EP#18 Rajul Garg – Building a personal brand in venture capital, collaboration & competition among VCs & why fundraising is an important skillset for a founder

In this episode, Rajul Garg, Founder & Managing Partner @Leo Capital, joins our host Digjay, to talk about his experience of being an entrepreneur, an angel investor & now a venture capitalist. He also talks about collaboration & competition among VCs, importance of building a personal brand in venture capital, Founder-VC fit and why he thinks fundraising should be a core skillset for a founder today.

Leo Capital is an early stage VC fund that makes tech investments into India, SEA and US companies. Some of their portfolio companies include the likes of Sheroes, BeatO, Edureka, Flixstock. Rajul was the founder of Pine Labs, the largest PoS payment company in India and GlobalLogic, a leader in outsourced product development – both of which are multi-billion dollar businesses today. Before starting Leo Capital, Rajul consulted with top tier venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital and Aavishkaar and was a sought after angel investor. He also founded Sunstone, an innovative technology-led business school. Rajul is an alum of IIT Delhi. You can reach out to him here on Linkedin / Twitter.

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Show notes –

1. (01:20) Rajul’s path leading upto venture capital – from being a 3x entrepreneur, to becoming an angel investor and now a VC

2. (03:05) Challenges faced when starting Leo Capital and raising external funds

3. (04:25) About Leo Capital – Thesis, Fund size & sector focus; What differentiates Leo Capital vs other VC funds

4. (07:30) Choosing the right investor for your startup; Founder-VC fit

5. (11:55) Why fundraising is an important skillset for founders today?

6. (19:30) Dynamics among different VCs in the ecosystem – competition & collaboration

7. (21:52) Importance of building an individual brand equity as a VC

8. (23:40) Rajul’s learnings as an entrepreneur building Pine Labs & GlobalLogic

9. (27:00) How much equity should founders ideally retain at Seed stage?

10. (31:30) Rapid fire and closing remarks