1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kyle Asman, Managing Director at Backswing Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: That’s after they have come to you and decided that they want to work with you. These are two different, slightly off-center entities – a company that is already doing a million dollars in revenue that is profitability focused and is interested in a relatively early exit. Those are the characteristics of the

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kyle Asman, Managing Director at Backswing Ventures (Part 1)

Kyle Asman is Managing Director at Backswing Ventures, a firm that has a non-Unicorn investment thesis. Sramana Mitra: Let’s get acquainted. Tell us about your background and also about Backswing Ventures.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Chandrashekar Kupperi, General Partner of Peaceful Progress Fund (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What are some examples of really good companies that are focused on that segment? Chandrashekar Kupperi: There is a company which is into chocolates. They chose tier 3 and tier 4 markets because you have the big companies in tier 1 and tier 2. What this has done is has led to the

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Chandrashekar Kupperi, General Partner of Peaceful Progress Fund (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Do you want to act as a feeder into these humongous rounds? Small funds like yours get diluted heavily. The game that the Tiger’s and Softbank’s are playing is putting in huge amounts of money in the later rounds. Some of the smaller funds that we have brought in say is it’s not

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Chandrashekar Kupperi, General Partner of Peaceful Progress Fund (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to a few examples of companies that you’ve invested in within the tech-enabled field. Chandrashekar Kupperi: The first is an EdTech company. This is a startup that helps students or professionals connect with the right mentors. It all happens via AI. It ensures that any follow-on support is given.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Chandrashekar Kupperi, General Partner of Peaceful Progress Fund (Part 1)

Chandrashekar Kupperi is General Partner at Peaceful Progress Fund, an angel fund in India. We have some very interesting discussions on consumer startups in India, especially the ones targeting lower economic strata consumers. Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about your background as well as what you’re doing with Peaceful Progress Fund.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bill Baumel, Managing Director of Ohio Innovation Fund (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: It’s great to hear about all these activities. We have seen many ecosystems come up through our work. We try to cover a lot of these companies. Utah is a very good example. They’re a bit ahead of you, because they’ve had sizable exits. That has created angels and seed money. Ohio probably

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bill Baumel, Managing Director of Ohio Innovation Fund (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You said earlier that your preferred funding round is Series A where you put in a million or so in that round. In some cases, you do some seed investment. Could you talk about how Ohio entrepreneurs are getting to Series A? Is there a seed ecosystem that is supporting or is there

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