Sohail Khan

Mass products or limited-quality product?🤔 That’s the question Saumya Kabra founder of Confetti Gifts , posed to Mohit Yadav (founder Minimalist ) during our Elevate Cohort 1. Want to learn from the best D2C founders? Fill out the form in comments to join us for Cohort 2. Take your business to the next level! 💼✨ #letsElevate #D2CInsider

7

Sujith Nair, Beckn's WhatsApp-averse, badminton-loving chief mover and shaker, gave us a peek into the world's first # e-commerce protocol. Imagine if Colgate wanted to sell a lot of toothpaste, would it open separate exclusive stores on every street? NO! Instead, it ensures its products are available in all stores where people come to shop, and not just toothpaste. Similarly, Beckn is a way for an online business to make its products and services available on other stores (popular daily-use consumer apps) instead of setting up its own store (its own consumer app) and waiting for customers to come in droves! The Beckn Protocol underpins Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC) and is a universal translator for e-commerce platforms. We would normally call it the Rosetta Stone for digital services, but now we have BHASHINI 😉 . It allows disparate systems to "speak" to each other seamlessly. The Beckn Protocol has become a verb in the tech world. "Just Beckn it!" has become a common phrase among developers when discussing open-source solutions for digital commerce. In fact, we like it so much that we are using Beckn use cases as our episode artwork (instead of our normal groovy cover art) to spread the word in our own little way. Some may even argue that the yellow and black in the artwork denote open mobility networks (read taxis) 😀. The even more nerdy might catch the movie reference in the title 🎬. So, is it an app? Is it an aggregator? Is it a platform? No. It is a Super Capability - #decentralised and #open. Listen, learn and use. sujith nair | Pramod Varma | Sanjay Purohit | Shankar Maruwada | Shireesh Joshi | T Koshy | Namma Yatri | FIDE | Antler | Bingepods (Ideabrew Studios) | OpenExO | Thinkers360 | IBM Alumni | Microsoft Alumni Network | The RSA (The royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce) | World Economic Forum | Digital India Corporation | nasscom | Abhishek Singh | Nilesh | Sheetal https://lnkd.in/dydrjnbU

47

4 Comments

🚀 Masterclass on navigating 0 to 1 product building + GTM for startups. 🚀 Here is the WEEKEND OFFER valid till Sunday Midnight only. Join our Product Management Workshop on Building Product Startups and gain the skills to take your startup to the next level. 📅 June 29th, Saturday 📍 IIM Kozhikode ⏰ 10 AM - 5 PM 🎟 https://bit.ly/HSKwkp3 Who is this for? For Founder/Teams building: 1. B2C/B2B Marketplaces 2. B2C Tech Solutions 3. SaaS Products Not Relevant For: - Offline-first distribution startups - Tech/Non-tech services businesses - Hardware Startups Hands-on session to cover: 1. Problem Discovery & Qualification: 2. Finding the First 10 Power Users & Defining Tablestakes Roadmap for V0 3. Identifying Metrics That Matter 4. Hard Skills That Matter for Founders/Founding PMs 5. Development Approach 6. Building your team Register Now: https://bit.ly/HSKwkp3 Hamad Jowher Nevin Robert Mittu Tigi Sana Thayyil Rabin Baby Murshid Basil Muhammed Haris T M Reema A Raheem Ashwathy Venugopal Geethu Agit Vaishnav Nair S IIMK LIVE Abraham Varghese Jofin Joseph

9

From Swiggy to Zomato: VC Exits Hit $4.06 Billion—Is This Sustainable? Now we understand why everyone’s rushing to list their startups—because VCs are eyeing hefty exits. In 2024, VCs scored a massive $4.06 billion in exits, primarily from the IPO market. Key Exits in 2024 • Swiggy: $750M from IPO • FirstCry.com (BrainBees Solutions Ltd.):$227M • Zomato: $909M • Policybazaar.com (PB Fintech): $291M Year-wise VC Exits - 2020: 7 deals, $113M - 2021: 18 deals, $3.3B - 2022: 13 deals, $1.5B - 2023: 32 deals, $2.06B - 2024: 44 deals, $4.06B VCs are the real 'sharks', making massive profits by offloading shares to the public through IPOs. But who’s really winning in startup exits? The founder? The VC? The retail investors? Looking at the current wave, it’s clear—VCs are the real winners. But here's the flip side: while VCs are cashing in on their early exits, it’s also important to remember the crucial role they’ve played in scaling and funding these companies. Without their backing, these companies might never have seen the light of an IPO. Retail investors, though they may not always see quick wins, help fuel market liquidity and contribute to the longer-term growth of these businesses. They sustain these ventures even beyond the exit event. So, are VCs merely playing a funding game, or are they shaping the long-term future of startups? (follow - Aradhya Varyani) P.S. VC firms know the game—get in early, exit through IPO, and enjoy the rewards. But are they true architects of success, or just out for the payout? #VentureCapital #Investments #Startups #MarketTrends #IPO #VCExits Elevation Capital | Goldman Sachs | Norwest Venture Partners | Accel | DST Global | Alpha Wave Global | Hillhouse Capital Group | Tencent | Harmony Partners | Barons Capital Partners | Naspers Ventures BV | Alibaba Group | Temasek | TPG | SoftBank Investment Advisers

