The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Gautam Patel is the Founder and Managing Partner of Z3Partners, a growth-stage fund based in Mumbai. Prior to founding Z3Partners, Gautam has been the co-founder of Zodius Technology Fund and Zodius Technology Opportunities Fund, successful early-growth stage Private Equity funds with a track record of investing in industry leaders such as BigBasket, Pepperfry, OfBusiness, Zivame, Medgenome and Antuit.

Prior to Zodius, Gautam was the Managing Director and Head of India for Battery Ventures, a Bay-Area based venture capital and PE-fund. Prior to that he was part of the leadership team at iGATE.

Gautam started his career in Investment Banking in the US with Lazard Freres. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

In this episode, we discuss Gautam’s journey as an investor and everything he’s learned from investing in India and India-focused businesses.

Episode notes:

1. Lessons learned from investing in India over the last two years (3:30)

2. How are investors currently viewing the market? (7:55)

3. Conviction building when a fund only invests in 8 startups per year (10:18)

4. Why did Guatam transition from operating to venture capital? (15:10)

5. Reflecting on Gautam's first investment and its significance in the context of India's growth story (17:40)

6. Fundamentals of business management (21:10)

7. The privileges and perils of being a venture investor (28:50)

8. Key lessons Gautam has learned about company building from his experience operating and investing in the growth stage (41:00)

9. How do you turn a business around? (48:01)

10. When should investors assist founders in running their businesses? (56:00)

11. Collaborating with co-investors (1:06:06)

12. To what extent does Gautam's operational experience play to his strengths as an investor? (1:12:11)

13. Things about Indian VC that still surprises Gautam (1:16:56)

. . .

Social links:

Z3Partners on Twitter: https://twitter.com/z3partners

Gautam Patel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gautamapatel

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Gaurav Hinduja is the Co-founder and Managing Director of axio (previously known as Capital Float). It brings together pay later, credit and personal finance management under one seamless brand experience. On a mission to make credit worthy for all, axio leverages technology to deliver innovative financial products to millions of individuals across the country, including vast sections of traditionally under-served consumers. axio is the brand name of CapFloat Financial Services Private Limited, a Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) registered with the Reserve Bank of India. The company has raised over $200M till date from Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners), Sequoia India, Lightrock, Creation Investments Capital Management LLC, Ribbit Capital, and Amazon.

Gaurav brings deep operating experience in India with detailed knowledge of complex supply chains. Prior to axio, he ran operations for Gokaldas Exports, India’s largest apparel manufacturer employing 40,000 people with $250 million in revenues. As COO, he had complete P&L responsibility for a major business line and led the implementation of lean manufacturing across company units.

In today’s episode, we talk about the journey of the unknown, something many founders go through especially when they start business in domain they’ve had little or no prior experience in.

Episode notes:

1. What inspired Gaurav to pursue entrepreneurship? (3:35)

2. Do founders really plan ahead when they build businesses? (6:37)

3. Why Gaurav and his co-founder, Sashank Rishyasringa decide to start axio? (8:18)

4. What inspired Gaurav to pursue an idea in a field in which they had no prior experience? (11:08)

5. Impact of Silicon Valley exposure in Gaurav’s entrepreneurial journey (15:52)

6. Early days of company formation and customer interactions (18:43)

7. When did Gaurav transition from a doer to an enabler in the company-building process? (26:44)

8. The significance and impact of early-stage investors (30:37)

9. Creating moats as the company expands (33:30)

10. How do you gain customers in a competitive market? (37:35)

11. How does Gaurav make decisions, and what is his decision-making framework? (44:30)

12. What has Gaurav learned about himself during all his years of being in business (50:33)

. . .

Social links:

axio on Twitter: https://twitter.com/add_axio

Gaurav Hinduja on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gdhinduja

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/t

Srikanth Iyer is the Co-founder & CEO of HomeLane, India's largest startup in the home decor space, backed by Sequoia, Accel, Stride Ventures, IIFL Asset Management among others investors. Srikanth is a serial entrepreneur and industry leader, having started his entrepreneurial journey as the co-founder of Edurite Technologies, which eventually was acquired by Pearson India, where he spent the next few years as the CEO and responsible for bringing technology enabled education to millions of schools in India and making Pearson a leading player in Indian education. He is also a Venture partner with Unitus Ventures, an impact fund focused on India.

Episode notes:

1. Where does Srikanth find the courage to enter and dominate industries in which he has no or little prior experience? (3:56)

2. Framework to excel as a generalist in business (8:33)

3. Developing stronger leaders within an organization (14:48)

4. How to the best people at various stages of company development (20:50)

5. Mantra for building successful businesses (29:00)

6. Keeping it simple in business (39:39)

7. Values, culture and teams at the early-stage vs later-stage (51:07)

8. Srikanth’s advice to younger self (1:05:53)

. . .

