Our guest today is Nagraj Kashyap, Managing Partner of SoftBank’s Vision Fund one of the world's largest venture capital fund, with over $100 billion in capital. Nagraj leads their consumer investment practice for north America. It was amazing chatting with him about how Vision Fund 2 is different from fund 1, his thesis around the future of healthcare the ecommerce stack and how he thinks about scale for non-tech consumer businesses. WIthout further ado, here’s Nagraj.
- What was your initial attraction to investing in consumer focused businesses?
- How did you end up joining Softbank?
- How is Vision Fund 2’s focus different from Fund 1?
- Why should founders partner with the Vision Fund?
- What is your decision-making process? How do you get to a decision quickly in today’s market?
- How do you leverage your platform?
- Walk us through your due diligence process.
- When a founder comes to you, how do you think about the size of problem they are solving?
- How are you thinking about today’s market climate? Do you think valuations are high?
- What’s your target cadence for consumer investments?
- There’s been alot of investment in direct-to-consumer healthcare. What’s your thesis around the future of healthcare?
- Wellness and preventative care
- Where is the opportunity when it comes to the ecommerce stack serving consumer brands?
- How do you think about scale in non-software businesses/consumer brands? I.e. Vuori
- What’s one thing you would change about venture capital?
- What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
- Professionally: Innovator’s Dilemma
- Personally: American Sickness
- What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?
Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands