Nidhi Jain

✨ Chet Kapoor ✨ is quite the Silicon Valley legend. Three-time founder and currently the CEO of DataStax his wisdom for founders is incredibly spot-on ✅ and timeless ⏰ ! In this most recent and probably best-ever episode of The Enterprise GTM podcast, Chet discusses what it takes to build enduring tech companies. Some 🎤 soundbites 🎤 from our conversation: 👩‍🏫 The quality of people influences the outcome of your startup the most. 🔥 You do not need smart people who sit around and pontificate. ☄ Momentum is everything. Never underestimate it. 🌟 Having complete clarity of thought at any given time is very important--who are you doing this for, and how will it change their lives? 🌈 One of the best ways to create a large company is to create a parade or join one. ☝ Know who you are. There's a high likelihood that the company will become more like who you are rather than who you want to be. 🛑 Don't make the mistake of hiring sales execs too soon. Be extra cautious about partnerships. 📣 Tune in to hear about what he has to say about AI startups getting started today, the future of the data layer, the evolving importance of data roles (data science, data engineering), and so much more! #devtool #founder #startup #data #ai https://lnkd.in/gW-58nvE

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DePIN & RWAs dominance isn't as far off as most people think. Across every innovative cycle, three fundamental pillars emerge: foundational technology development, proliferation of infrastructure, and a surge in application development. As we venture into the third cycle, DePIN and RWA protocols are poised to become market leaders paralleling the dominance witnessed by infrastructure projects from 2015 to 2024.

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In an era where innovation outpaces regulation, how can entrepreneurs embed social responsibility into the DNA of their startups? 🌐💡 Recent conversations and insightful pieces, particularly one by Lyel Resner and Dr. Wilneida Negrón, have sparked a profound consideration in my thinking: the imperative for responsible innovation in tech ventures. They posit a tantalizing question - what if the tech giants of tomorrow were built on the foundations of public interest and social responsibility today? Diving into this thought experiment reveals more than just an ethical proposition; it opens up a paradigm where businesses can be both profitable and purposeful. Embedding social responsibility from the outset could guide ventures to prioritize long-term societal well-being over short-term gains. Imagine a future where companies are not just evaluated by their financial performance but also by their contribution to solving societal issues. The notion is ambitious but certainly not unattainable. This approach challenges us as entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators to rethink our roles in shaping the future of technology. It's a call to action to pioneer a new wave of responsible businesses that are equipped to address, rather than exacerbate, global challenges. Let’s discuss: How can we as part of the startup ecosystem integrate these principles into our work from day zero? Your thoughts could light up paths not yet traveled. 🚀🌍

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A rapidly maturing startup ecosystem, heightened due diligence practices, and a steady pipeline of startups gearing up for public markets, India is clearly the promised land for investors and entrepreneurs alike. In a recent interview with Vibhuti Sharma from DealStreetAsia, I delved into how India remains a key focus for RTP Global. We discussed how with our new $1B fund, we are doubling down on the region's potential, backed by our dedicated team in India supporting early-stage entrepreneurs. India is an essential part of RTP Global's long-term vision, and we remain committed to nurturing innovative startups that can scale globally

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I had a lot of fun recording a podcast episode with Shiva Singh Sangwan. We discussed the evolution of Humba Ventures & Susa Ventures; tips for raising and building a fund; how to improve investment sourcing & picking; the role of luck in investing, and so on. https://lnkd.in/eiqsStej

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What makes Accel one of the most prestigious VC funds in India? Listen to our latest podcast where we share insights about the Indian VC ecosystem, the realities of fundraising, and the challenges fund managers face. https://lnkd.in/gYEv2i5C

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Inspired by Zubair Naeem Paracha and nudged by Ahad Shaikh, I took a look at the Rasan IPO. Detailed thoughts in my substack post and quick summary below. Rasan IPO Implications: 💹 The strong interest in the initial subscription and subsequent continued rally signal positive prospects for tech founders in the GCC. Local markets are bullish on homegrown tech and may offer attractive valuation multiples in comparison to international exchanges.   Company Background & Performance: 💼 Rasan operates as a digital insurance aggregator, focusing on motor and health insurance, alongside financial and data analytics solutions.   Rasan has shown robust growth with over 450% revenue increase from FY20 to FY23, strong unit economics with gross margins (~60%), and net margins around 20%.   IPO Pricing and Valuation Metrics: 🤑 Rasan debuted at SAR 37, and has reached highs of SAR 67, implying a market cap of ~ USD 1.3 billion, up from the original offer valuation of USD 750m.   The implied Price/Sales of ~20x may seem overpriced at face value, however, the rapid digitization in KSA + population demographics, underutilization of tech in insurance and potential to expand into other fintech verticals may still present a compelling opportunity.   Comparables Other Regions & Closing: 🚀 Compared with global peers, Rasan's efficient fiscal operations at tremendous top line growth rates is impressive.   US public Insurtechs (digital insurance not aggregator) i.e. Lemonade, Oscar etc. have faced downward price pressure as IPOs were overpriced in previous years. Policy Bazaar is a better comp against which Rasan seems like a solid small cap growth stock. PB has a P/S of ~23x which is attributed to record breaking investor interest in Indian markets and a massive TAM in the local market. PB is ahead in terms of scale yet Rasan seems to be operating more efficiently from a margin standpoint. If you got into Rasan at the original IPO price, you have already enjoyed some strong gains but there could be more to come if you hold long term. The tailwinds of economic growth, focused investment on non-oil diversification and the push to build local exchanges in the region coupled with continued growth at the company's current margin profile may yield 2x-3x return over the next 3-5 years.

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A series where we highlight Gemba Capital's Portfolio companies' every week. Simple post - no gyaan and no bakwaas :) This week meet Pramod Rao and Abhishek Nalin from Threado AI Kamini Shivalkar Aditya Vargante Govind Lohia Vipul Rawal ↗️ ️Anupreet Singh 📈 Sujoy Chakravarty #meetourportfolio #earlystage #venturecapital #startups #tech #india #portfolio

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Cap Table Red flags in early-stage start-ups Over the past two years, we at Transition VC have evaluated close to 1,000 deep technology or Engineering start-ups in the energy transition domain in India. More than two dozen are actively working on innovative ideas and developing technologies or products with significant potential. Still, we had to reject a few start-ups due to Cap Table issues. Disproportionate allocation of shareholding percentage among the founders: Disproportionate allocation among the founders has resulted in potential conflicts leading to founder issues and the collapse of the start-ups. These human issues are complicated to solve in the later stages, and it also means one of the founders with a majority stake is perceived to have a significant influence & role, and the other founder whose role is perceived to be a supporting one. For us, at Transition VC, the maximum difference between dual founders shall not be more than 20%, i.e., the maximum disproportionate split can be 60% versus 40%. Allocation of a significant percentage of passive participants: We have observed that few start-ups gave up significant stakes to non-active participants such as advisors, universities, accelerators, or incubators, This substantial allocation of shares to passive participants hinders the start-up’s capital-raising ability in the further rounds, as the co-founders’ stake might come down significantly below the minimum stake, as every investor at each stage expects the founders to have more significant skin in the game. A single investor holding more than >30% with special powers related to exit, monetary and strategic rights is perceived negatively by the new investors, who would want to avoid existing investors having too much control over the start-up. Bringing in a strategic investor early in the game: Having strategic investors, suppliers, and customers on the cap table can be detrimental to attracting new investors, customers, and strategic partners. It is better to avoid them until they have a very minimum stake and don’t have a direct overlap. Single founders: Entrepreneurship is very tough mentally and, many times, exhausting. It can drain all your energy, resulting in burnout within a short time. Things could be smoother and more linear when building or scaling start-ups. There are a lot of ups and downs during the entrepreneurial journey; you need someone who can share your vision and passion and support each other during tough times. There is a high chance of solo founders burning out if things go south and potentially giving up. Having multiple founders in a start-up is not mandatory, but we prefer multiple founder start-ups as the key personal risk comes down significantly with multiple founders. Transition VC #start-ups #Venturecapital

