The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Ankit Kedia is the Founding Partner of Capital-A. He is a second generation entrepreneur who has held senior leadership positions at Manjushree Technopack Ltd. (MTL), India's largest rigid plastic packaging company. With a penchant for institutional marketing and a credit of designing the Key Account Management program, Ankit has been instrumental in the 5x growth of revenues and EBIDTA at Manjushree, where he devoted 15 strong years. He was also instrumental in raising private equity capital from Kedaara Capital and helped in the acquisition of two rival companies, before divesting controlling stake to Advent International in 2018. In this episode we will cover:1. What does Ankit really love about venture capital? (3:10)2. Ankit's perspective on India's macro economic climate (6:30)3. Market fluctuations in the early stages of investing (8:50)4. Founder-market fit and how it influences a fund manager's investment decisions (14:48)5. Learnings from investing in Indian startups (17:56)6. How to identify the best startups (22:24)7. The most difficult thing for a fund manager of a micro VC fund (34:40)8. Ankit's perspective on the Indian early-stage venture landscape (36:53)9. Why did Ankit choose to invest in tech startups rather than traditional manufacturing businesses in which his family had had a lot of success? (41:10)10. What has Ankit the LP learned about Indian VC that he can use as a fund manager today? (44:15)11. What would Ankit advise his younger self? (46:51)12. Advice for entrepreneurs and fund managers (48:55)​

Manish Taneja is the co-founder and CEO of Purplle, an online beauty and wellness retailer and a recent entrant into the unicorn club. He brings a wealth of experience having spent some of his finest years in venture capital (Avendus Capital), private equity (Fidelity Growth Partners India) and investment banking (Lehman Brothers), before turning a founder. In this episode we will cover:1. Manish's biggest takeaways from the last two years of building Purplle (4:18)2. What has Manish discovered about himself and his role as a leader in general? (17:08)3. As a founder, how does Manish deal with difficult decisions? (27:02)4. Influences and influencers who have had an impact on Manish’s life (38:23)5. Where does Manish see Purplle in the next decade (49:20)6. Manish's advice to his younger self? (59:58)

Parag Dhol is the General Partner at Athera Venture Partners. He started his VC career with ICICI Venture, India’s first venture capital company, in 1993. He followed that up with stints at GE and Intel’s corporate venture arms. Parag joined Athera (formerly known as Inventus Capital) in 2008, shortly after the first close of Fund I. Parag is/was a Board Director/Observer at redBus (acquired), FundsIndia, Lemnisk (buy-back), eTechies (buy-back), Power2SME, PolicyBazaar (IPO), Avaz (buy-back), peel-works, Tricog, worxogo, Pixxel and Clootrack.Parag has a B.Tech. (Mechanical Engg.) from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore.In this episode, we will cover:1. Venture Capital in India in the 1990s (2:55)2. What factors influence a fund manager's temperament? (5:26)3. Things that surprise Parag about Indian venture capital (9:58)4. What lessons has public market investing taught Parag about private market investing? (20:29)5. Managing investor biases and blindspots (24:32)6. What investment advice would Parag give to his younger self? (29:13)7. Evolution of Indian VC over the decades (35:10)8. Considering the current venture landscape in India (43:59)9. What continues to pique Parag's interest in the India opportunity? (51:16)10. Athera's vision and the role Parag sees it playing in Indian venture capital (55:08)11. How would Parag like to be remembered i.e. his legacy in Indian VC (1:00:06)

