1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Mohanjit Jolly, Partner at Iron Pillar (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a couple of case studies of what you have invested in. In that, please also talk about the sectors you’re interested in or business models, and where you have invested — sectors that work in your model.

Mohanjit Jolly: I’ll focus on a couple of companies that have been in the news recently — as recently as yesterday, both of them.

Our portfolio is highly concentrated. We don’t look and feel like a typical venture capital firm where you have the power law. The power law says that you make 30 or 40 investments per fund, and the top 10–20% drive the lion’s share of the returns. That’s the typical venture capital formula.

In our case, we take a different approach. We start engaging with companies a year and a half or two years before they need our capital. We add value pro bono during that period, and that value addition acts as both a diligence mechanism and a relationship-building tool.

For example, if I make an introduction to a CXO and that individual gets excited about the prospect, that’s a positive signal for us from a diligence standpoint. If they’re neutral or negative, that also tells us something. At the same time, it helps build a relationship where the entrepreneur says Iron Pillar and our team bring more than just capital to the table. It’s a two-way street.

As a result, we invested in only eight companies in our first fund. In our second fund, we’ll invest in about 13 to 14 companies — that’s the maximum we plan to do. We’ve had no mortality so far, and we’ve taken a couple of companies public this year and had other exits.

Let me pick one company that’s more India-focused and another that’s truly India-for-the-world. The first leans more toward consumer, the second toward enterprise and AI.

The first company is Bluestone, a vertically integrated jewelry company serving the Indian market, with aspirations to eventually go global. We invested in Bluestone back in 2018, when it folded into our first fund. The company went public in India on the BSE in August of this year.

Bluestone was a fund one company. When we invested, they were doing around six or seven million in revenue; now they’re closer to 150 million. That’s the kind of journey we want to help our companies take.

We’re very hands-on — not in a micromanaging way, but in adding value and creating value around business development, go-to-market strategy, hiring, and all the things investors are supposed to do. Because we have a concentrated portfolio, we have the bandwidth to spend meaningful time with each company.

When we first met Gaurav, the CEO, he was focused purely online. That was his go-to-market strategy and growth engine. Through our involvement, we had our CFO act as an interim CFO for the company. We also brought in one of our advisors, Professor Kartik Hosanagar, a marketing professor at Wharton, who spent time with the founder.

He emphasized that in a context like India, omnichannel is the way to go. You have to focus on offline channels for brand and trust building. It’s important to have a physical presence — in malls or on high streets — so customers can experience the brand and products regularly.

There was real, needle-moving involvement from us in the company. In the end, we had the privilege of watching the founder and investors ring the bell at the BSE in August.

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One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) is the first global virtual accelerator in the world, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur Sramana Mitra. It offers a fully online entrepreneurship incubation, acceleration and education resource for solo entrepreneurs and bootstrapped founders working on tech and tech-enabled services ventures. 1Mby1M does not charge equity, offers an AI Mentor in 57 languages, and offers a distinct advantage over other accelerators including Y Combinator.

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, the Founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), the world’s first global virtual accelerator, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus on customers, revenues and profits. 1Mby1M’s mission is to help a Million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond. Sramana’s Digital Mind AI Mentor virtually mentors entrepreneurs around the world in 57 languages. Try it out!

This segment is part 2 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Mohanjit Jolly, Partner at Iron Pillar
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