The Desi VC: Indian Venture Capital | Angel Investors | Startups | VC

Shwetank Verma is the co-founder of Leo Capital, a venture capital fund investing in companies inIndiaand South East Asia. Recent investments include CoLearn (edtech), WayForward (mental health), CoverGenius (Insurtech) and IndiaGold (Digital Gold). Leo Capital is backed by institutional investorsfrom Singapore and Silicon Valley. Prior to Leo Capital, he led Open Innovation for MetLife Asia and was a part of the senior management team of LumenLab, MetLife's innovation consultancy. At LumenLab, he advised MetLife country CEOs andsenior leaders on growth, startup collaboration, culture change and new product development. Prior to joining MetLife, he was a serial entrepreneur in healthcare and education in India. He serves asInnovation Adviser to the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Singapore Management University. He is also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales and holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Nottingham (UK), where he was a Foreignand Commonwealth Office scholar. . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: Shwetank on TwitterShwetank on LinkedIn⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Prayank Swaroop is a Partner at Accel, and joined the firm in 2011. He focuses on cybersecurity, developer tools, marketplaces, and SaaS investments. Some of the investments led by him are - Aavenir, Bizongo, Maverix, OnsiteGo, Securden, Slintel, Skeps, and Zetwerk. Prior to Accel, he worked at Adobe and Standard Chartered Bank in India and Singapore. He held positions across engineering, product marketing, pre-sales, and product management. He has an integrated master's degree in Mathematics and Computing from IIT Delhi and an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: Prayank on TwitterPrayank on LinkedIn⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Priya Saiprasad is a General Partner at Touring Capital, a fund investing in enterprise-focused AI powered global startups. She co-founded Touring after 13 years in venture capital, M&A and enterprise technology. She was most recently a Partner at SoftBank Vision Fund, where she led investments into category-defining software companies including Pixis, Vendr, Observe.ai, CommerceIQ, Sendoso and Skedulo. Previously, Priya was at Mayfield Fund focused on early-growth investments, and a founding member of M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), where she led investments in Go1, Workboard, PandaDoc, Element AI (acquired by ServiceNow), and Bonsai (acquired by Microsoft). Prior to that, she was a Deal Lead in Square’s M&A team leading acquisitions at the intersection of software and machine learning. Priya was recognized by Forbes in 2018 as part of their 30 under 30 in Venture Capital list. She is actively involved with All Raise, Neythri, and several prominent Women in Tech associations. Priya holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: ⁠Priya on Twitter⁠Priya on LinkedIn⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Rohit Bansal is the Co-founder Snapdeal, one of the largest online marketplaces in India. The company has raised over $1.7B from eBay, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital, BlackRock, Temasek Holdings and SoftBank. He is also the Co-Founder of Titan Capital, which has invested in companies such as Mamaearth, Dealshare, OLA, RazorPay and OfBusiness. He an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: Rohit on TwitterRohit on LinkedInThe Desi VC on LinkedInAkash Bhat on TwitterAkash Bhat on LinkedIn

Shubham Goel is the Co-foudner and Co-CEO of Affinity, a relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers. The company has raised over $120M in funding from Menlo Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Pear VC and Advance Venture Partners. Prior to Affinity, Shubham completed his BS in Computer Science at Stanford University. . . . Episode notes: . . . Social links: Shubham on TwitterThe Desi VC Podcast on TwitterAkash Bhat on Twitter

Sumeet Mehta is the co-founder and CEO of LEAD, an edtech company helping digitize and transform affordable private schools to better serve students from middle and low-income groups of families. Before co-founding LEAD, Sumeet was Chief Executive Officer at Zee Learn (2007-2012). He transformed the institution from a pre-school franchise company to an education company with a presence in pre-schools and K-10 schools, and science activity and animation classes. Prior to that, Sumeet spent eight years at Procter & Gamble Singapore, where he was involved in in brand management, leading businesses in Australia, Southeast Asia, and India. Sumeet is an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad and PEC Chandigarh. . . . Episode Notes: Fostering a culture of long-term thinking among employees (39:02) . . . Social links: Sumeet on TwitterLEAD on LinkedInThe Desi VC Podcast on TwitterAkash Bhat on TwitterAkash Bhat on Instagram

Sankar Bora is the Co-founder & COO, Dealshare, a social ecommerce startup in India, that has raised close to $400M in venture money from marquee investors such as Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global, Matrix India, Alteria Capital and WestBridge Capital. Prior to this, he co-founded Myntra in 2007, which was sold to Flipkart in 2010. . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: Dealshare on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dealshareindia Sankar on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/SankarBora6 Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Aloke Bajpai is the Co-founder and CEO of ixigo.com a platform that aggregates and compares real-time travel information, prices and availability for flights, trains, buses, and hotels, and allows ticket booking through its associate websites and apps. Since ixigo's launch in 2007, the company has gone from a bootstrapped startup to India’s leading travel search and planning business, with over 20 million active users every month across mobile and web. Aloke graduated from IIT Kanpur in 2001 and started his career at Amadeus in Europe where he held key product and technology roles, building and managing large scale web-based products and networks for the first four years of his career. He then went to INSEAD for his MBA, and returned to India to build ixigo. . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: ixigo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ixigo Aloke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alokebajpai Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Rajat Tandon is the President of IVCA, India's apex body representing the interests of PE/VC industry, Real estate, Infrastructure and Credit funds, Limited Partners, Family offices & Corporate VC's. Rajat leads the planning, development, and implementing IVCA’s regulatory advocacy activities, while also effectively influencing regulatory outcomes in support of the alternate asset class. Previously, Rajat was part of the leadership team at NASSCOM, where he headed NASSCOM’s 10,000 Startups initiative, providing crucial support to technology startups in India. With his early stint as entrepreneur and extensive corporate experience in the IT & Telecom and GIS/Navigable maps, Rajat competently bridges the gap between boardroom expertise and on-the-ground experience. Over the past 25+ years, he has worked in various positions ranging from technical support, sales leadership, service delivery to strategic initiatives at Siemens, Nortel, and Nokia. Rajat also brings with him his extensive network in the startups space, having worked closely with most of the eminent industry leaders. His knowledge of the startup ecosystem, its constituents, successes, opportunities, and challenges run deep. He is also a member of CII National Start-up Council. A Post-Graduate in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management Technology (IIMT), Ghaziabad, Rajat also has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Pune University. When not busy with the VC-PE and startup communities, you will find him spending quality time with family or enjoying a game of Golf.​ . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: IVCA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/indianvca Rajat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rajattandy Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Rohit Sood is the Partner at Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), an investment firm that invests in companies in the digital, education, media, and services sectors. The firm also focuses on early-stage, as well as growth-stage investments. Rohit was the founding team member and has been part of Bertelsmann from Day 0 having seen the growth of the fund over the last decade as well played an instrumental part in shaping India’s startup ecosystem. Prior to Bertelsmann, he spent some time at Deutche Bank and holds an MBA from IIM-Kohzikode with a Bachelors from IIT Delhi. . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: BII on Twitter: https://twitter.com/biifund Rohit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/doostihor Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Saurabh Saxena is a serial edtech entrepreneur who has co-founded Lakshya, Vedantu and Power Club (previously known as Uable). He has been an educator and Edtech entrepreneur for 15 years now. After graduating from IIT Roorkee in 2005 he started Lakshya, a chain of offline learning centres. After a successful exit, Saurabh then co-founded Vedantu in 2012 which then went on to become one of the leading online test prep companies. Shortly after becoming a parent himself, Saurabh realised that our current education system does not prepare our children with real-world life skills required to lead a happy and successful life. That led him to found his third edtech venture, Power Club, aimed at preserving and nurturing our children’s creative intelligence and preparing them for an uncertain future. Links to topics discussed: Poistive Intelligence and Letter to younger self by Salman Khan (Khan Academy) . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: Powerclub on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/join.power.club/ Saurabh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/saurabh_learn Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Nandini Mansinghka is the CEO of Mumbai Angels, an investment firm that now operates under the 360 One umbrella. She came on board as the third Co-Founder, operating partner, and CEO in 2017. She has vast years of experience across the Investment Banking, Media, and Education industries and worked for 5+ years with J.P. Morgan in India in leadership positions in the Investment Banking research group. Before J.P. Morgan, she has worked for over 5 years with the Times of India Group. She also holds a professional degree as a Chartered Financial Analyst. Episode Notes:

