The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Misbah Naqvi is the Co-founder and General Partner at i2i Ventures, an early-stage fund investing in startups solving some of Pakistan's biggest problems.

Misbah brings over 20 years of global experience in finance, development, fintech and impact investing. She was previously Head of Market Development at Boloro Global Limited, a US-based fintech startup. While at Boloro, she led the company’s expansion to a number of markets, including South Africa, Kuwait, Pakistan, India, UAE, Nigeria, and Jordan. Misbah spent a number of years at Acumen Pakistan & USA and at Citibank Pakistan.

Follow Misbah and i2i Ventures on Twitter to stay up-to-date with the firm’s operations.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Misbah’s journey (2:54)

2. What experiences set Misbah up for a future within Venture? (9:28)

3. Is operator experience important to be a VC? (14:39)

4. What’s driving the tech innovation within Pakistan? (18:08)

5. What is the govt  of Pakistan doing to support the tech ecosystem? (26:44)

6. Where are the opportunities within Pakistan? (34:49)

7. LP appetite for Pakistani startups and funds? (49:26)

Arjun Vaidya is the Venture Lead for Verlinvest, a leading family owned investment group with over €1bn assets under management backed by families who have together built one of the world’s largest consumer businesses.

Before embarking on his venture journey, Arjun was the co-founder and CEO of Dr. Vaidya’s, a new age Ayurveda consumer startup which was acquired by RP Sanjiv Goenka Group in March 2021.

Prior to founding Dr. Vaidya’s, Arjun spent a few years as an investor working at LVMH's private equity arm, L Catterton.

He also runs his own podcast – Direct To A Billion Consumers, where he talks to leaders building disruptive consumers brands in India.

In this episode, we cover:

1. The journey from being an operator to an investor (2:30)

2. How does a founder evaluate an acquisition offer? (11:32)

3. What does it mean to build a consumer brand in India (17:38)

4. What kind of investor is Arjun? (25:28)

5. D2C businesses from a VC lens (30:30)

6. How do the diligence cycles within the consumer space look like? (37:24)

7. Where are the opportunities within Indian consumer market? (40:41)

8. Why venture capital? (46:40)

9. When should consumer businesses raise capital (48:12)

10. How do/should you think about branding for consumer businesses? (50:35)

Shashank Khade is the Equity specialist of Entrust with over 20 years of cumulative professional experience in listed and unlisted equity investment management. Till September 2013, Shashank was the Senior Vice-President and Head of Portfolio Management Services division of Kotak Mutual Fund. His stint with Kotak entities including Kotak Securities and Kotak Asset Management Company was over 11 years. He headed the Portfolio Management services business since 2006 and was managing over INR 2000 Cr across various portfolio management schemes. He was part of the team conceptualizing some of the best performing PMS schemes like the Fortune Series while at Kotak. Prior to Kotak Securities, Shashank Khade worked with Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited’s private equity arm IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd (then IL&FS Venture Corporation) for 5 years.

Shashank’s passion in equity as an asset class is known by his in-depth knowledge of Indian companies across sectors and market caps. Given his past experience, he is equipped to understand and evaluate both un-listed and listed equity opportunities.

Shashank Khade has a Bachelors’ degree in Mechanical Engineering (B.E. Mechanical) from Sardar Patel College, Mumbai and a Masters in Management Studies (Finance) from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS).

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Looking back at the year that was 2021 (4:32)

2. In spite of the economic slow down, the Indian tech industry and stock market has performed beyond expectations. What does Shashank think about the current market dynamics and its appetite? (9:54)

3. Thoughts on rising valuation in India today and how do we justify it from an LP point of view? (18:18)

4. How do we sustain the growth in the ecosystem from a funding pov? (28:52)

5. How do family offices asses risk with respect to venture capital? (36:32)

6. What type of funds should first time family offices be evaluating and how do you do so? (44:57)

7 . Vintage funds or emerging small-sized funds –– Where does the interest lie when it comes to family offices investments? (50:52)?

