1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sasha Mirchandani, Managing Director at Kae Capital 2020 (Part 4)

Sasha Mirchandani: We have a company called Wysa, a mental health chatbox based out of Bangalore. The bulk of their opportunities is in the North American market. Post-COVID, we have all seen the value of taking care of people’s mental health. It’s a major problem, but it’s a stigma, which is unfortunate.

Wysa has done a phenomenal job of helping people in duress. As we go, we’re becoming a US business. We’ve got primarily most of these in Northern Europe, the US, and across Asia.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sasha Mirchandani, Managing Director at Kae Capital 2020 (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s unpack each of those a little bit. Let’s talk about B2C tech India-facing. Although we talked about the 1.3 billion population and a much larger market, internet consumers are a segment of spenders. They are the high-income educated group that is technologically savvy. Along the way entered Reliance Jio and democratized access in a big way. Have you started seeing a meaningful expansion of the Indian consumer space? 

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sasha Mirchandani, Managing Director at Kae Capital 2020 (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You talked about the investor trends. Let’s talk about the sectors and the types of industries that have done well. There are several in the wings right now that are going public in the US. Druva is going to go public probably next year. Freshworks is going to go public relatively soon. There are others in the background. Of course, the whole e-commerce world has done well. How do you summarize the sector trends? How do you view the sector trends? What is your current investment thesis by way of sector trends? What did COVID do to the Indian startups?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sasha Mirchandani, Managing Director at Kae Capital 2020 (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 Sasha Mirchandani, Managing Director at Kae Capital, was recorded in December 2020.

Sasha Mirchandani is Founder and Managing Director of Kae Capital, an early stage fund focused on India. I’ve known Sasha for over a decade, and we discuss the evolution of the Indian startup industry at length.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What happens to the rest of the companies that don’t get the follow-on?

Elizabeth Yin: They continue just like everybody else. We help our companies regardless of how much we are investing. The natural question in people’s mind is, “If you don’t follow on, does that mean it’s a bad company?” The answer no.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: When you are writing a $25,000 check for these companies, is that a convertible note or an equity investment? What terms do you apply?

Elizabeth Yin: If we are the first ones to the table, we will do that on a safe. If we are not the first ones on the table and there is already a round in place, we will look at the terms at hand. Sometimes this would be an equity round, equity note, or the safe. 

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You are saying that you focus on customer acquisition more than technology. You are worried about how quickly a company can get into revenue and what its customer acquisition strategy is.

Can you elaborate on that? What are some nuggets that you are learning from the market of effective customer acquisition strategy? 

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund (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 Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund was recorded in October 2020.

Elizabeth Yin is General Partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed investment firm.