1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Steve Eskenazi, Angel Investor (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do some more examples of the kinds of companies you like to invest in. Is Resonato an IT investment? Steve Eskenazi: It’s a technology company that occupies the intersection of technology and consumer electronics. Our first TVs were thick. Now, TVs are very thin. They are doing for the speaker market what

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder of Mela Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The ecosystem has come together for sure. I’m a big fan of capital-efficient startups and fundamentals-oriented startups. In January, we analyzed 20 Indian unicorns. I didn’t consider two as overvalued. The rest were dramatically overvalued. That means that people are investing in the future and expecting that the valuation is going to get

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder of Mela Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Does your thesis also translate into FinTech? FinTech has a big B2B element to it and there is a lot going on. India is a very big FinTech market. Krishnakumar Natarajan: You’re absolutely right. Fintech is becoming a very large market in India. The public digital infrastructure to support FinTech in India is

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder of Mela Ventures (Part 1)

Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-founder of Mela Ventures and former CEO of Mindtree, discusses the Indian Venture ecosystem. Sramana Mitra: I’m looking forward to catching up with you. We haven’t talked in a while, but we have followed each other’s work for a long time. Catch me up on Mela Ventures.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The narrative in the media is how much money have you raised. The maximum focus is on the people raising the most money. That is a flawed way of evaluating companies. There are a lot of innovations that are done in a capital-efficient way. As such, they have a lot more options. The

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do some case studies of companies that you’ve invested in that you’re passionate about everything. As you talk through them, talk about what they’re doing. Also, talk about at what stage and in what condition you encountered this company. What was it about that situation that made you write your check? Julie

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund (Part 2)

Julie Lein: What we want to see is execution. You may not have a full-fledged product yet. You may not have everything figured out, but you’re doing things to attract attention. You’re doing things to move the customer feedback forward. That’s what we get impressed about at pre-seed. The definition has changed. It’s typically that

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund (Part 1)

Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund, discusses pre-seed and seed funding in companies focused on the betterment of cities. Sramana Mitra: Let’s get you and Urban Innovation Fund introduced to our audience. Julie Lein: I’m the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund. We are a venture capital firm that invests

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