24

14 Comments

{New pod 🎤} "𝐆𝐓𝐌 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐔𝐒-𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐁2𝐁 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐒 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐬" This episode explores GTM strategies and learnings for US-India B2B SaaS startups. We cover everything from finding design partners in the US, scoping MVPs, figuring out what ICP to focus on, navigating the unique challenges of early PMF, GTM hiring in the US, and finally, working towards creating M&A exit options. Joining me for this discussion is Satya Ganni, an experienced SaaS founder and operator who has successfully built and sold five companies and led two acquisitions as a buyer. He is currently serving as CEO of Beamer and Userflow. Beamer is developing a cutting-edge product-led growth toolkit tailored to product leaders at SaaS and digital-first companies. They recently acquired Userflow to augment the business. TIME STAMPS: (01:15) Satya’s journey as a repeat US-India SaaS founder and operator (04:38) [Case Study: 0-to-1] Finding US design partners (11:09) Scoping B2B SaaS MVPs (15:42) [Case Study: $10k-100k ARR] Identifying which ICP to focus on - SMB vs mid-market vs enterprise (22:23) [Case Study: $100k-$1Mn ARR] Navigating the unique challenges of early PMF (27:18) [Case Study: $1-5Mn ARR] Building a US leadership team post-PMF (34:33) [Case Study: $5-20Mn ARR] Working towards creating M&A exit options  (38:46) Learning to become a proactive relationship builder YouTube - https://lnkd.in/guGQeBwA Spotify - https://lnkd.in/gAg7XeF4 Apple Podcasts - https://lnkd.in/gkYEDpED An Operator's Blog - https://lnkd.in/ggGbzSKY

13

1 Comment

🚀23 startups 💰~$600 Mn total funding 🌱17 early stage deals 🧑‍💻 11 key hiring 🤝 5 M&A 💵 2 ESOP buybacks Top funding ◾ Zepto: $350 Mn ◾Healthkart: $153 Mn Startup weekly round up by Shashank Pathak and Md Salman Ashrafi https://lnkd.in/gS4QrvNP

4

VC is not rocket science but the high volume of information and the constant context switching makes it extremely difficult to manage efficiency & time. For this, I have realized that the right technology stack can be a game changer. Below are the key tools we have been using to streamline operations - sourcing, evaluation, and portfolio management. I would love recommendations on tools that might have helped others improve efficiency. 📰 Sourcing & Evaluation:- ▶ LinkedIn - Linkedin Premium & Sales Navigator are a must have to identify new founders building. ▶ Tracxn (Research Database) - With an increasing number of features, Tracxn has become the quickest go-to research tool. ▶ Taghash (CRM) - An easy to use and comprehensive CRM can save at least 1-2 hours a day. ▶ Otter.ai (Notetaking) – Seamless note taking and summary tool helps keep information organized. ▶ Phantom Buster (Lead Gen & Management) – For mass reach outs and streamlining reach outs based on key words. 📩 Communication & Co-ordination:- ▶ Calendar – I am obsessed with calendar management. While Calendly or another tool can be helpful, I use a simple google calendar to plan and colour code each day carefully. ▶Zoom – Has been instrumental in reducing travel time at least for initial due diligence. ▶ Substack – We use it for our fortnightly newsletter for mass communication and sharing industry insights. ▶ Intuit Mailchimp – More intimate communication and reporting requires carefully curated contact list. We have found mailchimp to be helpful here. 🗃 Reporting:- ▶Dropbox DocSend – Has helped in avoiding multiple email threads with different attachments while still ensuring transparency.