Dr. Pankaj Jethwani is the Executive Vice President at W Health Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build the future of healthcare delivery in the US and India. Over the last ten years, Dr. Jethwani has been involved in improving care delivery in several care settings in the US and India as a physician leader, operator, management consultant, and investor. Dr. Jethwani started his career as a Primary Care Physician in Mumbai, India. Through this experience, he witnessed first-hand the gaps in health care delivery in both the public and private sectors. Motivated to bring about reform in this system, he joined The Boston Consulting Group in India where he helped shape BCG’s work with Government agencies to improve delivery of healthcare at scale. He later co-founded The Breakfast Revolution (TBR), a social enterprise fighting the malnutrition epidemic in India. TBR has served 220,000+ children over 20 million fortified meals. More recently, Pankaj worked at Iora Health, a Boston-based innovative primary care company that serves seniors on Medicare. This experience helped shape his perspective on building and scaling a technology-enabled value-based care organization, taking global risk, and creating a delightful model of care for patients and providers. At W Health Ventures, Dr. Jethwani leads investments in disruptive technology-enabled healthcare services companies in the US and India. Pankaj holds an MBBS (MD-equivalent) degree from MUHS (India) and received an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Episode Notes:

Saurabh Pandey, co-founder and CEO of EloElo. EloElo is an app that enables live-social experiences through games and entertainment. It is currently among the top 10 Apps on the Google Play Store in India with over 10M downloads. It accommodates 34,000 creators and offers a staggering 400 million minutes of live content. The company has raised $15M from Kalaari Capital, KB Investment, Lumikai, WaterBridge Ventures and Better Capital. Before Eloelo, he accumulated a decade of experience in various domains such as marketing, product and growth at Flipkart and P&G. Episode notes: . . . Social Links: EloElo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eloeloapp Saurabh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Saurabh65616912 Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Karan Desai is the Founder and Managing Partner at Interface Ventures, an early-stage venture fund based out of Mumbai, India. He’s an operator turned investor who brings a diverse skill set that encompasses extensive experience in operations, investment banking, and financial consulting. Prior to Interface, he was the Joint Managing Director at Trucap Finance Ltd., a rapidly expanding NBFC listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange which specializes in providing finance to MSME businesses in India. In addition to this, Karan founded exerFIT, a globally recognized lifestyle nutrition and supplementation brand endorsed by top athletes and Bollywood stars. Throughout his career, Karan has held key roles at distinguished brands such as Bank of America, PwC, Centrum Capital, and the HEAL Institute. His academic credentials include a Masters from the University of Westminster, London, and a Bachelors from Narsee Monjee College, Mumbai, where he graduated with distinction. Episode Notes: . . . Social links: Interface Ventures on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/interfaceven/ Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Yohei Nakajima is the General Partner at Untapped Capital, a pre-seed and seed-stage focused fund investing in under-represented founders in the US. At Untapped Capital, the sweet spot is investing $100k-$250k checks into startups based raising at $3-7m in valuation. Yohei has been supporting early-stage startups for 15 years, originally starting on the community side organizing events and educational courses for founders out of coworking spaces. He has spent the last 7 on the investing side, initially at Techstars where he helped spin up the Disney Accelerator alongside The Walt Disney Company, followed by his role as Director of Pipeline, supporting all 30+ Techstars accelerator programs in recruiting the best startups worldwide. Prior to Untapped, he was at Scrum Ventures, where he led the development of Scrum Studio, designing, leading, and overseeing our partner programs with Nintendo, Dentsu, Panasonic. . . . Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: Untapped Capital on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UntappedVC Yohei on Twitter: https://twitter.com/yoheinakajima Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Prateek Agarwal is the Investment lead at First Cheque, a micro VC fund based out of Bangalore that invests $100K in pre-seed startups in India. Prior to this role, Prateek worked with the India Business Head at Dr. Reddy's where he was responsible for tracking business metrics, identifying areas of improvement, and leading strategic projects. His background as both a consultant and operator at firms like Dr. Reddy's and EY has allowed him to develop skills in strategic planning, project management, and data analysis across multiple industries. Prateek's ability to shift between the big picture and details has also been strengthened through his diverse experiences. First Cheque was originally conceived by India Quotient but is now an independent firm with its own brand. During its first fund, First Cheque worked with more than 20 venture partners and added over 100 startups to its portfolio, which includes well-known ventures such as Fashinza, Giva, Rocketlane, Fleetx, Wint Wealth, Plaza/Rigi, Global Fair, Drink Prime, and Bellatrix Aerospace.

