1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rajul Garg of Leo Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: On the B2C side, the Indian investors are investing in mostly India-facing companies. Is that also your preference or are you also doing global B2C? The counterpoint of that is when it comes to SaaS, we see Indian investors mostly interested in doing global-facing companies and not so much the India-facing companies.

There may be validation level work in India but the Indian VCs have decided that when it comes to enterprise or B2B, they prefer the global-facing SaaS.

Rajul Garg: Pretty much guilty on both counts. The domestic market of India is very large. Growing internet penetration and middle >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nitin Rai of Elevate Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What about industry trends?

Nitin Rai: We see a very diverse group of entrepreneurs. Between 40% and 60% are technology. On the technology side, we see SaaS, VR/AR, IoT. We see a fair amount of medical device type of companies. We see apparel. We see sports.

Sramana Mitra: Let me double-click down. We are exclusively focused on IT and IT-enabled services. I’m going to double-click down on your activity in that sector. I have a few questions based on what you said. What are you seeing in AR/VR? Are these content deals? Are these equipment deals?

Nitin Rai: Most of them have been software deals. I can’t disclose the details yet because the investment is not closed, but it’s actually >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rajul Garg of Leo Capital (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Rajul Garg of Leo Capital was recorded in February 2018. 

Rajul Garg, Head of Investments at Leo Capital, discusses the Indian startup eco-system and his fund’s investment focus.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s introduce you to our audience. Tell us about your investment focus. How big is the fund? What sized investment do you make? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nitin Rai of Elevate Capital (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Nitin Rai of Elevate Capital was recorded in February 2018. 

Nitin Rai, Managing Director at Elevate Capital, made a compelling case for investing in niche businesses with the upfront goal of scoring early exits. Excellent discussion!

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your seed-stage investment activities. Let’s get to know you and get you introduced into our community.

Nitin Rai: I started out as an entrepreneur back in the 80’s in Silicon Valley. I moved to Oregon in the late 80’s. I started a company >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gaurav Jain of Afore Capital (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How much total money did the company raise? How much revenue did they do?

Gaurav Jain: They raised sub-$10 million. It’s relatively small for a food delivery. Their numbers were not that far off from some of these bigger companies. A big reason for that was because they were based in Winnipeg where the cost structure is phenomenally different. They had 200 employees.

Sramana Mitra: It’s also a matter of culture and philosophy. Part of the problem we have created in this industry is this burn lots of capital and chase hyper growth at all cost and make yourself unsustainable for the

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gaurav Jain of Afore Capital (Part 4)

Gaurav Jain: We don’t make a list of what’s been going wrong. The list, unfortunately, is too long. Instead, we look for what can go right. If the founder can accomplish these counter-intuitive things, could this be a massive business? Could this be a massive opportunity? Does the founder have the ability to execute on V1 of the product and get some traction, learn, and figure out V2. Neither of us knew what that is. Kyle did a brilliant job at that.

Another company I invested in is something called Firebase, which was two technical founders. It’s actually their fourth startup. The first three had failed. They were building a chat engine. They realized that the backend software to enable the chat was >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gaurav Jain of Afore Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: For a B2B business, getting to hundred customers is not an easy thing to do.

Gaurav Jain: For B2B, if they’re paying you $10 a month, getting 5000 customers is not hard. If you’re charging $10,000, maybe one or two is great.

Sramana Mitra: Quickly, what about geography? Are you US-focused?

Gaurav Jain: We’re based in San Francisco, but our mandate doesn’t prevent us from investing anywhere in the world. I’d say >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gaurav Jain of Afore Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: When you say early, can you put a bit more color around that? Are you willing to do concept financing?

Gaurav Jain: The short answer is yes. These days, it has gotten so cheap to build an MVP, especially if you’re building a software product, which is where 80% to 90% of our investments are going to be. To get something out there to show some interest in customers, you don’t need a whole lot of money.

Between Amazon Web Services and all the open source software, all you need is a laptop and access to the internet to build a >>>