Founders Unfiltered

Last fortnight, D2C brand acquirer Mensa raised $50M, hot on the heels of beauty brand SUGAR’s $21M fundraise. Join us for a behind-the-scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece - Can India Consume D2C Brands?  Article Link: https://ajuniorvc.com/d2c-brands-startups-mamaearth-unicorn-nykaa-boat-influencer/ More info on: https://ajuniorvc.com/

After completing his MBA, Chaitanya started working as a management consultant in the US. There he learned about product management, user experience, and how large organizations function. He really enjoyed the work but didn’t like the travelling lifestyle and decided to quit to do something better. He came back to India and decided to startup in the consumer tech space. He ran the business profita...

Last fortnight, Groww raised $83MM to become a unicorn, becoming the seventh fintech in India to do so. Join us for a behind-the-scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece "Can Groww Help Indian Investor Wealth Grow?" Article Link: https://ajuniorvc.com/groww-fintech-unicorn-india-mutual-fund-stocks-startup/ More info on: ajuniorvc.com

Sai grew up in Hyderabad and developed an interest in building things right from his high school. Studying at IIT Kanpur, he tinkered around with different ideas that didn’t work at the time. But taught him the importance of overcoming failures to grow. After graduation, he got a job at Zynga, a company making video games for social networks. It was there he learned the Art of Product Management a...

Last fortnight, Urban Company raised $190M, propelling it to become a $2Bn unicorn, a record-breaking 13th for 2021. Join us for a behind-the-scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece "Can Urban Company Makeover India's Gig Economy?" Article Link: https://ajuniorvc.com/urban-company-clap-services-unicorn-gig-economy/ More info on: ajuniorvc.com

Seeing the rise of Indian talent in foreign movies coupled with their interest in film and media, Ashwin, Aditi, and Anirudh decided to come back to India and do something in the space. They started with a production studio creating films but soon pivoted to a content creation company as they witnessed the growth of social media. To build a community serving multiple interests, they created multip...

Abhimanyu's interest in tech began in college where he met his co-founder Anshuman. The two of them worked together on many projects before joining as full-time engineers at young high growth startups in the US. They discovered how hard it is to scale a talented tech team. They started Interview Bit, a website that helped people prepare for tech interviews using high-quality content. But they felt...

Last week, boAt announced a ₹50Cr (~$7MM) fundraise from the venture arm of a major global technology company, on the heels of a ₹750Cr ($100MM) PE investment 3 months ago. boAt democratised audio technology in India. Will it be amongst the handful of Indian hardware unicorn startups? Listen ahead to know more!

After college Prateek got a job at a big bank. He enjoyed the job but often felt like a small cog in the machine. Witnessing the early Indian startup wave closely, he decided to leave his job in 2014 and startup. He launched a B2B marketing platform that after 4 years got acquired by an Indonesian firm. He moved to Indonesia and fell in love with its culture. The country’s budding startup ecosyste...

Link to detailed article: https://ajuniorvc.com/nazara-gaming-ipo-esports-mpl-dream11/ Last week Nazara Technologies became the first gaming company ever to be taken public. This INR 583 Cr IPO was oversubscribed 176 times by investors. Even before a 21-year-old Nitish Mittersain could find his foothold with his fledgling startup, he found himself in a $660K debt after the dot-com crash. Nazara.co...

Sumit grew up in a town full of small business owners. His family’s nudge towards STEM education was considered the unconventional path. While working as an equity analyst, Sumit discovered a unique problem in the fintech space - Indians have very high physical asset ownership, yet asset-backed lending makes only a minority of total borrowing. In 2015, he started Rupeek to fulfill this unprecedent...

Episode on youtube: https://youtu.be/aWkBTwiLQWc Last month, Infra. Market raised $100M to gain unicorn status, only 20 months after getting its first-ever institutional round. Become one of the fastest Indian unicorns. Join us for a behind the scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece Can India’s Fastest Unicorn Win the Infra. Market? More info on: ajuniorvc.com

Growing up, Reeju had never thought of starting his own venture. It was after receiving an admit from ISB when he started thinking about what he really wants to do in life. Considering the huge expense of Bschool, in addition to the opportunity cost at hand. He made the decision of not doing an MBA and starting up instead. He met his co-founder Akash through a mutual friend. The two often used to...

The AJVC team gets  together to discuss BharatPe and how they raised $100M to reach within a touching distance of becoming a unicorn, within an incredible 3 years of founding. Join us for a behind the scenes  peek at the A Junior VC piece Will BharatPe Become Bharat’s Lending Tap? More info on: ajuniorvc.com

Pranay studied at IIT Delhi where he got to be a part of a true community in the form of his hostel. Post his MBA from IIMA, he got a job as a Stock Broker. As work used to get over by 4, he started helping his college startup accelerator after his working hours. This continued for a year after which he came full time as the CEO. After working at the accelerator for 4 years he met his co-founder V...

The AJVC team gets together to discuss Mobile Premier League(MPL) and it's rise to rocketship growth in the fantasy gaming segment. Join us for a behind the scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece Is Mobile Premier League the Real Deal?

After graduation, Dhimant worked for a large tech company as a software engineer for 5 years. Intrigued by the business aspects of a company he decided to join a B-School. At ISB he met folks with diverse backgrounds including entrepreneurs that transformed his initial perspective of getting a high-paying job at a corporate. Dhimant highlights the importance of intertwining Business with Impact so...

The AJVC team gets together to discuss the evolution of SaaS in India - how we get here and where we are going. Join us for a behind the scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece Is India SaaS Ready to Soar? More info on: ajuniorvc.com

Ashish built his first website and was competing with tech giants in his 10th grade! In college he kept toying with ideas and code which led to his first startup, providing telecom based value-added services that he exited in 2011. He started a Restaurant with a friend and realizing how painful it is to manage a restaurant, led them to create POSist, a cloud-based platform for restaurants. Today t...

The AJVC team gets together to discuss Zetwerk and their incredible journey taking India's manufacturers global. Join us for a behind the scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece Can Zetwerk be the Unicorn Helping Manufacturers Get Work? More info on: ajuniorvc.com

Ajinkya grew up in Nasik, in a family where doing business was more of a default option than doing a job. He credits his entrepreneurial acumen to his father, who owns a manufacturing unit. His first startup idea was based on an emotional problem, and it didn’t work out. He stayed in the fintech industry, playing different roles at different companies, and finally landed on the idea of growfix. Jo...

The AJVC team gets together to discuss Zenoti and their incredible journey of becoming India’s first vertical SaaS unicorn. Join us for a behind the scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece Can Unicorn Zenoti become Wellness’ Default OS? More info on: ajuniorvc.com

Swapnil landed his dream job when he graduated from college. After 3 years at Twitter, he decided to come back to India and startup. What followed was an 18-month struggled to find the right idea and co-founder. Swapnil finally connected with his college roommate and their experiences lead them to start obseve.ai. The two of them started selling the idea before they had a final product. When it ca...

The AJVC team gets together to discuss the Indian startup ecosystem. Join us for a behind the scenes conversation on how we did on our 2020 predictions and the week’s A Junior VC piece, Audaciously Predicting 2021. More info on: ajuniorvc.com

(Hindi Audio) Mr. Chaudhary started his first business with a small loan from his father to set up 2 looms. Today, Jaipur Rugs is one of the largest manufacturers of hand-knotted rugs serving clients all across the globe. Join us as we talk to NK Chaudhary about how he built his company and empowered artisans through self-management. More info on: ajuniorvc.com/podcast