The Desi VC: Indian Venture Capital | Angel Investors | Startups | VC – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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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Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (1:20)
2. Early exposure to entrepreneurship (2:16)
3. Influence of ICICI and Quikr roles on founding Turtlemint (5:15)
4. Startups in the 2010s: parallels and differences (8:50)
5. The inspiration behind starting Turtlemint (12:34)
6. The Indian insurance landscape in 2014 and VC sentiment (17:05)
7. Enhancing the insurance buying experience in India (21:20)
8. Insurance purchasing patterns across India’s diverse tiers (24:24)
9. The leadership journey at Turtlemint (28:25)
10. Mental models and decision-making frameworks (33:38)
11. Challenges in running Turtlemint (37:40)
12. Dhirendra's vision for Turtlemint’s future (40:01)
13. Influencing policy and regulation in India’s insurance sector (43:15)
14. Reflections on the entrepreneurial journey (47:47)

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Social links

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dhirendra on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dhirendra⁠⁠ on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn⁠⁠
   

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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Episode Notes:

1. Intro (1:25)
2. Why did Archana venture into investing in startups? (2:51)
3. The evolution of the Indian startup ecosystem (7:14)
4. Why are Rukum’s LPs excited about India and the fund? (14:04)
5. How do Indian LPs add value to portfolio companies? (17:50)
6. Key learnings from portfolio founders (22:08)
7. Essential practices for every founder (31:19)
8. Rukam Capital: Investment focus and thesis (41:15)

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Social links

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Archana on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Archana⁠⁠ on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Navin Honagudi is the Managing Partner at Elev8 Venture Partners, an India-focused $200M Growth-stage fund. Elev8 focuses on Series B and C rounds of financing in hyper growth companies. He bring 18+ years of experience investing in early and growth stage technology firms and also held the positions of Co-founder and Partner at Kae Capital.

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Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (1:48)
2. How Naveen entered venture capital (2:24)
3. Comparing entrepreneurs: 2000s vs. today (4:45)
4. Indian VC landscape & expected exits/returns in the 2000s (8:38)
5. What Elev8 looks for in founders (11:45)
6. Why India is exciting today (18:01)
7. Opportunities in offline to online transition in India (25:30)
8. Emerging sectors like faith-tech (28:15)
9. Next billion dollar opportunities: alcohol, sex-tech, betting, gaming (32:25)
10. Summarizing investment experiences: CVC, consumer VC, and growth-stage VC (37:25)
11. Investing in early-stage vs. growth-stage (42:15)
12. Advice Naveen would give his younger self (45:28)

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Social Links:

1. Follow ⁠⁠⁠Navin on Twitter⁠⁠⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠Navin on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Kiran is the Principal at UTEC (Japan), a $550M deep-tech VC firm affiliated with The University of Tokyo. Since joining UTEC in 2018, Kiran has led investments of close to $25M in frontier science & deep-tech companies incl. Tricog, OPALai (SG/FinTech AI), Bugworks Research, and Agara.


Before joining UTEC, Kiran was the head of India/SEA Operations at Deloitte Tohmatsu Venture Support (DTVS) Japan. He has supported over 50 deep-tech Asian startups by connecting them with Japanese corporations and also worked closely with METI Japan, to lead a project called CEATEC IoT Acceleration for Asian startups. Prior to that, he co-founded a student-led social enterprise named 'Kriya'.

In 2020, Kiran was featured in the prestigious FORBES Asia 30 Under 30 list in the Finance & Venture Capital category.

In this episode we will cover:

1. Kiran’s thoughts on the VC landscape: Second half of 2020 vs Q1 2021

2. Why he chose venture capital as a career path?

3. What is deep-tech?

4. Misconceptions about deep-tech investing

5. What do you look for in a deep-tech founding team?

6. When does a deep-tech startup achieve PMF?

7. Learnings from his own investments and portfolio 

8. The role of the Govt. in growing deep-tech sciences 

9. Mental Models for evaluating and building startups

10. Exits in deep-tech

Empathy is going to become a key undertone of investing. Investors who have run companies and raised capital bring empathy that an investor coming from a consulting background just can’t. Founders are becoming smarter about who they raise capital from. On this panel, Siya Raj Purohit (General Partner, Pathway Ventures), Revant Bhate (CEO, Mosaic Wellness) and Utsav Somani (Partner, AngelList India & iSeed) discuss why some of the best investors in the future are going to be investor-operators.

The startup ecosystem in India remains robust and is rapidly growing. The Indian government introduced several regulatory programs to boost the Indian startup ecosystem. Flagship programs such as StartupIndia, Digital India and the Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee continue to improve the economic landscape for startups and investors. However, despite all this, India continues to remain in the shadows of Silicon Valley. On this panel, we discuss what it would take for India to break away from the shadows of the west and evolve into a mature VC ecosystem in the coming years.

