The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Shashank Khade is the Equity specialist of Entrust with over 20 years of cumulative professional experience in listed and unlisted equity investment management. Till September 2013, Shashank was the Senior Vice-President and Head of Portfolio Management Services division of Kotak Mutual Fund. His stint with Kotak entities including Kotak Securities and Kotak Asset Management Company was over 11 ye...

Nitin Sharma is the General Partner at Antler India , and brings over a decade of experience in global venture capital, having invested in 50+ tech startups in multiple geographies. Most recently, he was the founder of  FirstPrinciples , a thesis-driven syndicate and portfolio of 35+ startups, including Fynd, (acq. by Reliance), OnJuno, Niki, Kutumb, SharesPost (acq. By Forge), XOKind an...

This episode features Pranav Pai (3one4 Capital), Arjun Rao (Speciale Invest) and Chinnu Senthilkumar (Exfinity Ventures), and moderated by Akriti Dokania (Octopus Ventures), and was a panel at The Desi VC Summit 2021. The panel discusses India’s potential within the deep tech and the challenges in growing this space to its global counterparts.

Mohanjit Jolly is the Co-founder and Partner at Iron Pillar Fund (IPF) . IPF provides growth capital to founders building from India for the world. Mohanjit has been working with and investing in technology start-ups in the US and India for over 20 years. He is one of a few VCs who has been on the ground as a partner in India and Silicon Valley. Mohanjit has led Iron Pillar’s investments in Sibros...

Amit Garg is the Managing Partner at Tau Ventures , an AI-first VC fund in Palo Alto focused on three verticals that require deep expertise and are now being massively disrupted -- health, automation and enterprise. Amit has been in Silicon Valley for 20 years — at Samsung NEXT Ventures where he seed-funded nuTonomy (self-driving cars, sold for $450M), cofounded a startup called HealthIQ (as of Ma...

Sameer is Managing Partner of TrueScale Capital and Iron Pillar India Fund I. He has 22 years of experience in venture investing, entrepreneurship, Tech M&A, investment banking, capital markets exits, strategy consulting and leadership across geographies. Sameer was a Managing Director and senior investment banker at Citigroup, where he had a successful 15-year career. TrueScale Capital brings...

Archana Balasubramanian is the founding partner of Agama Law Associates (ALA). She has versatile experience of over one decade where she has developed profound legal skills and acumen. She started her career under Senior Counsel Mr S. Venkiteswaran. She subsequently worked with Udwadia & Udeshi (now Argus Partners) and AZB & Partners prior to founding ALA. She has a tactical transactional...

Ankita is the founder of Sarvaank Associates . She brings with her a rich experience of having worked with prominent law firms as well as leading the legal and transaction team of Indian Angel Network (IAN), Asia's largest Angel Group with more than 450 HNI Investors. While at IAN, Ankita was responsible for closing of the deals from start to finish. She played a pivotal role in handholding the St...

Siddharth Mody is a Partner at Desai & Diwanji , one of India's leading law firms focusing on core areas of commercial and finance activity across PE and Venture capital among other asset classes. Siddharth has spent over 17 years in the industry and has had the unique experience of watching the startup ecosystem evolve to where it is today. Glossary:1. Double-dipping: A liquidation event...

Anvesh is a Managing Director at MassMutual Ventures (MMV) and co-heads MMV’s investment efforts in Asia. Prior to MMV, Anvesh was a Director and Head of Investments at Openspace Ventures, where he was part of the founding team. He started his career at Citi in the TMT Investment Banking team, during which he spent around 8 years in Hong Kong and Mumbai on M&A and financial advisory work with...

Raja Ganapathy is the Founding Partner at Spring Marketing Capital , a skin-in-the-game marketing capital firm with investments in companies such as Byju, CureFit, WakeFit, Practo, 1mg among several others. Raja has worked with founders for most of his working life of 24+ years. First with Ogilvy and Brand David, where he worked with founders including Muruga of Bharat Matrimony and Siddhartha Lal...

Vaibhav Domkundwar is the CEO of Better Capital , an early-stage venture firm that builds & invests in category-defining businesses. Prior to his investor journey, Vaibhav was an entrepreneur, having founded and successfully exited a venture-backed startup Roamware (acq. by PE firm Audax). You may follow Vaibhav on Twitter here . In this episode we will cover: 1. Learnings from investing in 20...

