Sandeep Singh

Super stoked to announce the close of our third fund! Grateful to have been a part of the journey thus far. 🚀 🚀 If you are building in the consumer brand space, please reach out to us- we would love to have a chat. We invest in businesses at a pre-seed, pre-revenue stage with the ability to support our portfolio companies until growth/ late stages. #Fund3 #ConsumerBrands #EarlyStageInvesting #SauceVC #Startups  #Entrepreneurship #IndiaGrowthStory #PreseedInvestment #VentureCapital #Consumer

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A uniquely Indian paradox: Even as the Indian consumer makes a move towards premiumization, and is increasingly willing to pay for quality across existing categories (health & wellness, home interiors) and new ones (gaming, pet care, astrology): As a consumer-facing company, you still have to invest in building an offline presence, call-centres and focus on building trust through physical and audio touch-points. A strong online presence and influencer marketing is not enough. Increasing incomes do not translate to increased trust.

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At Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, we used to do a Wealth Creation Study every year under the guidance of Raamdeo Agrawal. In 2021, we did one on "Atoms to Bits" (https://lnkd.in/gdyic6Ny). Key insight when we were researching was Digital Business Design is about business first, design second and digital third. A simple framework that comes from this (Think of it like a 2x2) 1. Quality of Business Design and 2. Degree of Digitization When we started interacting with Namma Yatri, it struck us that this is one of the rare teams which not only has the most simple and innovative use of a protocol but also innovated on business design. The enduring moat of the business actually comes from their frugal DNA which supports this innovation. It is invisible like the best moats are :) Their data is transparent on https://lnkd.in/gARxQEsA which is also a window into one of their other key facets of culture - Collaboration and Transparency I have no doubt in my mind that this is one of the most exciting population scale companies being built and it is a privilege to be a yatri with Magizhan Selvan Shan M S. More details from Nitin Sharma https://lnkd.in/gbgzTPdp

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Great advice on growing D2C. Also a powerful lesson on how an entrepreneur thinks as opposed to a 'founder'. Public market benchmarking on bottom line, not top line. Operating with a ten percent profit margin, you need 150 crores of Earnings, which requires 1500 crore of topline, to get to a valuation of ~5000 crore+ These are similar multiples to what I offer, because they're close to reality. Seeking a 15x+ multiple on your topline? I'm the wrong person to chat with #venturecapital #founder #startups #scaling #valuation

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It is often said that Impact investing does not deliver financial returns. At C4D Partners, we are proving this wrong. Our Fund 1 has already achieved a 51% DPI on the India portfolio within 6 years of fund life, delivering a robust IRR. We’re not just about investing for impact, but also prioritizing strong, sustainable financial returns. We carefully select companies that are cash flow positive and demonstrate a clear path to profitability within a couple of years of our investment. This has enabled us to keep our mortality rate under 20%, lower than the industry average. Our approach - We invest in early-growth stage companies that are well-governed and on a clear path to positive cash flows, and be there for the long haul. Our approach comprises not just capital infusion, but active involvement in fostering a culture of transparency, operational excellence and sustainable value creation. We position our investments for sustainability and success in an ever-evolving market. If you’re a startup or investor interested in partnering with us, or just curious to learn more, let’s connect. Mirakle Couriers, Ecotasar, LabourNet, Saahas Zero Waste, Aarohan , 1BRIDGE, Ananya Finance, Freyr Energy Services Pvt Ltd #VentureCapital #Startups #SMEs #GrowthCapital #InvestmentStrategy #C4DPartners

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It is fabulous to see the growing interest in Angel Investments in Startups.. The news of Mamaearth stocks and also those of Zomato, Policy Bazar etc doing so well and making many new millionaires is definitely helping the cause. Some of these angel investors are beneficiaries of exits and esops and hence believe in this asset class, while others are looking to build such breakout events in their lives. Yet there are others who thrive in the ecosystem and enjoy riding the wave while making profits or losses from it. Whatever is the motivation, this space needs to be tread with caution. As a lead investor of our syndicate VG Angels at VentureGarage and having over a decade of experience in this space, I often advice my fellow angel investors the following: 1. Angel Investment is probably the riskiest asset class and requires patience. If you want to be one, then invest in 7-8 cos in 3 years or so and then expect a breakout in the 4th year from one of them. 2. There are over 20000 startups registering in the country every year, it is almost impossible for you to source and then invest in one of the top 20 of those. Follow a syndicate lead investor or a curated angel network for the deal flow and evaluation. 3. Founders are not looking for your mentorship. Invest in them first and then maybe you can mentor them. Definitely do not invest in founders who need your active guidance. 4. Learn about the future opportunities and build your thesis around some sectors. Learning new stuff is one of the big requirements and motivators of angel investments after all. Invest in those sectors which you are bullish about. Happy investing! https://lnkd.in/g2xx3zBX

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Co-lead a workshop (with Sumathi my business partner and Komal lath of Tute Consult) on branding and communication and why/how its' strategic & important for the portfolio companies of an early stage growth focused PE fund in Mumbai this noon. very interactive session. lots of takeaways. one of the biggest benefits of doing such workshops with founders and CXOs of growth companies is that you get to first hand understand their pain points and priorities. which makes you realize there is a long road ahead laden with great opportunity for those in PR & comms if we take off our hats and look at it from their perspective.

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India is embracing the quick commerce wave! We’re witnessing a shift from unorganized retail directly into this dynamic channel, effectively bypassing modern retail. Initially focused on essentials like bread and milk, quick commerce is now catering to impulse purchases and even refills for staples. This shift is creating a scalable Go-to-Market channel, enabling insurgent food brands to achieve more than INR 100 crore in annual recurring revenue. We are excited to witness this growth firsthand with our portfolio company, Lo Foods, which is on a mission to introduce functional foods to over 100 million Indians. Their range of products—bread, flours, and snacks—are tailored for specific nutritional needs, including ultra-low carb, diabetic-friendly, high protein, and gluten-free options. Sudarshan Gangrade Jitesh Shah Mount Judi Ventures Entrust Family Office KP Balaraj Subramanian Ramadorai Gaurav Arora Ritesh Chandra Janet Kim Jolynn Swee Ravi Ravulaparthi #capitalcode #agrifood

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Deal Announcement – Complete transaction in Less than 3 months! Maiz Kitchens, a first of its kind modern QSR chain that believes in serving fresher, healthier fast food at an affordable price, successfully closed its Series A fundraise. Founded by Veer Bharatiya, Maiz is poised to replicate the Chipotle story in India! Radix acted as the Exclusive banker for this transaction which was closed in less than 3 months’ timeframe! What does Maiz’s super quick Series A turnaround tell us? In one line, despite how the larger macro environment, whether it's the Funding winter or the preceding Unicorn race, Investors fundamentally are always looking to unearth those Diamonds in the rough. Startups with strong fundamentals, visionary leaders, proven execution capability and large TAMs don’t have to rely solely on burning investor money for growth. These companies are always poised to leverage their customer love and execution strength to get the likeminded and right investment partners for targeting next big milestone. Maiz is one such diamond! 4 things that worked in favour of Maiz: o  A great team with clear vision and phenomenal execution capability. o  A solid plan executed to last decimal point details. o  Abundance of customer love which is visible in stellar Unit Economics. o  Super nimble approach of management with clear focus on Capital Efficiency Maiz is both a testament and validation of the Radix way! At Radix, we pride ourselves in being able to spot these gems. We are always long-term partners with the founding team and do our part in materializing their vision. Today, Radix Capital Advisors takes immense pleasure in announcing the successful closure of INR 21.5 Cr Series A fundraise for Maiz Kitchens. All the best to Maiz team! Brace yourself for the next Maiz outlet in your city! Congratulations Veer Bhartiya Rahul Chhabria, Pratiksha Barasia Maya Taparia Ashish Chacko Akash Bagul Mahesh Triplicane Damodaran Vignesh Ramanan Maiz Kitchens Radix Capital Advisors Yash Vora   Keep Spicing Up and Scaling New Heights – Onwards & Upwards ! #startups #SeriesA #Fundraise #DealAlert #consumer