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🧠 So many pearls of wisdom in this Vinod Khosla interview, for both entrepreneurs and VCs. I've pulled out some of my favourites for you below. 1️⃣ On making contrarian bets "Here's a philosophy, whether you're a venture firm or an entrepreneur. You have to bet on something that you believe in - that the market doesn't believe in - and then stick with it through the ups and downs. You can't predict the timing of most innovations." 2️⃣ On new innovations "I can't think of a big new innovation that came from a person who was in the area they disrupted. Most board members advise founders to 'get somebody who understands the domain' - that's really bad advice generally. You want someone who can think from first principles, and can learn the business rapidly in 6 months. If Elon Musk had been in the automotive industry, I guarantee you we wouldn't have Tesla. When people who came from healthcare tried to do digital health, they generally failed at it." 3️⃣ On risk and failure "There's no one in the venture business who has failed more often than I have failed. I've just tried many more things and screwed up more often than most people. Then a tiny percentage have become the big visible successes. People need to understand that venture is really asymmetric, so you don't want to take low risk. You want to take very high risk - it's not IRR investing. We are buying an option in a great team, and then helping them succeed." 4️⃣ On taking advice as founders "Ask yourself: how many billion dollar companies has the person built? From scratch - not joined Google or Facebook and were given an internal business. When you worry about your pay check, or you struggle to hire someone because you can't offer them a large enough pay check... that's pain. That's when you learn empathy for entrepreneurs." 5️⃣ On thinking long term "Ukraine, Covid and AI are massive turbo-chargers for venture. This is not how the world looks at it. They're looking at short term interest rates, or what's happening with GDP growth. I'm looking at it in terms of what companies will be built over the next 20 years given the changes in the world. I'm not investing in crypto one year, then AI the next. It's a long term approach to venture." 6️⃣ On future predictions "Today's 30-year-olds, take note. In twenty years, jobs won't be the key criteria for education. In twenty years, the world's 50-year-olds will have a hard time adjusting to the fact that they generally won't have to work. As robots and AI do much of the labour-intensive work, they'll be able to lean into their passions and be more creative. Human selection, human preference and taste will become highly valuable. Human's will always prefer human uniqueness."

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“If you think about the journey of a company in the various stages of a business, we were getting to a scale where it made sense to find a partner who has a track record of taking companies to that next level, organically and inorganically, just to be really transparent. They have multiple ways of getting businesses to that next level, and we wanted to find a partner who could do that with us.” This is something founders think about a lot from my experience, including myself. There are organisations out there that have the playbook to scaling and simply do it better. David Politis, Founder and Chairman of BetterCloud shared this with me (and the SaaStock Community) on the latest SaaS Revolution Show podcast. Who was he talking about? Vista Equity Partners, who acquired BetterCloud in June 2022. David's been building and operating SaaS businesses for 20 years and is not only a tremendous entrepreneur, but down to earth and has a great pay it forward spirit. The latest episode is a must listen for all founders looking to scale. You'll learn: How entrepreneurial spirit runs in the family His journey to founding BetterCloud BetterCloud’s journey to $100M ARR The decision to acquire G2’s G2 Track product How the role of a CEO changes as you scale The top three things from the Startup Founder Survival Guide No links to the episode. Find The SaaS Revolution show on your podcast player, subscribe and listen to this excellent episode.

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The Council's first SPV of 2024 is down in the books and oversubscribed. Running SPVs where we have pro rata or extra allocation in fund deals is a muscle we are building pretty late in the game as a firm. As a solo GP with a tiny team, it's crippling to think of the extra work required and risk of not meeting platform minimums to run an SPV. But 7 of our port co's have recently raised follow on funding where we had pro rata. These are awesome deals for our LPs, angel members, and syndicate community. We simply can't afford to let them slip through the cracks. These allocations are only becoming more valuable as our firm grows, so we must start NOW! Proud to say this one went off without a hitch and our syndicate community is small but THRIVING. Wish us luck as we keep building. Note our SPVs are now on Sydecar. The best way to get access is to know someone on The Council Fund team and be on our SPV email list. **What's an SPV?** An SPV is a Special Purpose Vehicle. It allows multiple angel investors to pool together into one larger investment into a company. This helps the founder keep paperwork and investor relations to a minimum (less names on the cap table = simplicity!). When people say they're investing with a "syndicate" or they are "syndicating a deal," SPV is the entity and process by which they do that. A "syndicate" is like a community of people that invest via SPVs together.

