E133: Navin Honagudi (Managing Partner, Elev8 Venture Partners)

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