1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How many of those 11 investments are in EdTech?

Rahul Chandra: Just one so far.

Sramana Mitra: Do you want to talk about that?

Rahul Chandra: We have not announced this one, but I can talk about it. The premise is similar to what I’d said. There is a two-dimensional, non-interactive nature to online classes. Online classes is an outcome of COVID with schools shutting down. The best possible solution was a video class with very little interaction.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures (Part 2)

Rahul Chandra: One of our companies is called Jar. There is a very big question about whether the segment of 400 million UPI users that Jar is targeting and investing for is just a dream. For them, investing needs significant capital saved in the bank. India is a credit-hungry market. Are people even thinking about saving?

We took that chance with Jar. Jar has built a product that allows you to download the app, open it, do a login, and come out in 45 seconds with even one Rupee saved. Jar married these two concepts which are lower than what is considered an investment. It’s in gold but it’s in digital gold. The transaction is super friction-free. It’s almost like me saving so smooth that people feel great about it. It, very quickly, becomes a habit.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures (Part 1)

Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures, is a veteran of the Indian Venture Capital industry. This discussion spans historical context to the current Unicorn mania. Great analysis!

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gans Subramanian, Managing Partner at Hourglass Venture Partners (Part 1)

Gans Subramanian, Managing Partner at Hourglass Venture Partners, is a former 1Mby1M Premium member who has now formed his own venture fund.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner and Founder at Ideaspring Capital (Part 4)

Naganand Doraswamy: The fourth one is, we want to ensure that we have visibility for $10 million to $15 million. One of the thesis we have in the fund is to enable sub-$100 million exits for product innovation companies in India. If you want to get a $70 million to $100 million exit, you should have $10 million to $15 million in revenue.

Unlike large funds, our goal is, can you become a $10 million to $15 million company. You have an option when you get to that point. We stay with our companies until that point. Our fund can’t participate in Series B. Then we’ll make a call on whether we should exit or stay partially. If we decide to exit, that’s when we help the founders exit.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner and Founder at Ideaspring Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Our observation is that all deep tech out of India is going to be global companies, even the non-enterprise facing. What we are seeing though is people can validate with customers in India. They can get a dozen customers, get the product validated, get some revenue before coming out to the Valley. Especially in COVID, entrepreneurs love the fact that people are willing to buy without meeting them.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner and Founder at Ideaspring Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What is the check size that you like to write?

Naganand Doraswamy: When we started the first fund, we said anywhere around $500K to $750K. Then we would participate with another $500K in the following round. The target was about $1.25 million per company. The second is double the size.

We’re looking at $2.5 million total per company. The first check can be anywhere from $750,000 to $1.75 million. We realized that our companies needed a little bit more runway to show the traction necessary to raise the next round. $1.25 million is too small an amount to make some decisions in companies.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner and Founder at Ideaspring Capital (Part 1)

Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner and Founder at Ideaspring Capital, adds to our thesis on great investment opportunities within the sub $100 million exit space.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by having you introduce yourself as well as Ideaspring.

Naganand Doraswamy: I grew up in Bangalore. I did my undergrad there and then came to the US in 1999 to do my Masters in Virginia Tech. After my Master’s, I moved up to Boston. I joined FTP Software where I wrote the first implementation of IP security of Windows 95.