What Excites Indian Venture Investing Pioneer Sasha Mirchandani About Bangladesh
Exploring the Evolution and Future of Startup Investing in the Sub-Continent
For the latest episode of SCALE, we caught up with Sasha Mirchandani, Founder of Kae Capital and Co-founder of Mumbai Angels. Sasha has played a pivotal role in shaping the early-stage investing landscape in India. He made early bets into Inmobi, Myntra and Fraktal Analytics.
Kae Capital, founded in 2012 and headquartered in Mumbai and Bengaluru, has emerged as a trailblazer in early-stage investing in India. The firm focuses on supporting technology startups and operates as a sector-agnostic fund, investing primarily in pre-seed to pre-series A stages. With an extensive portfolio valued at $8.52 billion, Kae Capital has backed over 79 startups across various sectors, encompassing both B2B and B2C ventures. Notable success stories within their portfolio include Certa, HealthKart, HST Solar, Square Yards, and Tata 1MG.
🎙️ Listen to the episode HERE
We heard from him on:
The early-stage investing landscape in India and how it has evolved
The key factors that investors look for in a startup before making an investment
How to build a successful startup in today's competitive market
Common mistakes that startups make and how to avoid them
His thoughts on Bangladesh’s startup ecosystem
💼 Insights
Having a Prepared Mind to Spot Opportunities
“In this new fund of ours, we have actually done a few investments which were literally in their concept stage. We invested in a SaaS company last year founded by two Uber engineers. When they reached out to us through another well-regarded person, immediately we knew that this is what we wanted to do. So the whole due diligence was more about [me] spending time with the founders and understanding their vision for the business. It was only a vision. Now we just recently raised money from Sequoia. It's still extremely early, only has 10 customers, and it has been one and a half years. Yes, we can come in as early as a concept if we really like the founders and we have obviously a prepared mind for what they're trying to do.”
The Evolution of Indian Exits
“In the past, exits were damn difficult in India. I had to take five to six trips a year to the US and go meet Twitter, Facebook, and Google to try and convince them to buy assets. These are minuscule tiny deals: $15 million, $27 million. So you can imagine getting the attention of someone relevant in these companies and then trying to convince them to buy an Indian asset and then for such small amounts of money. It was a big waste of time for everyone but we still had to do it. So who's going to buy these? Indian companies are not buying it. All that has changed dramatically….”
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