Nitin Jain is a well-known name in the Indian startup ecosystem as the co-founder and Chief Business Officer of OfBusiness, a tech-enabled platform that provides raw material procurement and credit solutions to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. With a strong background in structured solutions trading, Nitin has played a key role in OfBusiness' success, helping the company raise over $875M from top investors like Tiger Global, SoftBank Vision Fund, and Matrix Partners, among others. Today, OfBusiness is valued at around $5B and has become a leading player in the Indian SME ecosystem. Nitin Jain is an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and has had a successful career prior to his entrepreneurial journey. Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: OfBusiness on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ofbusiness_com Abhishek Goyal on Twitter: https://twitter.com/njain351 Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Beerud Sheth is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 30K+ developers and handles over 4.5 billion messages per month. The company has raised more than $480M from marquee investors such as Helion Venture Partners, Tiger Global, CRV, White Oak among many others. He was previously the co-founder of Elance (now Upwork), the world's largest online services marketplace, which went public in 2018. Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and before that at Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning software agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology & a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay. Episode Notes: . . . Social Links: Gupshup on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Gupshup Beerud Sheth on Twitter: https://twitter.com/beerud Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

Abhishek Goyal is the Co-founder, Vice Chairman, and Executive Director of Tracxn, a leading research firm that provides market intelligence data on private companies. Since its founding in 2012, Tracxn has secured funding from top investors like 3one4 Capital, Elevation Capital, Prime Venture Partners, and angel investors including Sachin and Binny Bansal, and has grown to become a highly profitable business. After much success, Tracxn debuted on the NSE in October 2022, becoming one of the few venture-backed startups to go public. Abhishek's strategic leadership and unwavering commitment to excellence have been vital in the growth and success of the company. Before Tracxn, Abhishek gained experience working with esteemed organizations such as Amazon Development Centre (India) Private Limited, Yahoo Software Development India Private Limited, and Accel. He also served as a consultant with 3i Infotech Limited and Erasmic Consulting Private Limited. Abhishek has been recognised as part of the '40 under 40' list by Fortune India in both 2018 and 2019, highlighting his success as a young entrepreneur. He holds a bachelor's degree in technology with a specialization in computer science and engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Episode Notes: 1. What was it like before and after Tracxn's IPO? (3:38) 2. Why did Tracxn's founders choose to go public instead of selling the company? (6:10) 3. How has Abhishek's leadership role changed since the IPO? (7:30) 4. How did Tracxn's investors learn about the IPO process, and what was their reaction? (15:53) 5. What's the best analogy for a company going public? (20:20) 6. Why did Abhishek choose to become an entrepreneur? (22:30) 7. What was Tracxn's first milestone? (26:00) 8. Would Abhishek do things differently if he had to build Tracxn again? (30:30) 9. What were some of the toughest days as a founder? (33:33) 10. What is Abhishek's superpower as an angel investor? (38:18) 11. What's the biggest lesson Abhishek has learned over his career? (44:23) 12. Abhishek tips on leadership and management (47:15) 13. What advice would Abhishek give his younger self? (57:00) . . . Social Links: Tracxn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tracxn Abhishek Goyal on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AbhishekTracxn Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash