1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The venture equation, which a lot of entrepreneurs struggle to grasp, is you have to go from zero to a hundred million dollars in five to seven years once you’ve entered the venture timeline. If you’re not doing that, then it’s hard to make the fund equations work.

There are some small funds that are doing Bootstrapping to Exit or Seedstrapping to Exit kind of deals. That’s a slightly different investment thesis, but they still need to find high-velocity companies to be able to exit them. Velocity is critical—without it, exits don’t really happen.

How did you reconcile the velocity equation in this story that you’re talking about? I can imagine Indian farmers—training them is not a fast or high-velocity process.

Vinit Bhansali: I agree with you. The reason we were okay with this kind of velocity initially is what we quickly realized: while it’s not easy to train a farmer because of the time it takes to grow a crop—you can’t train a farmer today and expect them to harvest next week—it has its own seasonal cycle.

What we realized is that a lot of farmers were waiting on the sidelines to see the first success. Word of mouth in the farming community is incredibly valuable. While there is a lot of upfront effort to get early adopters, once you’re successful with a set of them, your go-to-market becomes viral. The virality is incredible because farmers are always talking to each other.

Our farmers in India are fairly tech-savvy. They may not use the latest apps, but they’re all on WhatsApp, and they search on Google. I learned this from another Agritech investment we made—a platform for farmers to learn from other farmers. That gave us an insight. Some of us, like me, sitting in big cities think we’re tech-savvy, but I’ve got to tell you: when it comes to using the right tools to grow and produce better, Indian farmers catch on very quickly.

Sramana Mitra: And language is not a barrier?

Vinit Bhansali: Language is a barrier, but there’s enough content available now in their local languages.

Sramana Mitra: So, when they came to you, did they already have some early adopters on board, or did you take that leap of faith?

Vinit Bhansali: No, like I said, we like to see insights that come from customers, which means you need to have some early adopters—at least enough to have meaningful conversations.

One of the things we do as a fund is actually call those customers. We’ll also do some random outreach to get firsthand information so we can reconcile what we’re hearing with our own thinking.

Sramana Mitra: And this particular company, where are they based?

Vinit Bhansali: They’re based in NCR, New Delhi.

Sramana Mitra: Okay. You wanted to discuss another company. I’m going to move to the pitch portion of the conversation, but I want to give you an opportunity to discuss the one you started to mention.

Vinit Bhansali: Sure. This is also in the carbon credit space, but it’s not targeting farmers. It’s an incredible founder—the company is called Sustainiam. You should definitely bring the founder, Sapna, onto your calls.

They’ve built a product to not just help people trade carbon credits, but to certify them. When we met them, they were based in Bangalore. Now they’ve moved to New Delhi. They became one of the signatories to the Kyoto Protocol and are one of the few companies globally that can certify carbon credits.

Sramana Mitra: Wow.

Vinit Bhansali: The way I think of their business model is like having a license from the government to print money.

Sramana Mitra: How is it that they are one of only two companies able to certify carbon credits?

Vinit Bhansali: This is a trait we’ve seen in some of the smartest founders. They don’t just wake up with an idea and start executing. They’ve spent years building competency, networks, and deep knowledge of the industry.

In Sapna’s case, she was already working as a consultant to a state government, helping build environmental policy for the ministry. She had worked at the global level in policy framing conversations. When the opportunity came, it was known only to a handful of people in the industry.

Sramana Mitra: So, she was a domain expert very early on.

Vinit Bhansali: Exactly. Today, it sounds shocking that she had that kind of access, but when she got it, it wasn’t a big deal—it became one much later.

Sramana Mitra: And the other startup—the one selling carbon credits on behalf of farmers—are those founders from the agriculture or carbon credit industries?

Vinit Bhansali: That’s a great question. They haven’t been farmers themselves. But they had an insight about carbon credits and realized that farmers don’t have easy access to that opportunity. Many farmers don’t even know this revenue stream exists.

What’s valuable is that even a few carbon credits can make a big difference. Compared to the average income of a farmer in India, this can be a significant boost.

Sramana Mitra: So, they understood that equation?

Vinit Bhansali: They understood it. And they also realized that they needed to sell the concept to the farmers—convince them to spend a little more effort or money upfront and earn more at the end of the season.

This segment is part 4 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners
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