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In my 18 months at Prime, I've been a part of countless pitch meetings. Through these, I've identified certain patterns that pique my interest in a company and its founder(s) enough to move to the next level of discussion. Many founders express frustration with the pitching process due to a lack of actionable advice on how to prepare. In this fireside chat with Jerome Manuel, I share my approach to running a first pitch meeting and what I look for when considering a second meeting. I hope this proves helpful to those navigating the startup pitch and fundraising process. Please feel free to share your comments and feedback! #startuppitch #fundraising Check out the full video here: https://lnkd.in/gg2FK5qF

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OpenAI's Sam Altman interviews serial founder and legendary VC investor Vinod Khosla. Sam asks "What percent of investors are good company builders?" Vinod responds with 3 powerful statements: 1️⃣ 90% of VCs add no value 2️⃣ 70% of VCs add negative value 3️⃣ If you haven't built a company before, you haven't earned the right to advise an entrepreneur #VentureCapital #Fundraising #Founders

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What does the future hold? 🤔 According to top VC Vinod Khosla, it's looking optimistic! In a recent article, Vinod Khosla at Khosla Ventures shared his views on our plausible futures in 2035-2049, and it's a nice counterbalance against the too-pessimistic doom thinking out there. ⚡ Khosla believes that entrepreneurs, with passion for a vision, invent the future they want. And if we allow it to happen, abundant, awesome, technology-based, “possible tomorrows” are likely ⚡ ----------------------- Are you interested in building the future with/ for your company? Take the first step here 📆 https://lnkd.in/e6kjakzF Let's make the future happen! 🚀 #Future #Venturing #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #Technology #Possibilities

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This hard reset is required for all AI founders from India building global B2B products: Product Innovation > GTM muscle Product innovation is happening at a rapid pace in each of your categories, valley competitors are building thought through features that can help them win customers mid-long term, GTM muscle alone without product differentiation wont help you win in the first half of this AI decade. We are doing this hard reset within BoldCap on what we are looking for in AI founders. Ping us if you are tinkering in global AI B2B products. Shiv Tayal Pratham Chadha Aditi Gera

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Episode 341 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Somak Chattopadhyay, Managing Partner at Armory Square Ventures. Yes, markets like the Bay Area, NYC, and Boston get a lot of attention when it comes to building startups and having the ability to raise capital, but there are lots of other places to build a successful company. This has always been the case, but the pandemic definitely pushed this reality further.  This is why a firm like Amory Square Ventures exists. There are lots of secondary markets where entrepreneurs need access to capital and it is also a very important matter for the local economy for these companies to grow and create jobs, versus relocating. Somak shares the details of what led him down the path to start Armory Square Ventures, a seed and early stage venture fund, and why their approach of investing in seconday markets has not only been a differentiator for their firm but what they also consider as an optimism engine and a community catalyst for regions outside Silicon Valley. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice on how founders can push back on advice from investors. * Somak’s background story and his early career in startups. * How he landed in venture capital at Edison Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners. * The details on what they are targeting for investments and portfolio company examples like Machinery Partner and ACV Auctions, a Buffalo company that went public. * Somak’s anti-portfolio, companies that he reviewed and an investment didn’t work out and went on to be a successful company. * Advice on building a marketplace. * And so much more. #venturecapital #startups #marketplaces

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StepStone Group is one of the largest institutional Limited Partners in Venture Capital funds globally. They first invested in India through Nexus Venture Partners before 2010, and since then, they have been actively investing in the country. They are also limited partners in Chiratae Ventures and Lightspeed India, and recently invested in Stellaris Venture Partners. Earlier, large global institutional LPs had doubts about whether India could deliver DPI (Distribution to Paid in Capital) to LPs. Hunter Somerville, Partner, StepStone mentions that the last 4 years of active domestic IPOs, some Mergers and Acquisitions, and secondary funding / buyouts have cleared all those doubts. India is one of the top markets in Asia for global LPs to deliver cash returns. Stepstone led the Unicorn round in Zepto as well as participated in the last announced round of PocketFM. Both of these companies are category leaders in their respective categories. Stepstone is looking for battle-tested managers and is actively looking for new managers to deploy in India. The qualities that they are looking for are “Ownership”, “Grit” and “Mastery”. They are not looking for managers who treat venture capital as a club. This conversation is a masterpiece for understanding the institutional Limited Partners whose money Venture Capitalists invest in startups. Watch NOW only on the The Neon Show! https://lnkd.in/gM37dG6k

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