E69: Radhesh Kanumury (Managing Partner, Suvan Ventures)

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)