Arun Chulani is an Emerging Markets Analyst at First Water Capital, a fund focused on Indian Equities. First Water’s investment philosophy centers primarily on a long-only strategy, with a value driven and concentrated portfolio approach. Arun is a value investor focusing on hard assets (sectors such as steel, cement, rubber, oil etc.) and cyclicals, taking concentrated bets on preferred plays. Prior to First Water he was with NIG, handling an industrials fund with $400M AUM. Arun is also a Chartered Accountant and a graduate of the LSE.In this episode, we will cover:1. Macroeconomic view of the public markets? (2:24)2. Mean reversal in light of the current market environment (5:06)3. When the market is effectively underperforming, how do you invest? (7:52)4. The economics of hedge funds and their investors' attitudes (12:47)5. How does First Water Capital develop an investment thesis like theirs? (14:30)6. What impact does the budget have on First Water Capital investment plan? (22:15)7. What metrics does First Water Capital use to differentiate its sectors? (27:04)8. How do you assure competition in industries with powerful incumbents? (27:57)9. What factors do funds consider before investing in big businesses? (32:10)10. Extrinsic vs. intrinsic value (36:20)11. What according to Arun is the hardest thing for investors to evaluate (39:12)12. Can a slowdown in one industry affect the growth of another due to the marco-climate? (43:41)13. The effects of trickle-down (45:22)14. Tips for making fund investments in public markets (47:49)15. Industries that Arun is bullish on (51:11)

Chaitanya Ramalingegowda is the co-founder of Wakefit, India’s leading direct-to-consumer, mattress and sleep solutions company. He brings over 19 years of experience spanning entrepreneurship, management consulting and marketing across companies such as IBM, Cognizant, Zinnov Consulting, YourStory and LetsVenture. In this episode, we will cover: 1. The Wakefit origin story (3:25) 2. Building the right culture even when the company is failing (7:36) 3. When did the founders feel that were onto something with Wakefit (12:05) 4. Scaling values and culture as a company grows (19:00) 5. Reasons why Wakefit decided to bootstrap (28:56) 6. Biggest learnings running Wakefit (33:40) 7. When and why do Indian D2C brands opt for the offline retail experience strategy as they grow? (38:39) 8. Tapping into the middle India markets through (42:05) 9. Doubling down on markets in India (45:11) 10. Lessons Chaitanya would share with his younger self (50:05)

RK Rangan is the Chairman of BLinC Invest, a venture capital fund committed to funding EdTech and Fintech startups in India. He is a seasoned business leader with over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry across Investment Banking, Asset Management, Insurance and Consumer Banking. He is a specialist at strategic development and transformation of businesses and has held President/MD and CEO positions with large global corporates.In this episode, we will cover:1. Current state of the industry (3:41)2. Microtrends that influence macrotrends in investment (14:46)3. Indian EdTech: How to create long-term business models and maintain good corporate governance (30:57)4. Is an independent regulator required for Indian Edtech? (36:10)5. What does it take for investors to put their investment thesis into action? (39:15)6. What are the various challenges that a fund manager faces when implementing their thesis, and how does this change over time? (52:38)

Sandeep Patil is a partner at QED Investors, and heads the fund’s investments in Asia. Founded in 2007, QED Investors has invested in more than 180+ companies, including 27 unicorns, and has more than $5 billion under management. Notable investments include Nubank, SoFi, Credit Karma, Klarna, GreenSky, Avant, Flywire, Remitly, QuintoAndar, Creditas, ClearScore, and Konfio.He has extensive consumer internet experience and is a global banking and financial services industry veteran. Over the course of his career, he has helped launch consumer and SME lending businesses at Flipkart, as well as contributed to the company's fundraising and eventual sale to Walmart. He was also the Managing Director and CEO for India at Truecaller, where he oversaw the Adtech, Payments, FinTech, SME/Enterprise, and Developer businesses, doubling revenue and achieving net income profitability despite the pandemic.Sandeep brings extensive consumer credit experience from Capital One in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as experience serving global investors, banks, and insurers at McKinsey & Company.Sandeep holds a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and an MBA from the London Business School (LBS).In this episode, we will cover:1. How and why did Sandeep become a venture capitalist? (3:03)2. What are the parallels and differences between the 2007/08 crisis and the post-pandemic economic slowdown? (14:56)3. QED's assessment of the current market and its implications for venture investing (24:15)4. What is the balance between founder-market-fit and investor-founder-fit? (31: 37)5. Consumer vs. enterprise in Indian fintech: where is the opportunity? (40:00)6. From where will the winners in Indian fintech emerge? (46:55)7. How easy is it to keep an eye on Asian markets from the UK? (51:15)

