1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Zain Jaffer, Partner at Blue Field Capital (Part 1)

Zain Jaffer, Partner at Blue Field Capital, discusses trends in PropTech.

Sramana Mitra: Our focus today is primarily on the investing that you had recently started. If you want to set some context about your entrepreneurial background, that would be great.

Zain Jaffer: As soon as I discovered computers, I started to mess around, code, and design things. I’ve always been at it trying to build things. Sometimes, it worked out. Most of the time, it doesn’t. I have had a lot of attempts. All you need is to be lucky once. It can change your life completely. I had a big exit. It was $718 million back in 2019 when I started an advertising tech company.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures (Part 4)

Rahul Chandra: I very strong selection criteria that have a lot to do with growth. Growth is a big factor. Let’s say I’m part of a micro-finance investment cap table. My response is, in India, if you’re not doing things with the right scale, it’s not going to mean anything.

It’s a lot like how impacted investors invest which is not expecting the same financial metrics to come too soon. You give companies time to grow. In that interim, things look crazy.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gans Subramanian, Managing Partner at Hourglass Venture Partners (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a couple of examples to illustrate what you’re saying with some more visceral understanding. Pre-seed is a very interesting field of investment. There aren’t that many pre-seed funds.

Gans Subramanian: There’s another company in the cybersecurity space. These founders have a clear view of the problem. They are technical founders and have a path to $100 million in 24 to 36 months. This is pre-seed. The founders have been talking to us for the last six months.

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.