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The One That We Had To Back. It is rare in venture to find a team so complete. As the former leadership team of NDTV, an iconic Indian media powerhouse - Suparna Singh Arijit Chatterjee and Kawaljit Singh Bedi have been battle-tested in ways that most of us can't even imagine. With over 3 decades of experience in digital media, broadcasting and media tech - the team has seeded ventures, scaled them, and navigated a publicly listed company from turnaround to profitability (stock price went up 27x and was voted Asia's Best Media Company under Suparna's leadership). Miraculously, they have the hunger and drive to do it all over again. As a VC, it is rare to come across complete teams at the seed stage with the perfect blend of business acumen, domain expertise and technical prowess.Those tend to get built over time. Compounded by unanimous positive feedback on leadership ability + startup drive and hustle - that's the rarest of the rare. We simply had to back them. Frammer AI is building on a thesis that we have long harboured. The world of media is changing so fast, eyeballs are moving digital and most importantly to social media. Formats are becoming shorter but yet brands, publishers, enterprises were using the same ol' means of content creation and targeting. Manual, tedious and imprecise. Frammer AI makes the entire process of short form video creation faster, cheaper and most importantly monetisable. And unlike other prosumer solutions - Frammer's AI is trained on some of the smartest and premium data sets available in the world - news content which is complex, dense, multi-faceted as opposed to low quality Youtube shorts. In a span of 8 months since launch, they are already integrated with several large global clients from the US, Europe, and MENA with leading domestic clients like India Today, ZEE, Acko and several others. Big Tech is already talking to them to collaborate on enterprise projects. Given the demand for the round globally, it's a privilege to be part of their journey. Lumikai Fund We can't wait for what lies ahead. Onwards and upwards! 🚀 🚀 🚀

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X - PM guides you from Crisis to Confidence.

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Happy to share our latest article in The Economic Times on the "The Impact of ESG criteria in Real Estate Investments." Your thoughts and feedback are welcome! The Economic Times Spyre Proptech Venture Fund GRI Club India CREDAI National #ESG #Sustainability #Realestate

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We recently brought together our Merak Ventures & growX Ventures portfolio founders for an evening of connection & inspiration in Bangalore. It was amazing to finally meet some of them in person. A quick summary of the evening - rich conversations, real stories & palpable passion to build (and scale) something new. Feels good to have front row seats to witnessing these innovators as they create game-changing technologies. A huge thank you to our Founders for making it a special evening, I'm excited to see what's next for our portfolio companies as they continue to innovate & make their mark! #Bangalore #VentureCapital #Investments #Founders #LIPostingChallengeIndia

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A series where we highlight Gemba Capital's Portfolio companies' every week. Simple post - no gyaan and no bakwaas :) This week meet Pramod Rao and Abhishek Nalin from Threado AI Kamini Shivalkar Aditya Vargante Govind Lohia Vipul Rawal ↗️ ️Anupreet Singh 📈 Sujoy Chakravarty #meetourportfolio #earlystage #venturecapital #startups #tech #india #portfolio

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The next decade is indeed the moment for ‘The Great Indian Consumer’. We at Fireside are amazed by the insights and learnings from the consumer behaviour of the new Indian consumer. Building Brands and proposition for the Micro segment will the big theme in the next decade …from teens to GenZ to Seniors to an aspiring consumer to an affluent consumer across the length and breadth of the country there are countless white spaces. JUST BUILD GREAT PRODUCTS !! Any founder building for the next decade should just worry about building a great product and brand for a micro segment of consumer who would love you !! Don’t worry about TAM …The TAM will find you !! Fireside Ventures #consumer #brands #startups #greatindianconsumer