Social links:

HomeLane on Twitter: https://twitter.com/homelanedecors

Srikanth Iyer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/srikanthiy

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Chanakya Hridaya is the co-founder of BlackBuck. Founded in 2015, BlackBuck has been a pioneer in bringing the offline operations of trucking online, be it matching a shipper with a trucker or reshaping the infrastructure around trucking to facilitate payments, insurance, and financial services. Today, BlackBuck is India’s largest trucking network, and our robust ‘Freight’ and ‘Fleet Management’ technology platforms deliver reliability, efficiency and seamless experience for shippers and truckers. The company has raised $364M till date from Tribe Capital, Trifecta Capital Advisors, B Capital, Sequoia, Accel and Tiger Global.

In today’s episode, we will cover:

1. How did the idea for BlackBuck come about? (3:05)

2. Disrupting the Indian trucking industry (11:15)

3. Early days of product adoption and finding PMF (19:40)

4. Learning from the growth story of BlackBuck (28:07)

5. Framework for problem solving (34:19)

6. The hardships of entrepreneurship (40:10)

7. Navigating the challenges of marketplace models (47:55)

8. Prioritization as a founder as businesses and ideas grow (59:49)

9. What has Chanakya discovered about himself while working on BlackBuck? (1:07:40)

Social links:

Chanakya Hridaya on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChanakyaHridaya

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Ketan Patel is the Chief Executive Officer of Mswipe. Founded in 2011, Mswipe has gone on to become the leading digital payments and financial solutions company supporting the growing merchant community across India.

Ketan joined Mswipe in 2021 after 18 years at Kotak where he oversaw management, business development, operations and the use of emerging technologies to disrupt the finance industry. During his time at Kotak, he has headed key verticals including Private Banking, Composite Business Solutions and E-commerce. In his latter years at Kotak, he became a startup specialist helping build 4 businesses from scratch for the bank, one of which being CASHe, a credit-enabled financial technology platform that offers a wide range of consumer lending products and services, which he helped transition from a startup to a profitable and future-ready business.

Ketan is a well-known industry veteran in the world of finance and has been recognized for his work many times over his career, including receiving The Economic Times' Young Entrepreneurs Award in 2020.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. What inspired Ketan to pursue a career as an entrepreneur? (4:56)

2. What has Ketan learned about himself as a result of his entrepreneurial journey? (7:01)

3. What is Ketan's perspective on the role of a CEO? (10:03)

4. Managing stakeholders as a business grows (12:35)

5. Why is self-awareness as a leader critical to success? (17:10)

6. Looking back on Mswipe's early days (19:44)

7. Scaling organizational culture and principles (23:35)

8. Long-term value implementation lessons (29:40)

9. Decision-making framework for leaders (36:50)

10. Dealing with adversity as a CEO (41:06)

11. Words of wisdom for his younger self (46:02)

12. What is Ketan's vision for Mswipe? (55:56)

13. What would the next chapter of Ketan's life look like? (58:48)

Social links:

Mswipe on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mswipe

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Mukesh Kalra is the CEO of ET Money, one of India's fastest growing investment and wealth management platform with a total of over $3B worth of investments under management. Mukesh has over 15 years of experience in building businesses and products from scratch in the consumer internet and mobile advertising space. Prior to heading ET Money, he was one of the core members at InMobi and helped build it from concept into the world’s largest independent mobile ad network. He then launched his own fintech firm, Moneysights, which was later acquired by Times Internet, and Times Group. 

 In less than 5 years, ET Money has built a solid customer base of over 10 million users across 1400 cities. The platform has been a pioneer in building industry-first technical solutions like paperless video KYC for MF investments, and the country’s first Aadhar-based SIP payment feature, amongst others.

ET Money is simplifying the financial journey of new-age Indians by offering easy investment for different needs like Mutual Funds, National Pension System, and safer avenues like Fixed Deposits. 

In this episode we will cover:

1. India: A macroeconomic outlook (3:38)

2. Why has India fared better than any other markets affected by the global financial slowdown? (10:20)

3. Lessons learned from black swan events (15:50)

4. What did Mukesh excel at during black swan periods? (25:12)

5. Thoughts on market manipulation in the context of content creators (42:06)

6. Why must a founder constantly evolve their mental models (54:03)

7. The vision for Indian fintech in the coming years (1:05:28)

. . .

