fun City gaming zones, Yellow Chilli restaurants with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and Polynation Food Courts.

In this episode, we will learn:

1. Learnings from operating Wonderchef during the pandemic months (2:55)

2. Maintaining efficiencies in the supply chain during the pandemic (9:50)

3. Is the Indian consumer spoilt? (15:14)

4. How should D2C brands sell quality, durability and ensure conversions at scale? (28:17)

5. Consumer patterns and behavior in middle India (36:12)

6. The playbook for taking offline retail businesses online (44:44)

7. What role do VCs play in helping D2C companies scale at various stages (51:45)

8. What about Indian consumers and their behavioral patterns still surprises Ravi (1:06:52)

Prashant Pitti is the Co-founder and Director at EaseMyTrip, India’s second largest travel and hospitality company which provides hotel bookings, air tickets, holiday packages, bus bookings, and white-label services. In September 2021, it became a unicorn after its market capitalization crossed $1 billion.

Prashant Pitti is responsible for marketing, branding, investor relations, hotel, bus and media management at EaseMyTrip. He is graduate from IIT Madras and has approximately 16 years of experience in the travel, tourism, banking and social applications. He has also previously worked with HSBC and Capital One in the United States.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Learning from running a travel and hospitality company during the pandemic (5:50)

2. How did EaseMyTrip maintain lean cost structure and profitability during the pandemic (8:50)

3. Advantages of not raising VC money (13:13)

4. Rationale behind deciding to bootstrap and not raise venture capital (15:55)

5. Why did EaseMyTrip pivot from B2B to B2C (21:40)

6. How does EaseMyTrip maintain its operational efficiencies over various marco-economic ups-and-downs (28:30)

7. Perks of staying under the radar (31:20)

8. The IPO journey (40:43)

9. Timing behind going public during the pandemic (48:45)

10. Building generational business – vision and mission (1:06:12)

Arjun Rao is a Partner at Speciale Invest, one of India’s leading deep-tech focused funds. He has spent over 15 years in the technology and Internet start-up ecosystem in India. He started his career with Yahoo! and later joined Ibibo as Product Manager. The entrepreneurial bug led him to start an edutech startup and also a travel tech startup, Travelyaari. He has led tech and product teams, and strategy and fundraising at all phases of a start-up lifecycle. At Travelyaari, he built the company to achieve revenues of $40mn, and raised $12mn in seed, Series A and Series B funding. Arjun’s experience spans product development, product management, and digital marketing at growth-stage companies. 

Arjun has a Bachelors in Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Suratkal and an MBA from the Indian School of Business.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Looking back at the year from a deep tech perspective (4:05)

2. Learnings from running the first and raising the second fund (18:50)

3. Putting the deep tech thesis to test (33:10)

4. Personas of LPs interested in deep tech within India (41:25)

5. Sectors within deep tech that excite Arjun (50:39)

6. Value add of angels and global mega funds within the deep tech space in India (1:05:32)

Jitesh Luthra is leads Community for Bridge, and was previously the Platforms lead at Blume Ventures. Jitesh founded his first startup while still in college at Manipal University in the media space. After graduating with a degree in Computer Engineering, he worked with KPMG as part of their business Intelligence team, before embarking into the world of venture.

At Blume, he played a pivotal role in establishing the ‘Platforms’ initiative and helping Blume’s portfolio founders problem-solve at scale.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

What is ‘platforms’ within the context of venture? (3:50)

Evolution of the ‘platforms’ service within Indian venture and what’s driving the need for it? (9:00)

How does a fund measure ‘platforms’ and its impact? (19:40)

Why does Jitesh say that ‘platforms’ is a team role (27:30)

Managing the portfolio from a ‘platforms’ perspective (34:50)

What does a typical day for someone in platforms’ role look like? (46:55)

Maintaining goodwill and relationships (56:00)

How should funds build platforms within their firms? (1:04:40)

Anjali Bansal is the Founder of Avaana Capital which invests in and provides scaling up support to innovation-led startups for catalyzing impact at scale while delivering commercial returns.

Anjali has invested in and mentored various successful start-ups including Delhivery, UrbanClap, Darwinbox, Nykaa, and Lenskart. She is closely associated with NITI Aayog’s Women Entrepreneurship Platform, digital solutions, and mentor to the Atal Innovation Mission.

Anjali is former Non-Executive Chairperson of Dena Bank, appointed by the Government of India to steer the resolution of the stressed Bank, eventually leading to merger with Bank of Baroda. She was earlier a global Partner and Managing Director with TPG Growth PE responsible for India, SE Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She started her career as a strategy consultant with McKinsey and Co. in New York.

She serves as an independent non-executive director on several leading boards including Tata Power, Bata, Kotak AMC, and Piramal Enterprises. She has previously chaired the India board of Women’s World Banking, a leading global livelihood-promoting institution and on the Managing Committee of the Indian Venture Capital Association.

She has been elected as President designate, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and serves on the CII National Committee on Corporate Governance. Anjali previously co-founded and chaired the FICCI Center for Corporate Governance program for Women on Corporate Boards. She is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and charter member of TiE.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Looking back at India’s most recent boom cycle i.e. 2020-present (2:50)

2. Skeptical about this period or a believer of the potential? (7:50)

3. Evolution of Anjali’s career (11:55)

4. The role of empathy and insecurity in professional life (16:56)

5. What is Anjali’s purpose behind investing (23:21)

6. Why venture and how do you measure the impact of your own in venture beyond capital returns (28:57)

7. The India opportunity (37:54)

8. How does Avaana think about the evolving venture landscape and where to place their bets (42:25)

9. Anjali’s journey as an LP (47:01)

10. Advice for fund managers (53:18)

11. Advice for founders (56:18)