Pearl Agarwal is the Founder and Managing Director of Eximius Ventures , micro venture fund looking to create a thriving global entrepreneurial community and nurture young talent in India. Prior to founding Eximius, Pearl has spent time in PE and Investment Banking in the US and UK, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Corporate Finance from The University of Texas at Austin – The Red Mc...

Anjali Sosale is a Partner at WaterBridge Ventures , an early-stage VC firm based out of Bangalore and Delhi. Anjali began her career at EY, going on to becoming the Vice President over the course of a ten-year stint, before moving on to Myntra where she led their Brand Accelerator Program for three years. In this episode, we will cover: Impact of the Covid second wave on investments (2:20) Challe...

Monica heads the Wadhwani NEN and Inspire programs of the Foundation. An education entrepreneur (2000-2009), she completed her MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. Prior to joining the Foundation, Monica was a Director at Omidyar Network, where she spearheaded the education/skill investments and grants in India. Monica has also been the Founding Partner at Kaizen Private Equity, a $70...

Salone has 14+ years of experience as an interactive media VC investor, game entrepreneur and ex M&A banker. She has seen companies from different vantage points ranging from seed to IPO stage. Prior to Lumikai, she was a Principal at LVP, Europe’s pioneering seed stage games VC where she was involved with multiple companies in the gaming ecosystem across content, platform and technology bets....

Kunal is a serial entrepreneur & investor with 20+ years of global experience. His previous ventures include Carnation (exit to Mahindra Group), Laurus Labs (IPO NSE & BSE), Aptuit Inc., InfoPro Solutions Inc. (exit to Aptuit), Razorfish and Vodafone. Kunal has completed his Economic (Hons) from Delhi University, MBA from FSM and MS from Northwestern University’s Kellogg & Medill Gradu...

Kiran is the Principal at UTEC (Japan), a $550M deep-tech VC firm affiliated with The University of Tokyo. Since joining UTEC in 2018, Kiran has led investments of close to $25M in frontier science & deep-tech companies incl. Tricog, OPALai (SG/FinTech AI), Bugworks Research, and Agara. Before joining UTEC, Kiran was the head of India/SEA Operations at Deloitte Tohmatsu Venture Support (DTVS)...

Empathy is going to become a key undertone of investing. Investors who have run companies and raised capital bring empathy that an investor coming from a consulting background just can’t. Founders are becoming smarter about who they raise capital from. On this panel, Siya Raj Purohit (General Partner, Pathway Ventures), Revant Bhate (CEO, Mosaic Wellness) and Utsav Somani (Partner, AngelList India...

The startup ecosystem in India remains robust and is rapidly growing. The Indian government introduced several regulatory programs to boost the Indian startup ecosystem. Flagship programs such as StartupIndia, Digital India and the Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee continue to improve the economic landscape for startups and investors. However, despite all this, India continues to re...

Vinod Shankar is the Co-Founder and Partner at Java Capital , an investment syndicate investing in sectors such as healthtech, consumer internet, deep tech, SaaS and EdTech. Prior to founding Java Capital, Vinod was the Associate Vice President at Kalaari Capital and before that was the Head of Sales & Marketing at Just Books Inc. In this episode we cover: Why launch an investment fund in the...

Pratik Poddar is the Principal at Nexus Venture Partners. As an entrepreneur turned VC, Pratik is excited about working alongside technology entrepreneurs to create an impact on the lives of millions of people in India. He is most passionate about consumer, community/content, education, e-commerce, financial services, and healthcare startups. Prior to joining Nexus, Pratik spent three years workin...

Adith Podhar is the Managing Partner at Gemba Capital , a fund which invests in angel rounds of tech firms focused on India consumption and cross-border SaaS. Prior to Gemba, Adith has worked at Motilal Oswal PE fund in Mumbai, and spent time at ICICI as a Product Manager. Follow Adith ( @ adithpodhar ), host Akash Bhat ( @bhatvakash ) and our podcast ( @thedesi_vc ) on Twitter. . . . In this epis...

Munish Randev is the Founder & CEO at Cervin Family Office . He brings in over 25 years of experience in investment management and family offices. He has advised over 80 families with over $3.2B in financial assets and has worked with many business families in structuring their family governance platforms. Well known in the Indian investment industry for his unique expertise and ethical standa...

Kris Gopalakrishnan is the co-founder and former CEO of Infosys , and currently serves as the chairman of Axilor Ventures , an early-stage seed fund based out of Bangalore. He is recognized as a global business and technology thought leader and was voted the top CEO (IT Services category) in Institutional Investor’s inaugural ranking of Asia’s Top Executives and selected as one of the winners of t...