1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Frankel of ff Venture 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 John Frankel of ff Venture Capital was recorded in December 2017. 

John Frankel, Partner at ff Venture Capital, discusses the firm’s investment thesis as well as key trends in the industry.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your investing focus. How big is the fund? What sized investments do you make?

John Frankel: We’re a New York-based seed stage fund. We look to invest in companies when they’re just getting going. We >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Anand Daniel of Accel Partners (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s flip to the consumer side where the mobile penetration has been tremendous. Everybody believes that India is going the the next big e-commerce market. Even Amazon believes that. It has been a slower adoption.

There is friction around buying online. People do cash on delivery. They don’t like to pay by credit card online which has caused the market to evolve much more slowly. It’s a low trust society. What is your forecast about when it is likely to flip? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Aniruddha Malpani of Malpani Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How do you parse the unicorn mania that’s going on in the industry now? If you do get a hot company that goes through multiple rounds of financing, you could get buried under later-stage liquidation preferences. How do you protect yourself and how do you think about this scenario?

Aniruddha Malpani: We’ve not reached that stage yet. It’s still early days for us. I think the reality is that most of these companies are never going to become unicorns. That’s a good problem to have. Our focus is making sure that we have pro-rata rights. Initially, we will continue growing with these companies as they continue to grow.

Our hope is that as we engage with entrepreneurs, they will not ditch us when they start talking to the bigger boys. Again, I have

>>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Anand Daniel of Accel Partners (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down into some of these trends areas. Since you started talking about Freshdesk, we know that case study very well. Freshdesk is cloud-based customer support for small businesses.

If you look at that style of company out of India, what are some of the companies in your portfolio that have achieved that level of traction? Let’s say $5 million plus in annual revenue. What would be some of the examples? What specifically are the business problems that they are tackling?

Anand Daniel: Before we talk about other companies, if you look at Freshdesk itself, you can think of it as a platform. Then >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Aniruddha Malpani of Malpani Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What trends are you seeing in the entrepreneurs who are coming to you for funding? What kinds of entrepreneurs are coming? What resonates with you?

Aniruddha Malpani: As I said, the social impact piece resonates with me because I actually think these companies will be far more profitable, partly because of the financial capital we’re providing. They also have human capital. The employees these companies attract are very different from the average employee who works for a for-profit institute.

Then there’s that social capital angle, which means customers are far more wiling to pay a premium for some of these products. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Anand Daniel of Accel Partners (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Anand Daniel of Accel Partners was recorded in May 2016. 

Anand Daniel, Partner with Accel Partners, discusses Accel India’s investment strategy at length.

Sramana Mitra: I’m sure you have an extensive analysis of the Indian market at this point. It would be great for our audience to have some view into how you are thinking about your investment focus today. What stage? What sector? What are your geographical constrainst? How are you thinking about the global opportunity versus the India-facing opportunity? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Aniruddha Malpani of Malpani Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: To net it out, you are agnostic to B2B or B2C. You are really interested in learning about something new. That’s your primary motivator.

Aniruddha Malpani: I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I’m good at what I do. This is what I call the T-shaped model of living a life. I have a lot of vertical expertise in my particular domain. I would now like to go across other fields. The only way I can learn in these other fields is by investing in other startups.

Sramana Mitra: You’re a very curious man. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Aniruddha Malpani of Malpani Ventures (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 Aniruddha Malpani of Malpani Ventures was recorded in September 2017. 

Aniruddha Malpani, Director and Founder of Malpani Ventures, is an active angel investor in the Indian circuit. He discusses what he looks for in companies he wants to invest in.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Malpani Ventures. What is the focus of your firm? How big is the fund and what sized investments are you making? >>>