Social links:

Mukesh Kalra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kalramukesh

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Ankit Kedia is the Founding Partner of Capital-A. He is a second generation entrepreneur who has held senior leadership positions at Manjushree Technopack Ltd. (MTL), India's largest rigid plastic packaging company. With a penchant for institutional marketing and a credit of designing the Key Account Management program, Ankit has been instrumental in the 5x growth of revenues and EBIDTA at Manjushree, where he devoted 15 strong years. He was also instrumental in raising private equity capital from Kedaara Capital and helped in the acquisition of two rival companies, before divesting controlling stake to Advent International in 2018.

In this episode we will cover:

1. What does Ankit really love about venture capital? (3:10)

2. Ankit's perspective on India's macro economic climate (6:30)

3. Market fluctuations in the early stages of investing (8:50)

4. Founder-market fit and how it influences a fund manager's investment decisions (14:48)

5. Learnings from investing in Indian startups (17:56)

6. How to identify the best startups (22:24)

7. The most difficult thing for a fund manager of a micro VC fund (34:40)

8. Ankit's perspective on the Indian early-stage venture landscape (36:53)

9. Why did Ankit choose to invest in tech startups rather than traditional manufacturing businesses in which his family had had a lot of success? (41:10)

10. What has Ankit the LP learned about Indian VC that he can use as a fund manager today? (44:15)

11. What would Ankit advise his younger self? (46:51)

12. Advice for entrepreneurs and fund managers (48:55)​

Manish Taneja is the co-founder and CEO of Purplle, an online beauty and wellness retailer and a recent entrant into the unicorn club. He brings a wealth of experience having spent some of his finest years in venture capital (Avendus Capital), private equity (Fidelity Growth Partners India) and investment banking (Lehman Brothers), before turning a founder.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Manish's biggest takeaways from the last two years of building Purplle (4:18)

2. What has Manish discovered about himself and his role as a leader in general? (17:08)

3. As a founder, how does Manish deal with difficult decisions? (27:02)

4. Influences and influencers who have had an impact on Manish’s life (38:23)

5. Where does Manish see Purplle in the next decade (49:20)

6. Manish's advice to his younger self? (59:58)

Parag Dhol is the General Partner at Athera Venture Partners. He started his VC career with ICICI Venture, India’s first venture capital company, in 1993. He followed that up with stints at GE and Intel’s corporate venture arms. Parag joined Athera (formerly known as Inventus Capital) in 2008, shortly after the first close of Fund I. Parag is/was a Board Director/Observer at redBus (acquired), FundsIndia, Lemnisk (buy-back), eTechies (buy-back), Power2SME, PolicyBazaar (IPO), Avaz (buy-back), peel-works, Tricog, worxogo, Pixxel and Clootrack.

Parag has a B.Tech. (Mechanical Engg.) from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Venture Capital in India in the 1990s (2:55)

2. What factors influence a fund manager's temperament? (5:26)

3. Things that surprise Parag about Indian venture capital (9:58)

4. What lessons has public market investing taught Parag about private market investing? (20:29)

5. Managing investor biases and blindspots (24:32)

6. What investment advice would Parag give to his younger self? (29:13)

7. Evolution of Indian VC over the decades (35:10)

8. Considering the current venture landscape in India (43:59)

9. What continues to pique Parag's interest in the India opportunity? (51:16)

10. Athera's vision and the role Parag sees it playing in Indian venture capital (55:08)

11. How would Parag like to be remembered i.e. his legacy in Indian VC (1:00:06)

Arun Chulani is an Emerging Markets Analyst at First Water Capital, a fund focused on Indian Equities. First Water’s investment philosophy centers primarily on a long-only strategy, with a value driven and concentrated portfolio approach.

Arun is a value investor focusing on hard assets (sectors such as steel, cement, rubber, oil etc.) and cyclicals, taking concentrated bets on preferred plays. Prior to First Water he was with NIG, handling an industrials fund with $400M AUM. Arun is also a Chartered Accountant and a graduate of the LSE.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Macroeconomic view of the public markets? (2:24)

2. Mean reversal in light of the current market environment (5:06)

3. When the market is effectively underperforming, how do you invest? (7:52)

4. The economics of hedge funds and their investors' attitudes (12:47)

5. How does First Water Capital develop an investment thesis like theirs? (14:30)

6. What impact does the budget have on First Water Capital investment plan? (22:15)

7. What metrics does First Water Capital use to differentiate its sectors? (27:04)

8. How do you assure competition in industries with powerful incumbents? (27:57)

9. What factors do funds consider before investing in big businesses? (32:10)

10. Extrinsic vs. intrinsic value (36:20)

11. What according to Arun is the hardest thing for investors to evaluate (39:12)

12. Can a slowdown in one industry affect the growth of another due to the marco-climate? (43:41)

13. The effects of trickle-down (45:22)

14. Tips for making fund investments in public markets (47:49)

15. Industries that Arun is bullish on (51:11)