8. How do family offices evaluate funds? (55:38)

9. Advice to fund managers building their funds (1:08:43)

Nitin Sharma is the General Partner at Antler India, and brings over a decade of experience in global venture capital, having invested in 50+ tech startups in multiple geographies. Most recently, he was the founder of FirstPrinciples, a thesis-driven syndicate and portfolio of 35+ startups, including Fynd, (acq. by Reliance), OnJuno, Niki, Kutumb, SharesPost (acq. By Forge), XOKind and many others backed by marquee investors. Nitin’s investing journey has previously spanned US venture capital at NEA and being a founding team principal at Lightbox Ventures in India.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Thoughts on IndianVC in the last 18 months – fundings, unicorns, valuations & growth (4:05)

2. Are seeing an inflection point or have the last 18 months been an anomaly (9:15)

3. How are first time LPs looking at Indian VC? (19:18)

4. How to perfect the pre-seed game as an angel and as a VC? (24:35)

5. Developing an understanding of upcoming / niche sectors (30:32)

6. How does an investor embrace his/her biases to improve their judgement? (34:53)

7. Antler’s vision and strategy for India (41:04)

8. Challenges of going global from day 1? (47:03)

9. Why do we classify founders into familiar buckets while investing? (54:40)

10. Where is India in the crypto development cycle? (1:01:30)

11. Regulatory infrastructure for crypto to succeed in India (1:09:10)

12. Building mental models for VC investing (1:19:53)

13. Who will dominate Indian crypto VC market –– existing investors or new entrants? (1:25:01)

This episode features Pranav Pai (3one4 Capital), Arjun Rao (Speciale Invest) and Chinnu Senthilkumar (Exfinity Ventures), and moderated by Akriti Dokania (Octopus Ventures), and was a panel at The Desi VC Summit 2021.

The panel discusses India’s potential within the deep tech and the challenges in growing this space to its global counterparts.

Mohanjit Jolly is the Co-founder and Partner at Iron Pillar Fund (IPF). IPF provides growth capital to founders building from India for the world.

Mohanjit has been working with and investing in technology start-ups in the US and India for over 20 years. He is one of a few VCs who has been on the ground as a partner in India and Silicon Valley. Mohanjit has led Iron Pillar’s investments in Sibros, Jiffy, Uniphore, Vyome, Ushur and CoreStack.

Before co-founding Iron Pillar, Mohanjit served as a Partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson for 9 years, establishing their India operations, overseeing the India venture portfolio and coordinating business development efforts with Fortune 500 companies for DFJ’s global portfolio. Prior to this, he was a Partner at Garage Technology Ventures, a Silicon Valley seed stage VC firm. His early years in California and Boston saw him help launch ViaSpace, a technology incubator in conjunction with Caltech and JPL and Intel Play, a joint venture between Mattel and Intel. He also worked at Itek Optical Systems, a manufacturer of high-resolution reconnaissance systems.

Mohanjit serves on the Boards of The Unreasonable Group and The SETI Institute.

Mohanjit earned his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Learnings from running a fund that operates cross-border – in the US and India (3:13)

2. How does Mohanjit view the next 10 years of venture and the ecosystem in India (7:58)

3. How did Iron Pillar build its growth and support network around its fund? (15:18)

4. Examples of leveraging growth partners 24:01)

5. How should investors build relationships with founders to advocate for transparency beyond the traditional sense? (33:20)

6. What convinced Mohanjit that Anand was the right partner to start the fund with? (43:26)

7. How does Iron Pillar think about LP construction (51:05)

8. What are Mohanjit’s insecurities as an investor (57:43)

Amit Garg is the Managing Partner at Tau Ventures, an AI-first VC fund in Palo Alto focused on three verticals that require deep expertise and are now being massively disrupted -- health, automation and enterprise.

Amit has been in Silicon Valley for 20 years — at Samsung NEXT Ventures where he seed-funded nuTonomy (self-driving cars, sold for $450M), cofounded a startup called HealthIQ (as of May 2019 a series D that has raised $120M and valued at $450M), at Norwest Ventures ($10B AUM), and doing product and analytics at Google. His academic training is BS in Computer Science and MS in Biomedical Informatics, both from Stanford, and MBA from Harvard. He speaks natively 3 languages, live carbon-neutral, a 70.3 Ironman finisher, and have built a hospital in rural India serving 100,000 people.

. . .

In this episode we will cover:

1. Decisions that led to Amit becoming an VC (3:20)

2. What made Amit pursue Google instead of becoming a doctor post his Masters (6:11)

3. Why does Amit feel it’s easier today to join a startup than it was a decade ago (11:30)

4. Comparing Amit’s venture experience ten years ago to today (15:27)

5. What should founders ask themselves before imagining their cap-table (29:10)

6. LP construction based on the fund’s ‘personality’ (40:01)

7. How does Amit look at the healthcare sector and identify trends within digital health (43:28)

8. Why is AI in healthcare a huge focus for Tau Ventures (51:07)

9. Challenges that the healthcare industry today (56:45)

10. How does Amit manage his time? (1:01:05)

Mohanjit Jolly is the Co-founder and Partner at Iron Pillar Fund (IPF). IPF provides growth capital to founders building from India for the world.

