The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Prashant Pitti is the Co-founder and Director at EaseMyTrip, India’s second largest travel and hospitality company which provides hotel bookings, air tickets, holiday packages, bus bookings, and white-label services. In September 2021, it became a unicorn after its market capitalization crossed $1 billion. Prashant Pitti is responsible for marketing, branding, investor relations, hotel, bus and media management at EaseMyTrip. He is graduate from IIT Madras and has approximately 16 years of experience in the travel, tourism, banking and social applications. He has also previously worked with HSBC and Capital One in the United States.In this episode, we will cover: 1. Learning from running a travel and hospitality company during the pandemic (5:50)2. How did EaseMyTrip maintain lean cost structure and profitability during the pandemic (8:50)3. Advantages of not raising VC money (13:13)4. Rationale behind deciding to bootstrap and not raise venture capital (15:55)5. Why did EaseMyTrip pivot from B2B to B2C (21:40)6. How does EaseMyTrip maintain its operational efficiencies over various marco-economic ups-and-downs (28:30)7. Perks of staying under the radar (31:20)8. The IPO journey (40:43)9. Timing behind going public during the pandemic (48:45)10. Building generational business – vision and mission (1:06:12)

Arjun Rao is a Partner at Speciale Invest, one of India’s leading deep-tech focused funds. He has spent over 15 years in the technology and Internet start-up ecosystem in India. He started his career with Yahoo! and later joined Ibibo as Product Manager. The entrepreneurial bug led him to start an edutech startup and also a travel tech startup, Travelyaari. He has led tech and product teams, and strategy and fundraising at all phases of a start-up lifecycle. At Travelyaari, he built the company to achieve revenues of $40mn, and raised $12mn in seed, Series A and Series B funding. Arjun’s experience spans product development, product management, and digital marketing at growth-stage companies. Arjun has a Bachelors in Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Suratkal and an MBA from the Indian School of Business.In this episode we will cover:1. Looking back at the year from a deep tech perspective (4:05)2. Learnings from running the first and raising the second fund (18:50)3. Putting the deep tech thesis to test (33:10)4. Personas of LPs interested in deep tech within India (41:25)5. Sectors within deep tech that excite Arjun (50:39)6. Value add of angels and global mega funds within the deep tech space in India (1:05:32)

Jitesh Luthra is leads Community for Bridge, and was previously the Platforms lead at Blume Ventures. Jitesh founded his first startup while still in college at Manipal University in the media space. After graduating with a degree in Computer Engineering, he worked with KPMG as part of their business Intelligence team, before embarking into the world of venture. At Blume, he played a pivotal role in establishing the ‘Platforms’ initiative and helping Blume’s portfolio founders problem-solve at scale. In this episode, we’ll cover:What is ‘platforms’ within the context of venture? (3:50)Evolution of the ‘platforms’ service within Indian venture and what’s driving the need for it? (9:00)How does a fund measure ‘platforms’ and its impact? (19:40)Why does Jitesh say that ‘platforms’ is a team role (27:30)Managing the portfolio from a ‘platforms’ perspective (34:50)What does a typical day for someone in platforms’ role look like? (46:55)Maintaining goodwill and relationships (56:00)How should funds build platforms within their firms? (1:04:40)

Anjali Bansal is the Founder of Avaana Capital which invests in and provides scaling up support to innovation-led startups for catalyzing impact at scale while delivering commercial returns.Anjali has invested in and mentored various successful start-ups including Delhivery, UrbanClap, Darwinbox, Nykaa, and Lenskart. She is closely associated with NITI Aayog’s Women Entrepreneurship Platform, digital solutions, and mentor to the Atal Innovation Mission.Anjali is former Non-Executive Chairperson of Dena Bank, appointed by the Government of India to steer the resolution of the stressed Bank, eventually leading to merger with Bank of Baroda. She was earlier a global Partner and Managing Director with TPG Growth PE responsible for India, SE Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She started her career as a strategy consultant with McKinsey and Co. in New York.She serves as an independent non-executive director on several leading boards including Tata Power, Bata, Kotak AMC, and Piramal Enterprises. She has previously chaired the India board of Women’s World Banking, a leading global livelihood-promoting institution and on the Managing Committee of the Indian Venture Capital Association.She has been elected as President designate, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and serves on the CII National Committee on Corporate Governance. Anjali previously co-founded and chaired the FICCI Center for Corporate Governance program for Women on Corporate Boards. She is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and charter member of TiE.In this episode, we will cover:1. Looking back at India’s most recent boom cycle i.e. 2020-present (2:50)2. Skeptical about this period or a believer of the potential? (7:50)3. Evolution of Anjali’s career (11:55)4. The role of empathy and insecurity in professional life (16:56)5. What is Anjali’s purpose behind investing (23:21)6. Why venture and how do you measure the impact of your own in venture beyond capital returns (28:57)7. The India opportunity (37:54)8. How does Avaana think about the evolving venture landscape and where to place their bets (42:25)9. Anjali’s journey as an LP (47:01)10. Advice for fund managers (53:18)11. Advice for founders (56:18)

