Sramana Mitra: It sounds like you’re looking at the enterprise software opportunity that’s born in India, but with a global market. Is that an accurate observation?
Arihant Patni: Absolutely.
Sramana Mitra: So let’s talk a little bit about these 10 investments that you made. Give us a few examples and help us understand your thought process. At what point did these companies come to you? What did you see in each of them that caused you to really make the bet? Just walk us through a few case studies that gives us an insight into the way you think about investments. >>>
Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Matt Holleran as recorded in February 2019.
Matt Holleran, General Partner at Cloud Apps Capital Partners, talks about his firm’s investment thesis in what he calls Series A. His is one of the rare firms that invest at the concept stage.
Sramana Mitra: Tell us about yourself,a bit of your background, and about Cloud Apps. >>>
Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Arihant Patni as recorded in February 2019.
Arihant Patni is Managing Director at Ideaspring Capital, a fund focused on enterprise companies born in India and selling to the global market.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s get you and Ideaspring introduced to our audience. Tell us a bit about yourself as well as Ideaspring. What fund size are you working with? What kind of investments do you like to make? >>>
In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:
Bill Bice, Partner at Verge Fund, discusses New Mexico’s startup ecosystem and his fund’s activities in that region.
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Sramana Mitra: Where do you see the blitz scale style of the businesses being the most successful? This is acknowledging the fact that you’re not going after that model. You have stated clearly that your firm thesis is more in the capital-efficient, fundamentals, software-driven approach. What point do you have for entrepreneurs to look for opportunities where blitz scaling is a good model?
Rebecca Kaden: I don’t think that’s exactly the framework. Blitz scaling refers to extreme exponential growth. We are focused on that. That’s not synonymous with high capital intensity.
Sramana Mitra: No. If you read the book Reid Hoffman has written, he offers extraordinary amounts of capital as one of the strategies of blitz scaling it. >>>
Rebecca Kaden: One of the great things that I really love about entrepreneurship and company building and being an early stage investor is, there’s definitely no one way to build a company. It’s about finding the right model for the business you’re building and your goals.
There’s also no one way to kill it. Companies get killed by overfunding. Companies get killed by underfunding. Companies get killed by co-founder problems. There’re all kinds of ways that these companies don’t work. So the biggest thing is, can you find the model that is the right fit for the product that you are building, the team that you’ve assembled, and the goals you have in mind? Can you out-execute competitors on the right model for what you’re doing? >>>
Sramana Mitra: What are your thoughts on the Unions Square’s analysis of the unicorn phenomenon? How are you thinking about unicorns?
Rebecca Kaden: We want our companies to be as big as possible. What piece of it are you curious about?
Sramana Mitra: I’m sure you want all your companies to be as big as possible, but some very unhealthy models and practices have developed in the industry around trying to get as big as possible. For example, flushing companies with capital without figuring out a lot of the unit economics or fundamentals is a rampant practice right now in the industry. How do you view all that? >>>