Vinod Shankar is the Co-Founder and Partner at Java Capital, an investment syndicate investing in sectors such as healthtech, consumer internet, deep tech, SaaS and EdTech. Prior to founding Java Capital, Vinod was the Associate Vice President at Kalaari Capital and before that was the Head of Sales & Marketing at Just Books Inc.

In this episode we cover:

Why launch an investment fund in the middle of the pandemic? (1:57)

Challenges of raising a fund during the pandemic? (5:29)

Vinod’s journey into VC (11:23)

How do you do cold outreach to VCs (19:10)

Chief Hustle Officer –– what do you mean by that? (29:30)

Sourcing startups – Cold vs Direct (35:43)

Experience at Kalaari (39:09)

Experience which had the most impact on Vinod’s life (45:41)

Responsibilities that VCs bear on nurturing the ecosystem (54:30)

How do you encourage sustainable businesses within VC? (1:01:14)

Rapid fire (1:09:35)

Pratik Poddar is the Principal at Nexus Venture Partners.

As an entrepreneur turned VC, Pratik is excited about working alongside technology entrepreneurs to create an impact on the lives of millions of people in India. He is most passionate about consumer, community/content, education, e-commerce, financial services, and healthcare startups.

Prior to joining Nexus, Pratik spent three years working on his startups in social e-commerce and content marketing spaces where he experienced firsthand the challenges of building a company. Earlier, he worked as a quant analyst and algorithmic trader at Morgan Stanley, and private equity analyst at Blackstone. Pratik has a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. Look back at 2020 (2:15)

2. Will VCs look at portfolio constructions differently post the pandemic? (4:50)

3. What signals is Pratik looking for from an investment deal? (6:12)

4. How should VCs protect themselves so as to not fall prey to bad deals? (9:01)

5. What does a Principal at a VC firm do? (11:47)

6. How does Pratik add value to startups (14:50)

7. Opportunities and challenges of bottoms-up investing (18:55)

8. How does operating experience help investors in VC? (23:05)

9. Products vs Platforms: How can founders of today think about converting products into platforms? (30:27)

10. What don’t founders realize about building for India? (39:49)

11. What don’t VCs understand about middle India? (46:05)

12. How does Nexus look at new sectors and what is their approach to investing? (51:16)

13. Rapid fire (55:25)

Adith Podhar is the Managing Partner at Gemba Capital, a fund which invests in angel rounds of tech firms focused on India consumption and cross-border SaaS.

Prior to Gemba, Adith has worked at Motilal Oswal PE fund in Mumbai, and spent time at ICICI as a Product Manager.

Follow Adith (@adithpodhar), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

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In this episode we will cover:

1. Covid impact on investing (1:47)

2. How does Adith look back on 2020? (6:43)

3. What might the next 24 months look like? (11:47) 

4. Sectors within India that Adith is bullish on (14:26)

5. Adith’s background and journey into VC (18:00)

6. Learnings as a founder and how it’s helpful in VC today (21:11)

7. How have different investing experiences influenced Adith’s investor persona? (30:11)

8. How did Adith write his first check and what was the process behind it ?(34:18)

9. Gemba’s current investment thesis (38:29)

10. Raising money from domestic LPs (43:01)

11. Challenges of raising money from within India (45:41)

12. How does Gemba add value to startups? (48:37)

13. Portfolio support & time allocation (53:15) 

14. What does it take to be a good investor? (55:56)

15. How does Adith evaluate companies and founders of similar profiles (58:24)

16. Time spent on due diligence (1:00:13)

17.  Rapid fire (1:02:55)

Munish Randev is the Founder & CEO at Cervin Family Office. He brings in over 25 years of experience in investment management and family offices. He has advised over 80 families with over $3.2B in financial assets and has worked with many business families in structuring their family governance platforms. Well known in the Indian investment industry for his unique expertise and ethical standards he has been part of many family investment committees and family office boards.

Follow Munish (@MunishRandev), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

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In this episode, we will cover:

1. Munish’s insights from the year that was 2020 (1:57)

2. Munish’s background and the key milestones that led to the founding of Cervin Family Office (6:17)

3. How have Family Offices evolved over the years in India (12:22)

4. Why are Family Offices attracted to investing in tech startups? (20:29)

5. Who is developing the thesis within Family Offices? (27:29)

6. What kind of returns do Family Offices expect from a) directly investing into startups and b) investing into VC funds as an LP (35:01)

7. Subtle nuances of managing a Family Offices and what must an external fund manager be aware of? (41:00)

8. Things LPs look out for when investing into a new fund manager? (51:34)

9. The average timelines and cycles that Family Offices undertake while reviewing fund managers (56:55)

10. Differences in approach between Cervin and other Family Offices (59:10)

11. Rapid fire (1:03:15)