101

14 Comments

🚀23 startups 💰~$600 Mn total funding 🌱17 early stage deals 🧑‍💻 11 key hiring 🤝 5 M&A 💵 2 ESOP buybacks Top funding ◾ Zepto: $350 Mn ◾Healthkart: $153 Mn Startup weekly round up by Shashank Pathak and Md Salman Ashrafi https://lnkd.in/gF32miad

5

Venture capitalists and BizDateUp co-founders Jeet Chandan and Meet Jain have acquired an undisclosed stake in IPO-bound foodtech giant Swiggy through an off-market secondary deal. Founded in 2020, BizDateUp allows angel investors to invest in Indian startups with a minimum of INR 1 lakh and recently launched a INR 200 crore fund for technology investments. The firm raised over $10 million from more than 1,000 angel investors in FY24. This move comes as several celebrities, including cricketers Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan, tennis player Rohan Bopanna, director Karan Johar, and actor Ashish Chowdhry, have also invested in Swiggy ahead of its IPO. Notably, Amitabh Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit have previously acquired stakes in the company. Read full story here: https://lnkd.in/gM8sEWSZ #foodtech #startups #ipo #swiggy #foodindustry #news #latestnews LinkedIn News India Linkedin News Ashu Agrawal

9

1 Comment

💲💲 If you are a D2C Consumer Brand Startup you should know this VC that invests in pre-revenue stage Startups! 💰 VC Background: Meet Sauce VC a Cat II VC that launched their first fund in 2019 with a modest corpus of INR 60 Cr and since then launched 3 more funds and made 33 investments. Their recent INR 365 cr Fund launched in Aug'24 plans to invest in 20-25 consumer brands. They pick 6-7 selective investments annually out of 3000+ deck they get. However, their Fund I has a success rate of 50% (not a bad idea to invest in the fund if you are a UHNI). Infact their Fund IV was oversubscribed 3 times. 💰Notable Investments: Mokobora, Hocco Ice cream, Supertails, Innovist, The Whole Truth etc 💰Stage at which they invest: They invest even at pre-revenue stage to early traction stages. Ideally this VC invests at pre-seed to Series A. 💰What do they look for: Taking call at pre-revenue stage is really tough, especially in Consumer Brand segment. Hence, they look for founders who have deep experience in the segment either by the family background or by the founder's professional background. However, if the founder is not well-versed with the D2C game, they are cool with it. But the founder should know the segment, scope for new brands and plan to differentiate the brand. 💰Ideal cheque size: $ 1 Mn. But can go up to $ 5 Mn. 💰Investment Style: Sauce VC prefers working along with the founders to ensure the success of the Startup. They lead the rounds at pre-seed and Series A stages. Once the Startup is into Series B, they take a back seat and only participate in the following rounds. 💡 Hope this helps. Share it with some great founder of a consumer brand who is at early stages and needs to know this. If you want a warm-introduction, DM me or let me know in the comments. Bhavesh K Jatania Raunaq JaisinghaniAshish SharmaMohit Kanjwani

43

8 Comments

How does one define "Value" created by startup & its founders? Isn't this the most asked question and most often this gets answered in form of valuation {"Soonicorn"/ "Unicorn"/ "Decacorn" so on & so forth} and we all know that the valuation driven "status" is akin to the "flickering flame in a stormy night". I believe that: In the world of startups, where data holds sway, performance is the compass that shows the way. Real life stories tell the tale, revealing what's true, success should be measured by what startups can do. A startup's true value is felt when it's gone & its absence revealing what once shone. We are still very early in our pursuit of creating a long lasting positive impact in the life of millions of gamer's across the global south. However, we are pleased that KGeN has not only enabled the much needed recognition for gamers in their own homes & their immediate social circles but also delivered the first brush with financial independence to more than 500k gamers via their association with KGeN. Sharing few real life stories of our community members here for all the well wishers and you can view more stories on https://kgen.io/ P.S.: For those who think KGeN doesn't have data to show—stay tuned for the next post on Q1 performance. Shoutout to team KGeN Paranjay Agarwal Ishank Gupta Amit Hardi Tamoghna Biswas Akshey Aggarwal Girijesh J. Anita Srinivasan Tarun Satish Sandeep Shetty Debashish Ghosh Apurv Shrivastava

83

4 Comments

BizDateUp! Co-founders Jeet Chandan and Meet Jain have acquired an undisclosed stake in IPO-bound foodtech giant Swiggy through an "off-market" secondary deal. This investment showcases the growing confidence in Swiggy's innovative approach in the food delivery sector. Jeet Chandan shared, "As an entrepreneur since the age of 13, I have always been driven by a passion for creating businesses that showcase disruptive potential and significantly impact consumers' lives. Swiggy's innovative approach and leadership in the food delivery sector align perfectly with my investment philosophy." Founded in 2020, BizDateUp enables angel investors to support Indian startups with investments starting at just INR 1 Lakh. In April 2024, BizDateUp also announced the launch of a new INR 200 Cr fund aimed at investing in technology startups. Read more at: https://lnkd.in/gqf8ekp2 #bizdateup #swiggy #angelinvesting #foodtech #startupfunding #investment #techstartups #startupstory

