EP#24 Sasha Mirchandani – Angel investing to venture capital, learnings from missed investment opportunities & building a legacy VC fund

In this episode, Sasha Mirchandani, Founder & Managing Partner @Kae Capital & Co-founder @Mumbai Angels, joins our host Digjay, to talk about his learnings from investing in startups over the last 2 decades – from being an angel investor in early 2000s to starting his own VC fund in 2012, how Kae Capital leverages it’s LPs to add value to their portfolio startups, building a legacy VC fund, Sasha’s list of anti-portfolio startups (Oyo, Ola, Meesho, Unacademy) & key learnings from these missed opportunities.

Sasha founded Kae Capital in 2012 which is a Mumbai based sector agnostic VC fund that usually invests in seed stage startups. Some of its investments include 1mg, Nua, Porter, Zetwerk among others. Previously, Sasha was a Managing Director at Blue Run Ventures India, CEO and Founder of Imercius Technologies and Head of Corporate Affairs/New Businesses at Mirc Electronics (Onida). Sasha founded Mumbai Angels in 2006 which is among the top angel investment networks in India that connects startups with investors & professionals willing to invest in them. Sasha is among the first batch of angel investors in the country, is known for making early investments in companies like Fractal, InMobi & Myntra and was recently inducted in TiE Mumbai’s Hall of Fame as an Outstanding Angel Investor. You can connect with him here on Linkedin / Twitter

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Show notes –

1. (01:34) Sasha’s background; Starting Mumbai Angels in 2006

2. (03:54) Initial learnings as an angel investor

3. (07:09) Difference in investment approach between a VC and an angel investor

4. (09:04) About Kae Capital – Thesis, Fund size and portfolio composition

5. (10:36) What should VCs consider when choosing their LPs? Leveraging LPs to support portfolio startups

6. (14:39) Exit criteria for VCs; Why VCs need to put more thought on mitigating risks post investment and timing their exits?

7. (17:23) Learnings from his anti-portfolio and avoiding biases when evaluating startups

8. (19:49) Improvement in founder quality over the past 2 decades

9. (22:54) Rapid fire and closing remarks