Mohanjit has been working with and investing in technology start-ups in the US and India for over 20 years. He is one of a few VCs who has been on the ground as a partner in India and Silicon Valley. Mohanjit has led Iron Pillar’s investments in Sibros, Jiffy, Uniphore, Vyome, Ushur and CoreStack.

Before co-founding Iron Pillar, Mohanjit served as a Partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson for 9 years, establishing their India operations, overseeing the India venture portfolio and coordinating business development efforts with Fortune 500 companies for DFJ’s global portfolio. Prior to this, he was a Partner at Garage Technology Ventures, a Silicon Valley seed stage VC firm. His early years in California and Boston saw him help launch ViaSpace, a technology incubator in conjunction with Caltech and JPL and Intel Play, a joint venture between Mattel and Intel. He also worked at Itek Optical Systems, a manufacturer of high-resolution reconnaissance systems.

Mohanjit serves on the Boards of The Unreasonable Group and The SETI Institute.

Mohanjit earned his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Learnings from running a fund that operates cross-border – in the US and India (3:13)

2. How does Mohanjit view the next 10 years of venture and the ecosystem in India (7:58)

3. How did Iron Pillar build its growth and support network around its fund? (15:18)

4. Examples of leveraging growth partners 24:01)

5. How should investors build relationships with founders to advocate for transparency beyond the traditional sense? (33:20)

6. What convinced Mohanjit that Anand was the right partner to start the fund with? (43:26)

7. How does Iron Pillar think about LP construction (51:05)

8. What are Mohanjit’s insecurities as an investor (57:43)

Sameer is Managing Partner of TrueScale Capital and Iron Pillar India Fund I. He has 22 years of experience in venture investing, entrepreneurship, Tech M&A, investment banking, capital markets exits, strategy consulting and leadership across geographies. Sameer was a Managing Director and senior investment banker at Citigroup, where he had a successful 15-year career.

TrueScale Capital brings in a wealth of specialist growth expertise to the Indian Venture ecosystem. This is boosted with skills and leadership experience honed across technology investing, entrepreneurship, technology M&A and IPOs, investment banking and equity research.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Why Truescale Capital (4:00)

2. How does Sameer view early-stage investors and what does he make of later-stage investors entering the pre-seed / seed stage space? (9:58)

3. What should startups raising B rounds look for from their investors (13:48)

4. Will more later-stage investors push their portfolio for exits as the Indian ecosystem matures in the coming years (19:27)

5. Are domestic investors still weary about investing in the B and C stage? (25:55)

6. Lessons learned in the five and a half years in venture (32:20)

7. Portfolio construction at Series B (36:33)

8. Biases that exist at growth stage investing (41:00)

9. Thoughts around valuations at Series B (45:40)

10. Balancing expectations: growth at all costs or being founder-friendly with growth (58:22)

11. Value-add vs proactive outreach from founders (1:05:19)

12. What changes would Sameer like to see both at the early-stages and later in India (1:22:15)

Archana Balasubramanian is the founding partner of Agama Law Associates (ALA). She has versatile experience of over one decade where she has developed profound legal skills and acumen. She started her career under Senior Counsel Mr S. Venkiteswaran. She subsequently worked with Udwadia & Udeshi (now Argus Partners) and AZB & Partners prior to founding ALA.

She has a tactical transactional understanding as well as significant industry expertise across diverse sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, media, pharmaceuticals, financial services, shipping, real estate, technology, engineering, infrastructure and health.

In this episode we will cover:

1, Archana’s background

2. What constitutes a dispute?

3. Conflicts within founding team

4. When should founders get in touch with attorneys wrt conflicts 

5. Does success paper over the underlying cracks?

6. Mediating between various parties

7. Financial fraud

8. Advice to founders who have been introduced by 3rd parties on potential and future conflicts

9. Conflicts and disputes regarding intellectual property (IP)

10. Can an agreement written on a piece of paper hold up in the court of law?

11. Legal jurisdiction when companies move HQ 

12. Conflicts wrt to copyrights

13. When should founders get their VCs invovled

14. Disputes when it comes to sale of a company  

15. Conflicts between board members

16. Conflicts with vendors  and third parties