3

Who would invest in founders who have wasted $50M? Koo, an Indian microblogging platform, recently shut shop after raising $50M in capital. Everyone has their views on why Koo failed. IMO, the biggest reason behind its failure was a lack of PMF (Product Market Fit). Koo spent much money on marketing and didn’t build a product people wanted. It kept harping on nationalism, a Twitter for Indians, made in #India. This approach failed. However, this doesn’t mean Koo’s founders aren’t smart or intelligent. I wrote in an earlier post that we shouldn’t be surprised if Koo’s founders raise fresh capital for a new startup. To many of us, this might seem grossly unfair. Millions of smart, hardworking founders are struggling to raise capital while investors are backing failed founders who have wasted millions of dollars. How is that fair? It confirms the widely held belief that the #venturecapital industry is broken and corrupt where a few people with the right connections get all the capital while others don’t see a dime. It shows that the VC industry is a closed group, a cabal where who you know matters more than anything. While these are just complaints, most people who criticise VCs don’t understand how startup investing works. VCs welcome failures. They embrace them because they know failures are inevitable. When VCs invest in 20 #startups, they know 15 will fail. The goal is to invest in startups that can give them a 100x return. Failures are part of the game. They are unavoidable. The aim is to back founders who can build such 100x return companies. Hence, failures are not looked down upon in the VC industry. It’s similar to the American culture where society appreciates the people who take risks, and it easily accepts personal bankruptcies that result from this risk-taking approach. There’s no taboo in failing in the USA and the VC industry. I’m sure Koo’s founders have learnt from their mistakes. It’s an expensive mistake and not everyone is so lucky to have this luxury to spend $50M on their education. ;) However, most VCs will back Koo’s #founders because these founders know how to raise capital and they know how to not build and scale tech companies. Their past failures have improved their chances of future success. In the VC industry, Failure is Good.

249

42 Comments

Top News of the Week in Indian Startup Ecosystem: 1. The week saw the first mega funding deal materialise for an Indian startup in the form of healthtech unicorn Innovaccer’s $275 Mn Series F fundraise. 2. On the back of this, healthtech emerged as the most funded startup sector this week. Besides Innovaccer, BrainSinghtAI and Zoplar also raised $5 Mn and $3.4 Mn this week. 3. Fintech, cleantech and ecommerce all saw three funding deals materialise this week, leading to fresh capital infusion of $48.9 Mn, $14.2 Mn and $13.3 Mn respectively. 4.  After months of speculations, Ritesh Agarwal increased his stake in his startup OYO with a capital infusion of $65 Mn via his venture capital firm Redsprig Innovation Partners. This funding round made travel tech the second most funded sector this week. 5. This week’s most active investor was VC firm Alteria Capital, investing in BrainSightAI’s $5 Mn pre-Series A funding round and Pratilipi’s $1.2 Mn funding round. 6. Eyewear major Lenskart is said to have initiated talks with bankers for a $1 Bn IPO that could value it in the range of $7 Bn to $8 Bn. Its IPO could hit the Indian bourses toward the end of the next financial year. Read the full post on link below Stay up do that with the Indian startup ecosystem on Medial.

34

3 Comments

We are back with the much-awaited Part 2 of ‘The Founder’s Guide to Consumer App Monetization’. After breaking down the playbook of how new-age Indian consumer businesses are leveraging emerging monetization models in part 1, this is a detailed guide on HOW to implement different monetization models effectively. Complete with benchmark metrics and case studies from global and Indian success stories ranging from YouTube, ShareChat and Netflix to Disney+ Hotstar, Pocket FM and Roblox, consider this a tactical guide to choosing and implementing the right monetization model. Whether you're building for ads, subscriptions, or micropayments - we've got you covered. Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/gk8ZDQww With new forms of direct monetization now picking up, a new wave of social/content companies can get built in India. Short-form video drama platforms, personalized/interactive content platforms and AI companionship platforms are some interesting themes we’re observing. If you're building a consumer app with innovative approaches to monetization, we'd love to hear from you. Amit Aggarwal Manish Advani Harshit Jain

41

1 Comment

New Delhi-based venture capital firm growX ventures, focused on B2B and DeepTech, has launched Fund II with a target of ₹400 crore ($47.1 million). The firm plans to support both early-stage and early-growth-stage companies such as semiconductors, defence-tech, spacetech, alternate materials and advanced manufacturing, fintech, healthtech, and supply chain/logistics over the next two to three years. The first investment will be up to ₹10 crore in seed rounds and ₹20-30 crore in Series B rounds. Ashish Taneja To share your startup information write us on - [email protected] For Startup funding reach out us at: https://lnkd.in/gqwTnHME Join Our Whatsapp Channel To Get The Latest Updates & News: https://lnkd.in/esJEFzan #GrowXventure #news #startup #funding #fundraising #venturecapital

7