Misbah Naqvi is the Co-founder and General Partner at i2i Ventures, an early-stage fund investing in startups solving some of Pakistan's biggest problems.Misbah brings over 20 years of global experience in finance, development, fintech and impact investing. She was previously Head of Market Development at Boloro Global Limited, a US-based fintech startup. While at Boloro, she led the company’s expansion to a number of markets, including South Africa, Kuwait, Pakistan, India, UAE, Nigeria, and Jordan. Misbah spent a number of years at Acumen Pakistan & USA and at Citibank Pakistan.Follow Misbah and i2i Ventures on Twitter to stay up-to-date with the firm’s operations.In this episode, we will cover:1. Misbah’s journey (2:54)2. What experiences set Misbah up for a future within Venture? (9:28)3. Is operator experience important to be a VC? (14:39)4. What’s driving the tech innovation within Pakistan? (18:08)5. What is the govt  of Pakistan doing to support the tech ecosystem? (26:44)6. Where are the opportunities within Pakistan? (34:49)7. LP appetite for Pakistani startups and funds? (49:26)

Arjun Vaidya is the Venture Lead for Verlinvest, a leading family owned investment group with over €1bn assets under management backed by families who have together built one of the world’s largest consumer businesses.Before embarking on his venture journey, Arjun was the co-founder and CEO of Dr. Vaidya’s, a new age Ayurveda consumer startup which was acquired by RP Sanjiv Goenka Group in March 2021.Prior to founding Dr. Vaidya’s, Arjun spent a few years as an investor working at LVMH's private equity arm, L Catterton. He also runs his own podcast – Direct To A Billion Consumers, where he talks to leaders building disruptive consumers brands in India.In this episode, we cover:1. The journey from being an operator to an investor (2:30)2. How does a founder evaluate an acquisition offer? (11:32)3. What does it mean to build a consumer brand in India (17:38)4. What kind of investor is Arjun? (25:28)5. D2C businesses from a VC lens (30:30)6. How do the diligence cycles within the consumer space look like? (37:24)7. Where are the opportunities within Indian consumer market? (40:41)8. Why venture capital? (46:40)9. When should consumer businesses raise capital (48:12)10. How do/should you think about branding for consumer businesses? (50:35)

Shashank Khade is the Equity specialist of Entrust with over 20 years of cumulative professional experience in listed and unlisted equity investment management. Till September 2013, Shashank was the Senior Vice-President and Head of Portfolio Management Services division of Kotak Mutual Fund. His stint with Kotak entities including Kotak Securities and Kotak Asset Management Company was over 11 years. He headed the Portfolio Management services business since 2006 and was managing over INR 2000 Cr across various portfolio management schemes. He was part of the team conceptualizing some of the best performing PMS schemes like the Fortune Series while at Kotak. Prior to Kotak Securities, Shashank Khade worked with Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited’s private equity arm IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd (then IL&FS Venture Corporation) for 5 years. Shashank’s passion in equity as an asset class is known by his in-depth knowledge of Indian companies across sectors and market caps. Given his past experience, he is equipped to understand and evaluate both un-listed and listed equity opportunities. Shashank Khade has a Bachelors’ degree in Mechanical Engineering (B.E. Mechanical) from Sardar Patel College, Mumbai and a Masters in Management Studies (Finance) from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS).In this episode, we will cover:1. Looking back at the year that was 2021 (4:32)2. In spite of the economic slow down, the Indian tech industry and stock market has performed beyond expectations. What does Shashank think about the current market dynamics and its appetite? (9:54)3. Thoughts on rising valuation in India today and how do we justify it from an LP point of view? (18:18)4. How do we sustain the growth in the ecosystem from a funding pov? (28:52)5. How do family offices asses risk with respect to venture capital? (36:32)6. What type of funds should first time family offices be evaluating and how do you do so? (44:57)7 . Vintage funds or emerging small-sized funds –– Where does the interest lie when it comes to family offices investments? (50:52)?8. How do family offices evaluate funds? (55:38)9. Advice to fund managers building their funds (1:08:43)