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A significant milestone on the Sarvagram journey and we are very excited to continue our support to the stellar team. When we invested in 2022, we saw a distinctive company which was serving an unaddressed segment in a very large market i.e middle class households in rural India. The narrative around rural financing has primarily focused on farmers and low-income populations. However, there's a huge gap in addressing the needs of the aspirational rural middle class—the 80-100 million households with annual incomes ranging from ₹3-5L, spread across multiple income sources. This demographic is eager to improve both their income levels and quality of life, yet their financial needs have often gone unmet. Banks and microfinance institutions have targeted agriculture or low-income women but the rural middle class is a large whitespace. Though they may have access to product financing like two-wheeler or car loans, a significant portion of their aspirations remains unaddressed. SarvaGram is stepping into this gap with a holistic, customer-centric platform that offers a diverse range of financial services—from lending products and farm mechanization solutions to insurance offerings — as opposed to a mono-line strategy, which we believe works better in denser urban markets. In addition to our thesis on rural lending, we have found working with the stellar team, led by Utpal Isser and Sameer Mishra, a collaborative and insightful partnership. Their exceptional execution and understanding of the rural market have enabled SarvaGram to create lasting impact and drive sustainable growth. It has been equally enjoyable to learn from their experiences and we truly appreciate the openness of team. We have also appreciated working with our co-passengers from #Elevar, #Elevation and #Temasek and look forward to the #Peak XV team. With this fundraise, SarvaGram is on track to continue its impressive growth trajectory and we are excited to be part of this journey of SarvaGram driving meaningful change for rural middle-class households. Utpal Isser SarvaGram Sreeraman V TVS Capital Funds #FundingSuccess #RuralIndia

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Gold standard in building from India to the world may not be in apparel or software, but 30,000 Cr Oberoi Oberoi is 100 years old, not a startup. It appears to be serving a small niche. It almost died in 2008. From 2016 to 2020, its revenue stayed flat. It collapsed 80% in 2021, to a paltry 400 Cr of revenue. Old, slow, close to dying is a coffin, not gold But checking in reveals a 3,000 Cr generationally unique business, setting global standards Mohan Singh Oberoi was born in 1898, in Bhagalpur. Seeking better life, he reached Shimla with 25 INR. Oberoi saw British officers at the iconic Cecil hotel. Dreaming, with no training, he applied to work. Rejected multiple times, in 1922, Oberoi became a clerk. Keen to elevate, Oberoi toiled at Cecil, rising to manager in 1929. By 1934, Cecil was in trouble. Seeing opportunity, where others saw risk, Oberoi mortgaged everything to buy Cecil Elevating experiences from Day 1, Oberoi Cecil began. World class services were tailored to individuals. By 1937, Oberoi acquired Grand in Calcutta. By the 1940s, Oberoi acquired shares in AHI, getting domestic access. As India gained Independence, Oberoi built By 1966, Oberoi started the Oberoi School of Hotel Management, to elevate its people Expanding to Delhi, Mumbai, and Nepal in the 1970s, Oberoi was scaling. The hotel's impeccable operating standards also scaled. By the 1980s, MS Oberoi’s son Bikki took over. Despite India being in License Raj, Oberoi was rated Asia’s best. Unique for an Indian brand, Oberoi was world-class and profitable. As India opened up, Oberoi expanded. Amarvilas opened in front of the Taj in 1999 By the 2000s, Oberoi appeared to be unstoppable, but trouble was coming As travel collapsed in 2008, Oberoi's revenue fell to 600 Cr. Marriott, Hyatt entered. As Oberoi struggled, ITC made a move. Acquiring 16% in Oberoi, Oberoi needed saving. Due to decades of financing, the family-owned just 6%. Unexpectedly, Reliance would buy 18% of Oberoi. RIL’s bet would pay off, as by 2014, Oberoi would scaled to 1,200 Cr of revenue By 2016, Oberoi had 30 properties with 10,000 staff By 2019, Oberoi was in 7 countries. By 2020, Udaivilas, Amarvilas became gold standards. Integrating local heritage with luxury was unique. Guests remained core with incredible experiences, powered by staff. By 22, as the pandemic receded, Biki stepped down. By 2023, Oberoi was ready to benefit from its gold standard In 2024, Oberoi would blow past 2,500 Cr of revenue As it started in iconic Mayfair in London, Oberoi was flying. Reliance’s partnership resulted in the Bay Club in Mumbai, Anant Vilas. With 20 hotels in pipeline over the next 5 years, the Indian brand is setting new standards. Natural resorts are incoming. But all of this still remains true to a 100 year old operational excellence, pioneered by an ambitious, yet humble hotel clerk. With details here (https://bit.ly/3OnSoG8), Oberoi could be the gold standard for building from India to the World

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