Rajiv Srivatsa is a Partner at Antler India, one of the most active early-stage venture capital firms. Prior to Antler, he co-founded Urban Ladder, an omni-channel furniture and decor retailer started in 2012. The company raised over $100M from SAIF Partners, Kalaari, Steadview, Peak XV Partners, Trifecta Capital and Ratan Tata. In November 2020, the company was acquired by Reliance Retail.

Prior to Urban Ladder, he served as a Senior Product Manager with Yahoo, and before that at Infosys. He is an alumnus of IIT-Madras and IIM-Bangalore.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. How did it all start for Rajiv (2:02)
2. When and why did Rajiv decide to start Urban Ladder (5:50)
3. Where does Rajiv’s love for consumer products come from (12:10)
4. How did idea of selling home decor / furniture originate (14:41)
5. How did Urban Ladder look at culture internally and build a great one at scale (28:45)
6. How has Rajiv’s leadership evolved over the years (34:12)
7. How and why did Rajiv decide to enter venture capital (42:35)
8. What does Rajiv enjoy the most - being an operator, founder or investor (55:10)
9. Rajiv’s advice to anyone on a break looking for a framework on how to develop a career plan (57:35)

. . .

Social Links:

1. Follow ⁠Rajiv on Twitter⁠
2. Follow ⁠⁠Rajiv on LinkedIn⁠⁠
3. Follow ⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠
4. Follow ⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠
5. Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Shwetank Verma is the co-founder of Leo Capital, a venture capital fund investing in companies inIndiaand South East Asia. Recent investments include CoLearn (edtech), WayForward (mental health), CoverGenius (Insurtech) and IndiaGold (Digital Gold). Leo Capital is backed by institutional investorsfrom Singapore and Silicon Valley.

Prior to Leo Capital, he led Open Innovation for MetLife Asia and was a part of the senior management team of LumenLab, MetLife's innovation consultancy. At LumenLab, he advised MetLife country CEOs andsenior leaders on growth, startup collaboration, culture change and new product development.

Prior to joining MetLife, he was a serial entrepreneur in healthcare and education in India. He serves asInnovation Adviser to the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Singapore Management University.

He is also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales and holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Nottingham (UK), where he was a Foreignand Commonwealth Office scholar.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. State of the industry in 2024
2. How does Shwetank define a good investor?
3. Takeaways from working with portfolio founders
4. Vision for India the next 5 years
5. Examples of building from India for the world from a category-creation play
6. Best investor persona: Operator vs Pure investor?
7. How did Leo build its internal thesis?
8. Why did Shwetank become an investor?
9. What does Shwetank like and dislike about investing?
10. How has Shwetank evolved as an investor?
11. Insights from working with Leo’s porticos
12. Advice Shwetank would give his younger self

. . .

Social Links:

1. Follow Shwetank on Twitter
2. Follow ⁠Shwetank on LinkedIn⁠
3. Follow ⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠
4. Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠
5. Follow Akash Bhat on LinkedIn
   

Prayank Swaroop is a Partner at Accel, and joined the firm in 2011.

He focuses on cybersecurity, developer tools, marketplaces, and SaaS investments. Some of the investments led by him are - Aavenir, Bizongo, Maverix, OnsiteGo, Securden, Slintel, Skeps, and Zetwerk.

Prior to Accel, he worked at Adobe and Standard Chartered Bank in India and Singapore. He held positions across engineering, product marketing, pre-sales, and product management.

He has an integrated master's degree in Mathematics and Computing from IIT Delhi and an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. What made Prayank take a bet on venture as a career path (3:38)
2. Naivety in venture capital (7:10)
3. Where is venture as of October 2023, post the global slow down (9:50)
4. Sectors that have shown massive potential in spite of it being a dull year in terms of venture activity (18:18)
5. Insights gained by Prayank over the course of his ten years of investment experience (22:15)
6. How to evaluate people as an investor (27:38)
7. How would Prayank rebuild his career as an investor if given a chance to restart (38:37)
8. Advice to founders (48:15)

. . .

Social Links:

1. Follow Prayank on Twitter
2. Follow ⁠Prayank on LinkedIn⁠
3. Follow ⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠
4. Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠
5. Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Priya Saiprasad is a General Partner at Touring Capital, a fund investing in enterprise-focused AI powered global startups. She co-founded Touring after 13 years in venture capital, M&A and enterprise technology.

She was most recently a Partner at SoftBank Vision Fund, where she led investments into category-defining software companies including Pixis, Vendr, Observe.ai, CommerceIQ, Sendoso and Skedulo.

Previously, Priya was at Mayfield Fund focused on early-growth investments, and a founding member of M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), where she led investments in Go1, Workboard, PandaDoc, Element AI (acquired by ServiceNow), and Bonsai (acquired by Microsoft). Prior to that, she was a Deal Lead in Square’s M&A team leading acquisitions at the intersection of software and machine learning.