Nitin Sharma is the General Partner at Antler India, and brings over a decade of experience in global venture capital, having invested in 50+ tech startups in multiple geographies. Most recently, he was the founder of FirstPrinciples, a thesis-driven syndicate and portfolio of 35+ startups, including Fynd, (acq. by Reliance), OnJuno, Niki, Kutumb, SharesPost (acq. By Forge), XOKind and many others backed by marquee investors. Nitin’s investing journey has previously spanned US venture capital at NEA and being a founding team principal at Lightbox Ventures in India.In this episode we will cover:1. Thoughts on IndianVC in the last 18 months – fundings, unicorns, valuations & growth (4:05)2. Are seeing an inflection point or have the last 18 months been an anomaly (9:15)3. How are first time LPs looking at Indian VC? (19:18)4. How to perfect the pre-seed game as an angel and as a VC? (24:35)5. Developing an understanding of upcoming / niche sectors (30:32)6. How does an investor embrace his/her biases to improve their judgement? (34:53)7. Antler’s vision and strategy for India (41:04)8. Challenges of going global from day 1? (47:03)9. Why do we classify founders into familiar buckets while investing? (54:40)10. Where is India in the crypto development cycle? (1:01:30)11. Regulatory infrastructure for crypto to succeed in India (1:09:10)12. Building mental models for VC investing (1:19:53)13. Who will dominate Indian crypto VC market –– existing investors or new entrants? (1:25:01)

This episode features Pranav Pai (3one4 Capital), Arjun Rao (Speciale Invest) and Chinnu Senthilkumar (Exfinity Ventures), and moderated by Akriti Dokania (Octopus Ventures), and was a panel at The Desi VC Summit 2021.The panel discusses India’s potential within the deep tech and the challenges in growing this space to its global counterparts.

Mohanjit Jolly is the Co-founder and Partner at Iron Pillar Fund (IPF). IPF provides growth capital to founders building from India for the world.Mohanjit has been working with and investing in technology start-ups in the US and India for over 20 years. He is one of a few VCs who has been on the ground as a partner in India and Silicon Valley. Mohanjit has led Iron Pillar’s investments in Sibros, Jiffy, Uniphore, Vyome, Ushur and CoreStack.Before co-founding Iron Pillar, Mohanjit served as a Partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson for 9 years, establishing their India operations, overseeing the India venture portfolio and coordinating business development efforts with Fortune 500 companies for DFJ’s global portfolio. Prior to this, he was a Partner at Garage Technology Ventures, a Silicon Valley seed stage VC firm. His early years in California and Boston saw him help launch ViaSpace, a technology incubator in conjunction with Caltech and JPL and Intel Play, a joint venture between Mattel and Intel. He also worked at Itek Optical Systems, a manufacturer of high-resolution reconnaissance systems.Mohanjit serves on the Boards of The Unreasonable Group and The SETI Institute.Mohanjit earned his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).In this episode, we will cover:1. Learnings from running a fund that operates cross-border – in the US and India (3:13)2. How does Mohanjit view the next 10 years of venture and the ecosystem in India (7:58)3. How did Iron Pillar build its growth and support network around its fund? (15:18)4. Examples of leveraging growth partners 24:01)5. How should investors build relationships with founders to advocate for transparency beyond the traditional sense? (33:20)6. What convinced Mohanjit that Anand was the right partner to start the fund with? (43:26)7. How does Iron Pillar think about LP construction (51:05)8. What are Mohanjit’s insecurities as an investor (57:43)