Abhishek Goenka is the Head & CIO at RPSG Capital Ventures, a corporate venture fund backed by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. The fund primarily invests in early-stage consumer brands in India including F&B, CPG, personal care and lifestyle goods. Abhishek brings two decades of experience across investments and M&A having spent time being part of the investments team at True North and JP Morgan. He is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Financial Analyst by qualification. In this episode, we will cover:1. Lessons learned over the last two years investing in India (3:53)2. How does RPSG Capital Ventures plan to invest in the second half of the year? (12:46)3. What aspect of the Indian consumer story drew Abhishek in? (20:33)4. Addressing and tackling the middle India opportunity (26:26)5. What factors does RSPG Capital Ventures consider when investing in startups in the early stages? (32:40)6. Tips for constructing your cap-table (44:30)7. Advice for today's entrepreneurs and those who will start businesses tomorrow (51:20)8. Where will RSPG invest in the coming year? (56:48)

Madhu Shalini Iyer is a Partner at Rocketship VC. Previously, she was the Chief Data Officer of Gojek and helped grow the business into a $1 billion unicorn. She was on the board and started the Singapore office. Prior to Gojek, Madhu was an operating partner at a 150M private equity fund building startups across South East Asia. She was part of the founding team of Intuit’s Quickbooks Lending Platform where she helped grow the platform to $300 million and holds 3 patents in the areas of user data augmented algorithms for financial inclusion.In this episode, we will cover:1. Madhu's journey from Intuit and GoJek operator to board member and investor (3:00)2. What aspect of the operator journey makes investing more pleasurable? (10:45)3. How does Rocketship VC use data science to assist in the selection of startups for investment? (18:21)4. How does data science influence Rocketship's thesis? (22:41)5. Portfolio construction constraints with a heavily data-driven model (25:32)6. Where does Rocketship stand on gut and human instinct versus data science? (30:20)7. How did Rocketship's data science-focused fund model attract LPs? (34:05)8. How does data and the Rocketship model adapt to macroeconomic trends? (42:27)9. Can data be used to assess the impact of an investment on a portfolio? (46:15)10. Why is investing so personal for Shalini (50:41)11. Advice to founders and investors (59:25)

Viral Jani has been the driving force behind several challenging projects in Consumer Tech, Television Broadcasting, Digital, Social Media and Media Planning. Armed with more than 15 years of experience in media and technology, Viral plays a key role in spearheading Investment Operations at Times Bridge.A post graduate in Communications Management, Media & Brand Management from MICA, in his previous avatar, Viral has led strategy, television and entertainment partnerships for Twitter across India and worked with key strategic partners across sectors to drive innovation and monetization.Prior to Twitter, he was the Head of Strategy and Social Media for Times Television Network. Viral has also been associated with several other major media houses in India like NDTV, Disney, Viacom and Mindshare.In this episode we will cover:1. Times Bridge and its unique structure (3:12)2. When does a company approach Times Bridge (14:50)3. How does the deal flow at Times Bridge work? (18:57)4. Measuring success with Times Bridge business model (25:10)5. How does Times Bridge view competition in its portfolio? (31:30)6. The impact of the macroeconomic environment on today's investments (35:02)7. Learnings from the Times Bridge portfolio and the impact of macro trends on their Indian businesses (40:21)8. The hardest aspect about being an investor (42:42)9. Managing relationships with portfolio startups and working on the India expansion story (47:18)10. What should companies considering expanding into India know and be aware of before entering the market? (51:40)11. words of wisdom for his younger self (56:16)