Priya was recognized by Forbes in 2018 as part of their 30 under 30 in Venture Capital list. She is actively involved with All Raise, Neythri, and several prominent Women in Tech associations. Priya holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. How did Priya end up in venture (2:36)
2. What about venture surprised Priya the most (6:00)
3. Insecurities as/of an investor (11:25)
4. Learnings as an investor when investments haven’t really worked out (17:02)
5. How can one acquire the skills to assist founders, even if they haven't personally experienced those challenges? (25:05)
6. Investing is personal: Do investors derive guidance from aspects of their life when making investment decisions? (29:35)
7. How does competition drive investors (34:52)
8. Prestige and perception in venture (41:30)
9. Advice Priya would give her younger self (47:20)

. . .

Social Links:

• Follow ⁠Priya on Twitter⁠
• Follow ⁠Priya on LinkedIn⁠
• Follow ⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠
• Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠
• Follow ⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Rohit Bansal is the Co-founder Snapdeal, one of the largest online marketplaces in India. The company has raised over $1.7B from eBay, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital, BlackRock, Temasek Holdings and SoftBank. He is also the Co-Founder of Titan Capital, which has invested in companies such as Mamaearth, Dealshare, OLA, RazorPay and OfBusiness. He an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (2:00)
2. What motivated Rohit to become an entrepreneur (2:57)
3. Why is entrepreneurship on the rise in India (10:30)
4. How did Rohit get into investing (14:30)
5. How did and does Rohit deal with tough moments in life (19:26)
6. How do founders continue to stay motivated over the years (27:58)
7. What frameworks does Rohit deploy to navigate tough situations in life (31:39)
8. Why it’s important for founders to look after themselves (36:20)
9. Looking back at his career what is Rohit the most proud of? (41:15)
10. What is Rohit dedicating the next 5-10 years of his life towards (45:45)
11. What advice would Rohit give his younger self? (52:02)

. . .

Social Links:

1. Follow Rohit on Twitter
2. Follow Rohit on LinkedIn
3. Follow The Desi VC on LinkedIn
4. Follow Akash Bhat on Twitter
5. Follow Akash Bhat on LinkedIn

Shubham Goel is the Co-foudner and Co-CEO of Affinity, a relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers. The company has raised over $120M in funding from Menlo Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Pear VC and Advance Venture Partners. Prior to Affinity, Shubham completed his BS in Computer Science at Stanford University.

. . .

Episode notes:

1. What made Shubham pick entrepreneurship (2:00)
2. Propensity of risk increasing as the company grows (6:08)
3. The journey until the ah-ha moment (10:06)
4. The aha-moment (17:00)
5. Unlocking the operator and leader persona as a founder (25:15)
6. Getting the most out of your teams as a leader (31:10)
7. Things that have surprised Shubham in the company building journey (37:15)
8. What would Shubham do differently if he were to build Affinity from scratch today? (43:54)

. . .

Social links:

• Follow Shubham on Twitter
• Follow The Desi VC Podcast on Twitter
• Follow Akash Bhat on Twitter

Sumeet Mehta is the co-founder and CEO of LEAD, an edtech company helping digitize and transform affordable private schools to better serve students from middle and low-income groups of families. Before co-founding LEAD, Sumeet was Chief Executive Officer at Zee Learn (2007-2012). He transformed the institution from a pre-school franchise company to an education company with a presence in pre-schools and K-10 schools, and science activity and animation classes. Prior to that, Sumeet spent eight years at Procter & Gamble Singapore, where he was involved in in brand management, leading businesses in Australia, Southeast Asia, and India. Sumeet is an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad and PEC Chandigarh.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. Introduction (1:40)
2. How and why did Sumeet co-found LEAD? (3:08)
3. How do you 'figure out' your mission as a founder? (8:18)
4. Do founders take time to introspect about their personal growth? If they do, how frequently do they engage in this practice, and what methods do they employ? (14:23)
5. How can a founder effectively address and manage their insecurities while continually learning and growing in their role? (19:20)
6. What has Sumeet learned about himself over the course of his entrepreneurial journey (24:00)
7. The toughest part of building a company (28:36)
8. Working with your significant other as a co-founder (32:08)
9. Non-negotiables as a founder (34:50)

10. Fostering a culture of long-term thinking among employees (39:02)

11. Advice Sumeet would offer his younger self (41:11)

. . .

Social links:

• Follow Sumeet on Twitter
• Follow LEAD on LinkedIn
• Follow The Desi VC Podcast on Twitter
• Follow Akash Bhat on Twitter
• Follow Akash Bhat on Instagram

Sankar Bora is the Co-founder & COO, Dealshare, a social ecommerce startup in India, that has raised close to $400M in venture money from marquee investors such as Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global, Matrix India, Alteria Capital and WestBridge Capital. Prior to this, he co-founded Myntra in 2007, which was sold to Flipkart in 2010.

. . .

Episode Notes:

1. Why entrepreneurship? (2:30)
2. What gave Sankar the conviction to embark on the path of entrepreneurship (5:50)
3. Early days of Mantra (10:32)
4. A few mistakes made at Myntra (14:25)
5. How to pick co-founders? (20:34)
6. Learnings from building Myntra (22:50)
7. Validating the thesis around Dealshare (27:50)
8. What did Sankar get right about building Dealshare and early signs of success (33:45)
9. Understanding the diversity of Indian customers
10. Nurturing consistency at Dealshare (43:25)
11. What has entrepreneurship taught Sankar (46:20)

. . .

Social Links:

Dealshare on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dealshareindia

Sankar on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/SankarBora6

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash