Podcasts about kalaari capital

Abhay is joined by pioneering seed-stage venture capitalist Vani Kola, founder and managing director of Kolaari Capital. They talked about rituals and routines, dealing with ambiguity and guardrails, and how accelerate closing the equity gap for women entrepreneurs in tech.(0:00 - 3:04) Introduction(3:04) Rituals, basic skills and values, anchors(19:01) Dealing with ambiguity as an founder or funder, navigating guardrails(36:07) India as a governance leader in tech, accelerating pathways for women, nostalgia, building trust(55:30) ConclusionSo I'm always eager to learn from leaders who more often than not are able to manage contrasts.  Now contrasts come in all different shapes and forms and they are literally all around us in every professional and personal environment and my hypothesis is that successful leaders find a way maybe through their own journey to manage small and large contrasts with progressively increasing clarity, patience, and purpose. So it was really a treat to share a conversation with Vani Kola, the founder and managing director of Kalaari Capital, an early stage venture capital firm in India.  Vani is originally from Hyderabad, and after an engineering degree, came to the US to complete her Masters and went on to a career as a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for over two decades.  She then returned to India to pioneer among the first homegrown Indian seed-stage venture firms with Kalaari Capital, using a philosophy that includes recognizing ambitious first-time entrepreneurs and helping them to scale up. Now mind you, she started this at a time in the mid-2000's when opportunities for growth and scale for ecommerce, tech, healthcare and many other sectors in India were at the ripening stage.  Vani has navigated and executed successfully through the endless contrasts of an evolving seed-stage venture ecosystem: new vs old, disruptive revolutions vs steady institutions, profiteering innovation vs collective responsibility, and skepticism vs trust… they're at the core of the face to face conversations that investors and entrepreneurs are having everyday.  Vani has been mentoring, and developing some of India's top founders and unicorn companies, with not just a keen eye on returns, but on the responsibility too to accelerate women as leaders in entrepreneurship, doing it all with a meditative sense of purpose and a growth mindset of sharing (by the way, you really have to check out her great newsletter called Kolaidoscope on LinkedIn). I had met her briefly once when she spoke at a panel discussion on tech and India's future, and it was great to catch up with her again to talk about everything from ambiguity and nostalgia, to the guardrails of tech, policy making, and even what she misses about Silicon Valley.  But we started by chatting about the basics of daily skills and anchors, and especially if she had any self- driving and governing rituals or routines?Thanks again and if you're enjoying these, please don't forget to share this with a friend, take a moment to write a kind review, or drop a line to us at info@abhaydandekar.com.  Again, a big shout out to Indiaspora for being that one of a kind gathering ground for doing good. Remember that conversation is the antidote to apathy and the catalyst for relationship building. 

How crucial is a product-first approach in pitching, according to Vani Kola? What insights does Vani provide on India's growth trajectory through the India Alpha model? How does Vani emphasise the importance of physical wellness and conscientious investing in entrepreneurial success? In this episode, Mukesh Bansal (Founder Myntra and Cult.fit) is in conversation with Vani Kola, co-founder of Kalaari Capital, a prominent venture capital firm in India known for its strategic investments in high-potential startups across various sectors. Watch till the end to get the most out of this deeply insightful conversation. Chapters: 00:00 - 01:11 Episode Introduction 01:11 - 05:20 Vani shares how milestones in her life were never planned 05:20 - 10:48 Why did Vani look at India as a confident, aspirational nation 20 years ago? 10:48 - 13:03 Mukesh and Vani discuss how working in the US helped in becoming successful entrepreneurs in India 13:03 - 17:49 Vani talks about her experience transitioning from an entrepreneur to a venture capitalist 17:49 - 21:48 Mukesh and Vani share their experience working with each other and what made it possible 21:48 - 28:28 Vani's journey with physical and mental wellness 28:28 - 36:08 According to Vani, what factors make a great pitch and a successful start-up? 36:08 - 37:21 Mukesh shares how technology and gadgets help regulate one's health 37:21 - 43:47 The difference between USA Silicon Valley's ecosystem and India's start-up ecosystem 43:47 - 49:25 How should today's investors and entrepreneurs approach opportunities in India? 49:25 - 54:15 How can we facilitate greater participation of women in entrepreneurship and venture capitalism? 54:15 - 59:55 What does the learning curve for a VC entail? Resource List: 1. The Rise and Fall of Nations, Book by Ruchir Sharma https://a.co/d/iBoGGgk 2. CXXO, a Kalaari Capital initiative https://cxxo.kalaari.com/ 3. What is capital efficiency? https://www.goldensection.com/capital-efficiency/ 4. More About India's Future Market https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/india-the-unstoppable-investment-destination-of-next-decade/articleshow/101388101.cms 5. Women in the VC industry https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/wappp/research/past/venture-capital-entrepreneurship#:~:text=Data%20and%20research%20prove%20that,for%20mixed%2Dgender%20founding%20teams 6. Is India becoming the new Silicon Valley for start-ups? https://www.rockstudcap.com/stud-mag/is-india-becoming-the-new-silicon-valley-for-startups

From growing up in Ambala to building a company with annualized sales of INR 4000 crores!

Vani Kola is the Managing Director at Kalaari Capital, an early stage VC firm committed to the development of India-based global companies and entrepreneurs. Vani's notable successes include Cure.fit, Dream11, Myntra, and Snapdeal. She is one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women in Business, an avid meditator, yoga practitioner, and a sustainable organic farmer. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theindustryshow/support

We hosted Ritish Reddy, Co-Founder of Zluri, along with Sateesh Andra, MD at Endiya Partners for our SaaS from Scratch series with Vani Kola, MD at Kalaari Capital. They shared valuable insights on the emerging trends in SaaS management and fundraising for SaaS businesses. Ritish's vision at Zluri, a platform that transforms how businesses manage their SaaS applications, and discussion with Sateesh on the role of early-stage investments in nurturing innovative SaaS companies from India are some of the key highlights of the session.

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

In this episode you will learn:What is Vinod's perspective on risk appetite in the venture capital ?What is the connection between the venture business and Black Swan events according to Vinod? How does Vinod define controllable Black Swans in the context of venture capital?How did working at Kalaari impact Vinod's knowledge, sourcing, and relationships in the startup ecosystem?What are the core value systems of Java Capital? What are the key metrics used to measure values such as serendipity and quality of investments?How does Java Capital evaluate missed deals and learn from them?How does Java Capital support portfolio companies in hiring, business development and fundraising?Why does Java Capital focus on founders in smaller cities like Coimbatore?What excites Vinod the most about the future?About:Vinod Shankar is a Partner and Co-founder at Java Capital, an early stage venture capital firm based in India. With over 18 years of experience in venture capital, angel investing, retail marketing, technology, and startups, Vinod has established himself as a prominent figure in the industry. He has an extensive investment portfolio that includes successful ventures such as Agnikul, Eplane, Customfit, Daily Ninja, SandboxVR, and plasmic.Before co-founding Java Capital, Vinod managed the seed portfolio at Kalaari Capital, one of the leading venture capital firms in the country. Prior to that, he gained valuable experience as an entrepreneur, marketer, and technology developer while working at Emuzed, which was later acquired by Sequoia and KKR. He also contributed to the growth of JustBooks, a tech-led retail library chain. Vinod has been an active angel investor since 2013, supporting over 20 startups with his expertise and funding.

Saurabh Pandey, co-founder and CEO of EloElo. EloElo is an app that enables live-social experiences through games and entertainment. It is currently among the top 10 Apps on the Google Play Store in India with over 10M downloads. It accommodates 34,000 creators and offers a staggering 400 million minutes of live content. The company has raised $15M from Kalaari Capital, KB Investment, Lumikai, WaterBridge Ventures and Better Capital. Before Eloelo, he accumulated a decade of experience in various domains such as marketing, product and growth at Flipkart and P&G. Episode notes: Introduction (2:05) Rationale behind entrepreneurship: Saurabh's motivation for founding EloElo (2:59) Resilience and conviction: Saurabh's renewed pursuit of entrepreneurship following a prior setback (10:25) Early Validation of EloElo (18:03) Standing out in a competitive landscape: EloElo's approach to capturing attention in the content and entertainment industry (26:16) Building alongside ICPs (34:14) The significance of timing in the company's growth trajectory (41:12) Insights gained as a CEO: Key lessons learned by Saurabh (49:18) Saurabh's framework for decision making (59:42) Non-negotiable principles: Saurabh's core values and beliefs (1:10:26) Saurabh's reflections – advice to the younger self (1:16:55) . . . Social Links: EloElo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eloeloapp Saurabh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Saurabh65616912 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

Anuj Mehta is the India Investment Lead at Rise Capital, where he's leading the India investment strategy. Anuj has previous stints at Kalaari Capital & Entrepreneur First. In this episode we talk about: - Anuj's story & how he started investing - Facts & figures that make India a great place to invest - Most exciting sectors - 5 M's they use to evaluate startups - His biggest learning as a VC & lots more Links mentioned: Email Anuj- anuj@risecapital.com Follow anuj on Linkedin- https://www.linkedin.com/in/anuj-mehta-64391a21/ Rise Capital Website- https://risecapital.com Hosted by Prashant Choubey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/choubeysahab/ Full episode post at https://vc10x.com/rise-capital

Tata Consultancy Services kicked off the Indian IT services sector's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings yesterday, reporting that clients in the US, the sector's biggest market, were holding back on discretionary spending and that an expected pickup from the previous quarter didn't materialise. Growth was led by a strong performance in the UK, and the company ended the fiscal year 2023 with 6,14,795 employees. Also in this brief, pi Ventures gets a commitment from SIDBI for its next early-stage tech startup fund. Notes: Tata Consultancy Services kicked off the IT services sector's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings yesterday, reporting that clients in the US, the sector's biggest market, were holding back on discretionary spending and that an expected pickup from the previous quarter didn't materialise. Overall, the company reported revenues rose to $7.195 billion in the three months ended March 31, 2023, representing a 1.7 percent increase over the previous quarter and 7.4 percent growth over the same quarter in the previous fiscal year. The year-on-year growth was 10.4 percent in constant currency. The company was operating in a “fairly challenging environment,” CEO and MD Rajesh Gopinathan told reporters at a conference in Mumbai yesterday. The sentiment in the US is currently negative, Gopinathan added. The likelihood of a recession in the US remains high, this year and businesses are postponing any expenditure that isn't immediately necessary. TCS added more than $10 billion in order wins, during Q4, including a $700-750 million contract from the financial giant Phoenix Group. The deal wins also included a larger proportion of contracts worth $50 million or more versus previous quarters, COO NG Subramaniam added. TCS added about 820 employees during the quarter to end the year with about 6,15,000 staff. Attrition on a 12-months basis was just over 20 percent, but the reduction from the previous quarter was 4 percent, chief HR officer Milind Lakkad said. On the tech front, Subramaniam said that conversations with customers are starting and ending with ChatGPT. Customers are asking how TCS is integrating generative AI into its services, and there is keen interest in the area, he said. This isn't an area that is new to TCS and the company has been working “software that can make software,” for example, for years, he added. One other update is that Rajesh Gopinathan is handing over the CEO's role to K Krithivasan on June 1, whereas the transition was originally expected to be completed on Sep. 15. Gopinathan said that this was a planned process wherein the first half of the transition he would be the “primary” and Krithivasan the “shadow” and in the second half, the roles would be reversed. And the second half has been advanced by a couple of weeks. Suzlon Group yesterday announced a new order win for the development of a 50.4 MW wind power project for Sembcorp's renewables subsidiary Green Infra Wind Energy Limited. SimpliContract, a Contract Lifecycle Management platform provider, has raised $3.5 million in series A funding from Emergent Ventures, Kalaari Capital and others.   pi Ventures, an early-stage VC firm that invests in tech startups, has received a commitment of Rs. 100 crore from the fund of funds management by SIDBI. The fund is on track for the final close over the next two months, in the range of Rs. 675-750 crore.

Prerna Jhunjhunwala is the Founder of Creative Galileo, India's largest, character-based early learning platform for kids in the age group of 3-10 yrs. Creative Galileo recently made it to HolonIQ's annual list of the 100 most promising EdTech start-ups from India & South Asia. Creative Galileo is the only kids learning platform to breach the coveted top 20 apps in the education category across all age groups on the Play Store, India. Its strong, organic growth and user loyalty have led to consistently high ratings. Partnering in Creative Galileo's high-growth journey are some leading investors like Kalaari Capital, East Ventures, Affirma Capital, and Valiant Employee Investment Fund. After the success of the Little Singham app, Creative Galileo has recently launched Toondemy, an educational learning app which offers comprehensive learning journeys in line with CBSE, NEP and NCERT syllabi to build strong foundational concepts and cognitive capabilities, learn phonics, and develop critical 21st century skills.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Aprameya Radhakrishna is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Koo, an Indian microblogging and social networking app also known as the Indian Twitter. The company has raised a little over $50M from marquee investors such as Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Tiger Global among many others. He founded his first venture, TaxiForSure with Raghunandan, which was acquired by OLA in 2015 for $200 million. In 2017, Aprameya launched his second venture, ‘Vokal,' a user-generated content platform in Indian languages, with partner Mayank Bidawatka. After that, he realised that content in regional Indian languages was sparse, as most social media platforms carry an English-first approach and are built primarily for English speakers residing in urban centres. This gave him the idea of developing a multi-lingual micro-blogging platform for Indians, Koo, to communicate and connect with their linguistic and cultural communities. In July 2020, he won the Prime Minister's Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge.Episode Notes:1. Intro (2:20)2. Reflections on free expression in the context of microblogging and social media (3:50)3. Growing Koo within different sections of the Indian populations (8:55)4. How did the idea for Koo come about, and what factors aided the company's growth? (12:50)5. Learning from building TaxiForSure that translates to building Koo (17:10)6. The initial set of milestones that established the Koo brand (20:04)7. Expansion during the pandemic (23:48)8. Lessons from India's growth that will help Koo expand to the United States (26:47)9. Creating richer community experiences (29:40)10. Taking on Twitter (33:52)11. Scaling values as businesses grow (37:44)12. Creating a brand with a purpose (41:38)13. How do investors perceive Koo's growth in the coming years? (47:37)14. Lessons learned as a serial entrepreneur in India (50:18). . . Social Links: Koo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kooindiaAprameya Radhakrishna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aprameyaPodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vcAkash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakashPodcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivcAkash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash

CRED is acquiring CreditVidya, a SaaS startup that helps firms underwrite first-time borrowers, in the latest of a series of investments from the Bengaluru-headquartered fintech as it broadens its offerings. The firms did not disclose the terms of the deal. The 10-year-old CreditVidya — headquartered in Hyderabad and backed by Navroz Udwadia, Kalaari Capital and […]CRED acquires CreditVidya by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

CRED is acquiring CreditVidya, a SaaS startup that helps firms underwrite first-time borrowers, in the latest of a series of investments from the Bengaluru-headquartered fintech as it broadens its offerings. The firms did not disclose the terms of the deal. The 10-year-old CreditVidya — headquartered in Hyderabad and backed by Navroz Udwadia, Kalaari Capital and […] CRED acquires CreditVidya by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing multiple factors including Russia's war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the Covid pandemic. Indian American entrepreneur-led Icertis, a contract LCM SaaS specialist, has tapped Infor's Deanna Lanier as chief strategy officer. And early-stage investor Nisarg Shah is seeking tech-led startups at Kettleborough VC. Notes: The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing multiple factors including Russia's war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the Covid pandemic, Associated Press reports. The 190-country lending agency on Tuesday pared its July estimate of 2.9 percent by 20 basis points to 2.7 percent. The IMF left unchanged its forecast for international growth this year — at 3.2 percent, almost at the half of last year's 6 percent expansion, according to AP. “The worst is yet to come,″ IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said. Three major economies — the United States, China and Europe — are stalling. Countries accounting for a third of global economic output will contract next year, and therefore 2023 “will feel like a recession″ to many around the world, he said, according to AP. India's IT services industry, one of the country's biggest exports sectors, sees the US, Britain and Europe as its biggest markets and top executives such as Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services are seeing clients engaging in scenario modelling more on the downside than on the upside, while demand currently remains strong. TCS yesterday missed some analyst estimates for its fiscal second-quarter revenue growth on a sequential basis. Icertis, a contract intelligence and management platform provider, has recruited Deanna Lanier as chief strategy officer, reporting to Chairman and CEO Samir Bodas. Lanier will help Icertis expand into new geographies, customer types, and industry verticals, according to a press release. Lanier joins Icertis from Infor, a leading provider of industry-specific cloud software, where she was most recently senior vice president of strategy, growth, and partnerships. Before Infor, Lanier held leadership roles at Adobe, McKinsey, Microsoft, and KMPG. She will be based at Icertis headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. Kettleborough VC, an early-stage venture capital firm led by seed investor, Nisarg Shah, has launched its first fund at $5 million to invest in technology-centric startups specifically led by serial entrepreneurs and domain experts, according to a press release. The firm was launched as a solo general partner fund by Shah in late 2021, according to the press release, but he has been active as an investor since 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile. So far, Kettleborough has backed five companies via this fund including Zippmat with Matrix Partners India and Zephyr Peacock, Zocket with Kalaari Capital, and Bytelearn with Leo and Chiratae, and is closing two more transactions with Infoedge Ventures and Kae Capital in the coming month. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Today being an entrepreneur and starting with a new idea, you can take either of the two approaches - 1. You can build on top of an existing category in the market and bring your unique offerings2. You can take the riskier bet and create an entire category. In India, companies like Flipkart, Oyo, Ola etc. are the ‘Regional' first movers. Although their concept was inspired from the global companies, however, being the first mover in the Indian subcontinent region gave them an advantage.In today's episode we have Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director, Arkam Ventures, who has a great focus on identifying and investing in such Category Creators for Middle India.  Prior to Arkam, Bala, was part of the founding team at Vistaar, which in simple words helps companies like Cisco, Dell, GE, Ford, and Hitachi to make better, faster, and more profitable business decisions.Post that he became one of the founding members of Amba research, which was acquired for $100 Mn by Moody's. After Amba, he was also with Kalaari Capital for over 3 years, post which he co-founded Arkam Ventures, a Venture Capital firm with a focus on “Category Creators for Middle India” and “Enablers for the Global”.In today's episode, we talk with Bala about key ingredients of building a Category Creator, Solving for the pricing problem in SaaS startups, taking SaaS to the mass audience in Tier-3 cities and towns and much more.Notes - 02:01 - Intro04:05 - Essential ingredients to build a $10 Mn ARR company06:29 - Why focus on category creators for Middle India? 18:38 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?20:08 - Evolving from a single problem statement to a platform with multiple offerings22:23 - Razorpay's gameplan for trust building for Small town customers24:06 - His thesis around investing in enablers like Signzy and Spotdraft30:26 - His thoughts on India-focused SaaS with regards to pricing33:24 - Themes and Thesis which didn't worked out38:42 - What gave him an edge into the middle India consumer?Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll

In this episode, Dheeraj talks to the best minds in the Indian venture capital space and discuss the state of web3 investment in India. The panel further dives into: Adoption of web3 in India Tips for builders in this space Top gems from the guests' portfolio companies Panel Guest Abhinav Pathak (Research partner at Woodstock Fund) Avinash Ramathan (Vice president at Kalari Capital) Vish BR (Strategy & operations lead at Sino Global International) Aravind Menon (India Head FTX) Shoutout to our sponsors! Unstoppable Domains: unstoppabledomains.com Brave Wallet: brave.com/wallet To stay up to date on all things Web3 with Dhee, you can follow Dheeraj Shah on Twitter @DheerajShah_ and Web3 with Dhee @web3withDhee. You can follow our panel, Abhinav Pathak (@iabhinavpathak), Avinash Ramathan (@avi_ramanathan), Vish BR (@YourstrulyVish) and Aravind Menon (@ajm_ftx) on Twitter If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, subscribe, and share with your friends and family so we can keep talking about all things web3. Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes only. None of the discussions qualifies as financial or tax advice. Kindly talk to a qualified accountant/advisor for financial and tax advice.

Dubverse co-founder, Anuja Dhawan, joins SlatorPod to talk about launching the machine dubbing startup and powering video content dubbing using the latest AI language models and tech.Anuja starts with her journey to co-founding Dubverse with Varshul Gupta as a result of the rise of English speaking video-generated content during the pandemic. She goes through the company's core team structure where the focus is on scaling through AI and technology.She discusses how they tailor their product to language demand in India as roughly only 10% of the population understands or speaks English fluently. She talks about their approach to tackling technical challenges when producing highly natural, emotional AI voices.Anuja notes the importance of dubbing short-form content from large social media and video networks like YouTube, TikTok and, specific to India, ShareChat. She unpacks a human-in-the-loop model where they onboarded a translator to improve linguistic nuances in their automated workflow.She also shares the story behind connecting with Dubverse's first investor, Kalaari Capital, and the lessons learned from the interview process. The pod rounds off with the startup's future plans to make dubbing published content even simpler for creators, so they can break the language barrier.

On our first episode of Web3 Talks, Ravinder Pal Singh (Kalaari Capital), Meyyappan (Nishith Desai) & Raphael (Brandl Talos) discuss the crypto bill and the best global practices for advancing India's crypto laws.Web3 Talks by Kalaari Capital focuses on conversations with industry experts on current events from the Web3 ecosystem. If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources

Mila Golovine, CEO and President of MasterWord, joins SlatorPod to talk about the important topic of stress and trauma that linguists may experience on the job.Mila walks us through her journey in the language industry: immigrating from Russia, founding the Texas-based LSP straight out of university, and leading it to where it is today. She reflects on MasterWord's diversification, expanding from oil and gas to healthcare, education, and government services.The CEO talks about the strategy behind recruiting from refugee communities and using MasterWord Institute to train talent wanting to enter the language industry. She discusses how stress and vicarious trauma affect language professionals, as well as the specific training and tools that can help prevent this.Mila gives her outlook on the dynamics of Language Access regulation in the US and how it differs state by state. The pod rounds off with Mila's approach to balancing growth across all verticals having thrived through a number of recessions.First up, Florian and Anna discuss the language industry news of the week, with an interesting debrief from Florian about the Machine Translation Meetup hosted by TextShuttle in Zurich. In the UK, the University of Roehampton proposed staff cuts that directly affect the university's 20-year-old Audiovisual Translation program — a move that caused the UK's Subtitlers Association (SUBTLE) to launch a protest on social media. RWS released its H1 2022 results with new SaaS clients contributing to the 20% growth in profits; but the Super Agency's IP Services division saw –8% growth.Meanwhile, the dubbing space heats up as India-based startup Dubverse raised USD 0.8m in a seed round led by Kalaari Capital. AI dubbing startup, Papercup, raised USD 20m in an oversubscribed series A round, bringing funds raised to date to USD 34m.

In this episode, we look at top 10 Indian startups based in the city of Chennai. #10 Planys Technologies: Rakesh Sirikonda, Tanuj Jhunjhunwala, and Vineet Upadhyay started Planys Technologies in 2015. Company provides its customers with underwater robotic inspections using their indigenously manufactured remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs. Company has raised $4.1 million from their investors till date. #9 The ePlane Company: IIT-Madras professor Satya Chakravarthy founded The ePlane Company back in 2019, with his student, to solve the problem of Traffic. They're building an electric compact flying taxi called the e200. Company has already begun testing the scaled down version of this ePlane and they have till now raised $6 million from their investors. #8 Guardian Link: Arjun Reddy, Kameshwaran Elangovan, Keyur Patel, and Ramkumar Subramaniam founded Guardian Link in 2016, to enable their customers to build their own NFT marketplaces using the startup's APIs. Startup is already supporting more than 40 branded NFT marketplaces globally. After bootstrapping the startup for five years, they finally raised $12 million in 2021 from Kalaari Capital. #7 Agnikul Cosmos: Srinath Ravichandran and Moin SPM founded Agnikul Cosmos with a mission to democratize space by building their own customisable rocket called Agnibaan. This rocket can launch small satellites weighing up to 100 kg into space. Company is expected to launch their first rocket into space some time in 2022. They have so far raised $14.5 million from their investors. #6 Mad Street Den: Founded in 2013 by husband-wife duo Anand Chandrasekaran and Ashwini Asokan, Mad Street Den was started to capitalise on the e-commerce boom that was happening at the time. After spending two years researching and building their AI and computer vision technology from scratch in India, they launched their flagship product Vue.ai in 2016 in the US. So far, they have raised $21.2 million from their investors. #5 Wiz Frieght: Founded by Ramkumar Govindarajan and Ramkumar Ramachandran in 2020, Wiz Freight is simplifying the process of booking and managing cross-borders shipments for importers and exporters. With a network of over 2,000 vendors and carriers, Wiz Freight is helping more than 1,500 enterprises to ship their products. Till now, their investors have poured in $42.5 million into the startup. #4 WayCool: Founded by Karthik Jayaraman and Sanjay Dasari in 2015, WayCool started its journey as a B2C food supply chain startup called SunnyBee. They decided to pivot to a farm to fork B2B business model in 2017. WayCool has enabled more than 100,000 customers to gain access to fresh fruits and vegetables till now, also supporting 85,000 at the same time. To date, their investors have poured in $221.5 million into the startup. #3 M2P Fintech: Founded by Madhusudanan R, Muthukumar A and Prabhu R in 2014, M2P Fintech is building next-generation fintech and neo banking products. Their customers include NiYO Solutions, Jupiter, Uni Cards, Slice, CRED, and RazorPay. Till now, their investors have poured in $107 million into the startup – valuing them at $605 million. #2 CredAvenue: Founded by Gaurav Kumar in 2020, CredAvenue is offering a platform for businesses and enterprises to secure debt from banks and other financial institutions. CredAvenue has already facilitated loans worth $10.5 billion. To date, their investors have poured in $226.7 million into the startup. #1 Chargebee: Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Thiyagarajan Thiyagu and Saravanan KP started Chargebee in 2011 to solve the problem of recurring billing and payment subscriptions for SaaS startups. Today, Chargebee has more than 3,000 customers, a majority of which come from the US and Europe. To date, the startup has raised $468.2 million from their investors – valuing them at $3.5 billion.

This week in Indian startup news, Unacademy lays off 1,000 employees in 2 months, Ola's founder Bhavish Aggarwal steps away from day-to-day operations, After Zomato, Ola now enters 10-minute food delivery, Meesho lays off 150 employees, Rebel Foods acquires majority stake in Smoor. In funding news, Lenskart raises $100 million, Medikabazaar raises $65 million, PhableCare raises $25 million, Newton School raises $25 million. Unacademy fires over 1,000 employees: Indian edtech startup Unacademy has reportedly laid-off around 600 of their employees, less than a month after they fired 300 employees in march, this includes both on-roll and contractual staff. This is mainly to cut costs as they plan on turning profitable by the end of this calendar year (2022). Bhavish Aggarwal steps away from day-to-day operations: Ola's co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has decided to hand the reins of day to day operations to Ola group's CFO G R Arun Kumar - who has been with Ola as the group's CFO since last May. This decision could have been taken as Ola is gearing up for an IPO and would preferably want to have someone like G R Arun Kumar who is a veteran and has worked for over 16 years at Vedanta Resources and General Electric in building strong businesses to bring in control and discipline in terms of their financials while Bhavish can continue to build and innovate at Ola Electric. After Zomato, Ola enters 10-minute food delivery: Ola has confirmed that they have been piloting 10-minute food delivery for a while now. Ola will be using Mukunda Foods - that makes robotic equipments which can reduce the food preparation time by 20-50%. The kind of food items that will be on the menu for include items like khichdi, pizza and rolls. Meesho lays off 150 employees: Social commerce unicorn Meesho has also laid-off 150 employees as it restructures and rebrands their grocery business Farmiso to Meesho Superstore. According to company spokesperson, this move is aimed at bringing in efficiencies and the company will help those impacted secure new opportunities outside the company. Rebel Foods acquires majority stake in Smoor: Cloud kitchen startup Rebel Foods has acquired a majority stake in luxury chocolate brand Smoor - in a bid to build their portfolio of brands. Smoor has grown at a rate of over 40% CAGR over the last five years and this partnership with Rebel Food will help them grow their brand and expanding their omnichannel distribution strategy through their offline kiosks, cafes and lounges in tier 1 cities and also leveraging their own digital platform and Rebel Foods' digital platform to grow their online sales. Lenskart raises $100 million: Eyewear brand Lenskart has raised $100 million in a round led by Alpha Wave Incubation taking their valuation to $4.3 billion. The startup is planning to invest a portion of their funding into their own Thrasio-style business by acquiring and scaling brands in the eyewear segment. Medikabazaar raises $65 million: B2B healthcare marketplace Medikabazaar has raised $65 million in a round led by Lighthouse India Fund, which takes their valuation to $700 million. They will use funds to strengthen their technology platform, deepen their supply ecosystem, expand distribution network and expand global operations. PhableCare raises $25 million: Healthtech startup PhableCare has raised $25 million in a round led by Kalaari Capital to invest in strategic acquisitions, accelerate market expansion, strengthen technology, build their brand and add new revenue streams. Newton School raises $25 million: Edtech startup Newton School has raised $25 million in a round led by Steadview Capital. Newton School offers multiple programs for students and working professionals to develop their skills.

Logistics is the lifeblood of the economy, bringing us crucial goods and resources wherever we need them. India's e-commerce growth story has cast the spotlight on the logistics market - with the rise of D2C brands and quick commerce propelling a $365 billion market opportunity (9% CAGR) by FY26.    Sahil Barua, Co-Founder and CEO at Delhivery, is among the shapers of India's #logistics sector in the digital era. Starting off as a shipping company, Delhivery was early to spot the digital opportunity in the sector, evolving into a full-stack logistics platform for e-commerce and consumers. Sahil's experience of building one of India's largest & fastest growing logistics players gives him unique insights into this sector's exigencies and evolution. In this #PayItForward episode, Sahil discusses the highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey and what the future holds for logistics in IndiaThe Pay It Forward series, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital, focuses on conversations with founders and CEOs who have built businesses that have transformed the landscape of the Indian start-up ecosystem. If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources

This week in Indian startup news, Ola's electric car, Memechat turns memes into NFTs, Daler Mehndi's metaverse concert and Boat files for Rs 2,000 crore IPO. In funding news, Darwinbox raises $72 million to become a unicorn, Swiggy raises $700 million and StanPlus raises $20 million. Ola's electric car: Ola's co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal posted a digital rendering of an electric car – hinting towards their plans to launch their own electric cars after launching their electric scooters. They have now raised $200 million at a $5 billion valuation to realise their dream of launching their own electric car. Memechat turns memes into NFTs: Meme creating and sharing platform Memechat has launched their own NFT marketplace called The Meme Club (TMC) - allowing creators to create and sell their own memes as NFTs. After witnessing the craze of NFTs across the world, Memechat wants to replicate the same success in India through memes. Daler Mehndi's metaverse concert: On 26th January - India's 73rd Republic day, Indian singer Daler Mehndi performed in a concert in the metaverse. This concert also marked the launch of Partynite - a metaverse platform launched by Hyderabad-based gaming company Gamitronics which hosted the metaverse concert. Boat files for Rs 2,000 crore IPO: Imagine Marketing, the parent company of consumer electronics brand Boat, has filed for an IPO. They want to raise up to ₹2,000 crore through the IPO - which would value them at over $1.5 billion - which is considerably higher than their previous $300 million valuation last year. Out of ₹2,000 crore - ₹1,100 crore will be offer for sale - which means giving their investors an option to sell their shares and the remaining ₹900 crore will consist of fresh issue - which will be used to pay off their debts. Darwinbox raises $72 million to become a unicorn: SaaS-based HRtech platform Darwinbox has raised $72 million in a round led by TCV – making them India's fourth unicorn of 2022. The startup wants to use the fresh capital to add more products to their HR management portfolio and expand into the US market. Swiggy raises $700 million: Food delivery giant Swiggy has raised $700 million in a round led by Invesco at a $10.7 billion valuation – making them a decacorn. Swiggy is now even bigger than Zomato in terms of valuation and they will be using the fresh capital to further expand their rapidly growing instant grocery delivery business. StanPlus raises $20 million: Ambulance service provider StanPlus has raised $20 million in a round led by HealthQuad, Kalaari Capital, and HealthX Capital Singapore to bring down ambulance response time from 18 minutes to just 8 minutes using their ambulance fleet.

What does it take to build not one, but two category-defining companies that changed the landscape of consumer technology?It was a pleasure to host Mukesh Bansal, founder of Myntra and cure.fit (cult.fit), who shared his learnings on building India's top consumer brands, and lessons from his decade-long entrepreneurial journey on Kalaari Capital's clubhouse session #PayItForward.The Pay It Forward series, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital, focuses on conversations with founders and CEOs who have built businesses that have transformed the landscape of the Indian start-up ecosystem. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources

“However big or small, make it a good business, make it a clean business, make it a business you are very proud of”The pioneer of online travel in India, Deep Kalra's vision for MakeMyTrip was simple - to make travel easy for people. Today MakeMyTrip is India's largest online travel portal and has changed the way India travels.It was a pleasure to host Deep on our #PayItForward session, where he shared insights from his two-decade-long entrepreneurial journey.The Pay It Forward series, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital, focuses on conversations with founders and CEOs who have built businesses that have transformed the landscape of the Indian start-up ecosystem. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources

“As you grow as a company and have hundreds of employees, the only way to communicate effectively is through documented or codified company cultural values making it very important to establish these things early on in a company's journey”. - Beerud Sheth, Founder of Gupshup and Elance.We spoke to Beerud to get his thoughts on his journey building two successful businesses, his leadership mantra, and his learnings from entrepreneurship on Kalaari's #PayItForward Series. The Pay It Forward series, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital, focuses on conversations with founders and CEOs who have built businesses that have transformed the landscape of the Indian start-up ecosystem. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources

The Indian logistics sector, already a $200 billion market, is set to grow at over 10 % CAGR in the next five years to reach around $330 billion. Hyperlocal logistics is the next big thing in logistics, growing at roughly 32% CAGR globally. Dunzo has been at the forefront of building a hyperlocal logistics business in India. To share more insights on India's  Logistics opportunity, we hosted Kabeer Biswas, Co-founder, Dunzo, on our Hindustan Hamara session on Clubhouse, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital.Hindustan Hamara focuses on conversations with the shapers of India's digital future. Every session we talk to individuals who are shaping the future of India's digital innovation landscape. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources 

Food Tech startups have revolutionized Indian eating habits drastically in the recent few years - with so many options at the touch of a button and the convenience of receiving a variety of cuisines at your doorstep, hassle-free. India's online food industry is set to become an $8 billion market by 2022, due to rapid digitization and growth in both online buyer base and spending. To share more insights on India's  Foodtech opportunity, we hosted Ankit Nagori, Founder, Curefoods on our Hindustan Hamara session on Clubhouse, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital.Hindustan Hamara focuses on conversations with the shapers of India's digital future. Every session we talk to individuals who are shaping the future of India's digital innovation landscape. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources 

The first nine months of 2020 saw India rise to the number one spot in mobile game downloads worldwide, clocking 7.3 billion installs and raking in a 17% market share of the installs volume.To share more insights on India's Gaming opportunity, we hosted Paavan Nanda & Saumya Singh Rathore, Co-founders, WinZO  on our Hindustan Hamara session on Clubhouse, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital.Hindustan Hamara focuses on conversations with the shapers of India's digital future. Every session we talk to individuals who are shaping the future of India's digital innovation landscape. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources

Whether it is raising funds, finding your product-market fit, or striking a work-life balance - being an entrepreneur comes with its own set of challenges. Navigating these tides can be difficult, but also come with many learnings. On our first CXXO Collective session, Ghazal Alagh, Co-founder & Chief Innovation Officer, Mamaearth, Shradha Sharma, Founder & CEO, YourStory Media, & Vani Kola, MD, Kalaari Capital shared their personal experiences and insights on tackling entrepreneurship hurdles.The CXXO Collective is a platform where women leaders share insights and learnings from their exemplary journey as leaders of organizations.For more updates on our sessions, follow CXXO on Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@thecxxo If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts and resources, visit our website- kalaari.com/resources

In this episode, Ashish Dave (CEO @Mirae Asset Venture Investments, India), joins our host Digjay, to talk about his path leading up to venture capital, setting up Mirae's India Venture arm, due diligence missteps by VCs when optimizing for speed, sharing cross-learnings from other geographies with portfolio companies, evaluating seed & growth stage startups, the constant upskilling & unlearning required in venture capital & more. Mirae Asset Group, a leading financial services company headquartered in South Korea which manages ~$1.5bn across multiple funds. Mirae's India portfolio includes marquee startups like Ola, BigBasket, Shadowfax, Unacademy, Jupiter among others. Prior to Mirae, Ashish was at Kalaari Capital, a well known early stage VC firm in India & prior to that at Mumbai Angels, one of the prominent angel networks in India where he was actively involved in sourcing new opportunities and helping existing portfolio companies. Ashish is an alum of IE Business School. You can connect with him here on Linkedin/Twitter. ---- Show notes – (01:49) Ashish's background & path leading up to venture capital - Mumbai Angels, Kalaari & Mirae VC (04:12) Setting up an India dedicated fund at Mirae (07:32) Adapting to the fast & competitive deal making environment in the Indian startup ecosystem (10:49) Potential due diligence missteps by VCs when optimizing for speed (15:12) How can VCs add value to founders? (19:40) Sharing learnings from other geographies with portfolio startups in India (22:17) Evaluating startups at seed vs growth stage (25:56) The constant upskilling & unlearning required in venture capital; importance of getting on ground, gauging customer feedback/behaviour to aid your decision making as an investor (29:39) Advice & suggestions for emerging VCs (35:23) How has being a VC influenced his personality over the years? (37:19) Rapid fire and closing remarks ---- If you liked our episode, you can subscribe to our podcast on any podcast platforms of your choice (like Spotify & Apple iTunes). We would appreciate if you could leave us a review on Apple iTunes. This helps others discover the podcast organically. You can visit thevcpreneur.com and follow us on Twitter @thevcpreneur_ & Instagram @thevcpreneur for more episodes and interesting insights on the startup ecosystem. You can also follow our host Digjay here on Linkedin & Twitter

In whichever industry or ecosystem you are, there are some people you just can't not know about, because they are the ones who have either - # had a major role in shaping the industry as it is today # or achieved something at such a massive scale that no one can miss to notice itThe guest of our today's episode Vani Kola, founder and managing director of Kalaari Capital, is one such person. She was listed as one of the most powerful women in Indian business by Fortune India in 2014.She started her career in the silicon valley, as a serial entrepreneur and spent close to 22 years. While in silicon valley, she founded an e-procurement company RightWorks, which was later sold for $657 million.After returning to India in 2006, she founded Indo-US Venture Partners (IUVP) in 2006, which was later rebranded as Kalaari Capital.Some stats around Kalaari Capital -# 188+ Investments; popular portfolio companies are Dream11, Myntra, Cure.fit, and Snapdeal# 23+ Exits; most notable exits include Workday, Milkbasket, and SimplilearnDuring the podcast, Vani shares with us how she approaches any new investment, how she suggests the founder to treat any failure, how yoga and meditation have positively impacted her life and more. Notes - 02:50 - “What you can't dream, you can't achieve.”10:32 - “What didn't work can give you an actionable insight.”18:09 - Assessing a founder's potential vs pedigree23:12 - Having a depth of clarity rather than just being a good storyteller38:54 - Balance to life: Meditation & Yoga41:05 - CXXO Initiative: $10 million fund for women founders

Cryptocurrency is disrupting the world of finance, but is it here to stay?To share more insights on India's Crypto opportunity, we hosted Nischal Shetty, Founder & CEO, WazirX,  on our Hindustan Hamara session on Clubhouse, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital.Hindustan Hamara focuses on conversations with the shapers of India's digital future. Every session we talk to individuals who are shaping the future of India's digital innovation landscape. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/podcast 

Since 2016, over 600 DTC brands have been funded in India, with 16 brands making $50M+ in ARR. With online shoppers expected to grow 2.5x in the next 5 years, DTC brands could be looking at a $100 billion addressable consumer opportunity in India by 2025. To share more insights on the DTC opportunity in India, we hosted  Darpan Sanghvi, Founder & CEO, MyGlamm, on our Hindustan Hamara session on Clubhouse, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital.Hindustan Hamara focuses on conversations with the shapers of India's digital future. Every session we talk to individuals who are shaping the future of India's digital innovation landscape. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/podcast 

Back when Dream11 was founded in 2008, fantasy sports as a category did not exist in India. Today, they have more than 100 million users and are clear market leaders.We kickstarted our first #PayItForward session with Harsh Jain, Co-Founder, and CEO of Dream Sports. We spoke about what inspired Harsh to start Dream11, choosing the right investors to partner with, building the right company culture, and setting audacious goals for yourself. The Pay It Forward series, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital, focuses on conversations with founders and CEOs who have built businesses that have transformed the landscape of the Indian start-up ecosystem. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/podcast 

There are around 12 million Kirana stores in India, which account for 90 percent of domestic retail and FMCG sales. Digitization of the Kirana stores is where the big opportunity lies. On this episode of the #PayItForward Series, Sandeep Deshmukh shares his experiences and key milestones from his journey of building ElasticRun, India's premier Kirana commerce platform. The Pay It Forward series, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital, focuses on conversations with founders and CEOs who have built businesses that have transformed the landscape of the Indian start-up ecosystem. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/podcast 

India's gig economy has the potential to add over 90 million jobs to the economy and add 1.25% to India's GDP. To share more insights on the gig economy and consumer platforms, we had Abhiraj Bhal, Co-founder of Urban Company, on our Hindustan Hamara session on Clubhouse, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital.Hindustan Hamara focuses on conversations with the shapers of India's digital future. Every session we talk to individuals who are shaping the future of India's digital innovation landscape. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/podcast 

Agriculture and allied sectors contribute roughly 14% ($276 Bn in 2020) to India's GDP. Yet we have to date not witnessed a tech unicorn emerge from the sector, despite having over $600M in VC funding over the last 5 years. #Agritech is one of the most important sectors for innovation and inclusivity in India. To share more insights on this sector, we had Taranjeet Singh Bhamra of Agnext on our Hindustan Hamara session on Clubhouse, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital.Hindustan Hamara focuses on conversations with the shapers of India's digital future. Every session we talk to individuals who are shaping the future of India's digital innovation landscape. For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/podcast 

90% of internet users in #India prefer to consume content in their local language.  The next big opportunity in India is #vernacular.  We kickstarted our Hindustan Hamara session on Clubhouse with Aprameya Radhakrishna of Koo India and Sourabh Gupta of Vernacular.ai, hosted by Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari Capital.In this episode, we discuss the vernacular opportunity in India and how it's shaping India's digital ecosystem. Hindustan Hamara focuses on conversations with the shapers of India's digital future. Every session we talk to individuals who are shaping the future of India's digital innovation landscape.For more updates on our sessions, follow Kalaari on Clubhouse: bit.ly/KalaariClub If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/podcast 

ServiceMax, a field service management software provider, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire LiquidFrameworks from a private equity investor Luminate Capital Partners. The financial terms of the transaction remain undisclosed. Luminate Capital Partners had acquired LiquidFrameworks in 2019. In a press release, ServiceMax announced that the deal would expand its field service management solutions, to address unique challenges in the energy sector. Additionally, the acquisition would better position ServiceMax to meet digital service execution demand in the industry and facilitate its expansion of portfolio and go-to-market strategies.Netradyne, a startup using AI to build fleet safety solutions, has announced its Series C fundraise of $150 million from SoftBank Vision Fund 2.  with participation from existing investors Point72 Ventures and M12.Amazon Web Services has announced the general availability of Amazon Health Lake, which is a cloud service that allows healthcare companies to centralize their medical data from various systems, and utilize it to improve patient care. According to AWS, utilizing HealthLake to consolidate different records into a single data repository makes information more accessible. This information includes medical information, such as clinician notes, lab reports, and insurance claims, stored in several databases.LearnWorlds, a platform for creating and selling online courses, has announced that it has raised $32 million in a minority investment led by Insight Partners, global venture capital and private equity firm.Google Cloud India has announced the launch of its new cloud region in Delhi-NCR. This would enable the firm to better their services to clients in various industries, particularly the public sector in India and the Asia-Pacific. The financial details have not been disclosed.Daloopa, a company providing AI-powered document automation and data extraction, has announced its $20 million Series A funding in a round led by Credit Suisse Asset Management's NEXT Investors. Lightyear, a software provider for network infrastructure procurement and management, has announced its Series A fundraise of $13.1 million from Ridge Ventures to boost hiring and resources in development, enhance go-to-market strategies, the company said in a press release. Lightyear had raised its seed round funding in 2020, netting $3.7 million from Amplo. With the close of Series A, the total funding raised by the company crossed 17 million $, as per Crunchbase.  Singapore-based Easy Eat, a startup transforming restaurants into tech companies, has announced a raise of $5 million to expand into deeper Southeast Asia. The round involved participation from Aroa Ventures, family office of Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of OYO; Reddy Futures Family Office; Prophetic Ventures; Maninder Gulati, global chief strategy officer of OYO; Cem Garih, managing Partner at Alarko Ventures, Fethi Sabancı Kamışlı, founder and managing partner of Esas Ventures and a few Silicon Valley-based VCs and angels, as per reports. SecurEnds, a cloud-based identity governance company, has announced a $21 million in Series A funding led by Elephant, one of the largest Series A investments in Atlanta's cybersecurity and tech startup ecosystem, the company stated in a press release. Lantronix has announced the introduction of True Zero-Touch Automation updates for provisioning remotely deployed IoT devices. Lantronix Inc. is a global provider of secure turnkey solutions for the Internet of Things and Remote Environment Management , including SaaS, connectivity, engineering, and intelligent hardware.Tinvio, a Singapore-based startup, has announced that it has raised $12 million in a Series A funding round led by AppWorks Ventures. The startup's strategic investor MUFG Innovation Partners (MUIP), also participated in the round. Other participants include Tinvio's existing investors, Sequoia Capital India's Surge, Global Founders Capital, and Partech Ventures. Digantara, a spacetech startup, has raised $2.5 million as part of their seed funding round led by Kalaari Capital. Digantara plans to utilize the funds to expedite product development and launch its first satellite (technology demonstration mission) into low-Earth orbit, according to the official announcement.MedPay, an API platform, has raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round led by Talent Investor Entrepreneur First and GrowX Ventures. The funds will be used to meet rising demand and enhance the company's current product offerings.

{Karthik Venkateswaran, Co-founder & CEO of Jumbotail} Karthik served with the Indian army in hard combat and had successful stints with marketplaces such as eBay in the US and Flipkart in India before launching Jumbotail along with his Stanford University batchmate Ashish Jhina. On this episode I chat with why Karthik & Ashish united behind this problem, and we deep dive into the business & the inspiration for Karthik to leave the military service and pursue entrepreneurship. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Jumbotail was founded with the objective of enabling the Kiranas or corner stores by envisioning a full stack experience; creating a wholesale marketplace and new retail platform to help retailers with inventory management, a digital PoS, working capital and retail as a service to make them modern convenience stores. Jumbotail's endeavour to build products, platforms, and services for the next billion people of India has landed them in over $55 million in funding from Venture Capital funds such as Nexus VP, Kalaari Capital & Heron Rick fund. Enjoy another classic episode! Jumbotail is hiring massively across verticals, reach out to Karthik & the team via mission@jumbotail.com Stay safe! — V {i'm on Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction to Jumbotail 03:45 - Moving to Entrepreneurship from Military service 06:38 - Challenges building Jumbotail 10:20 - Battling competition in the food & grocery market 15:46 - Distribution is king? 20:28 - Differentiating in a supply rich market 26:45 - Post pandemic user behaviour 31:24 - Managing many business under the umbrella 37:22 - Hiring 39:10 - Learning from combat applied to business

Dropshop, a platform for FMCG distribution, has secured Rs. 9.3 crore in a pre-Series A investment round headed by Inflection Point Ventures (IPV). The Bengaluru-based company is a full-stack platform that enables FMCG companies to digitize last-mile distribution, sales, logistics, and credit to retailers. The funds will be utilized to develop the product and expand the company's operations.Jumbotail, a food, and grocery retail platform and B2B marketplace, has secured Rs. 35 crore ($4.8 million) in a loan round from Alteria Capital. The money will be utilized to expand the business across the country. Ashish Jhina and S Karthik Venkateswaran, Stanford MBA classmates, started the company. The company claims that its new retail technology turns kiranas into modern omnichannel convenience food outlets under the J24 brand in as little as 24-48 hours.SimpliContract, an AI and SaaS-based contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform, has raised $1.8 million in a seed round funding led by Kalaari Capital. Other participants include Picus Capital, Arka Venture Labs, and Digital Sparrow Capital.This fund will support the startup's engineering, AI research, and marketing activities.Enterprise AI and Machine Learning (ML) platform, Dataiku, which helps businesses turn raw data into analytics, has launched Dataiku Online, with the same features as that of its on-premise and the cloud product, but cuts down on the complexity of setup processes involved in the other two. Automattic, the company behind content management systems like WordPress and other publishing platforms, has announced that it has acquired the private journaling app Day One. The financial details of the transactions remain undisclosed. In its blog post, Automattic stated that with this acquisition, Day One would continue to create beautifully designed and innovative experiences having features such as end-to-end encrypted cloud synchronization, rich text formatting with markdown, daily prompts, and much more. Even post the acquisition, Paul Mayne will remain the CEO.Israel's fraud detection startup, nSure.AI which helps digital retailers discern fraudulent and legitimate transactions, has raised $6.8M in a seed funding round led by Disruptive AI and others. Reports state that usually, detecting fraud is more difficult in the sale of non-physical goods as opposed to physical goods, which receive ample buffer time to detect and trace one. nSure.AI shall invest more in its AI and ML technology, using the proceedsConvosight, a community creator monetization platform, has said that it has raised $9 million in a Qualgro-led Series A funding round. Other participants include existing investors IvyCap Ventures and Sequoia Capital India's Surge, as well as Unilever Ventures and Ajay Gupta. San Francisco-based Anrok, a startup that provides modern sales tax solutions for SaaS businesses, has announced the launch of its platform and its $4.3 million seed round fundraise from a Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures-led round.Instadapp, a blockchain startup, has announced that it has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Standard Crypto. Other participants include DeFi Alliance, Longhash Ventures, and Yearn Founder Andre Cronje. The fund will be used to finish the startup's move into the middleware layers for DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and support the ecosystem project built on top of the Instadapp protocol.

 Today’s guest is a two time founder and I had the special privilege of observing him work from very close quarters.  Paavan co-founded Winzo Games which was funded by the seed program of Kalaari Capital, where I had also worked . This is also one of my favorite episodes because of the candid conversation we both had including some very difficult conversations. Paavan earlier co-founded Zostel & Zorooms which has been in news since its ill-fated acquisition by Oyo Rooms. Not to be deterred he then went on to founding Winzo a Real Money Gaming platform targeting the next billion users. With over 25 million registered users, 5 million monthly users and a Billion transactions  Winzo has become a serious contender in India’s gaming space. I talked to Paavan about the lessons from his Zostel experience and his vision for Winzo.You can find me on Twitter @tweet_kp. And, check out our website at https://www.thetermsheetpodcast.com. Intro music by Andy Slatter. Additional background music by Scott Buckley – www.scottbuckley.com.au 

Yes, been a while but we're back with a packed episode! On this episode, episode 51, I speak with Rajiv Srivatsa a co-founder of a well loved consumer brand in the digital age, UrbanLadder. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Youtube links: https://anchor.fm/stars-and-startups — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Super fun chat with Rajiv on building a consumer brand in India. UrbanLadder was likely the big daddy of the Direct 2 Consumer trend in India. No retail stores, creating a brand, selling only private labels with only UL branded products. We discuss how using NPS in different areas of the business can help retain customers, the UL journey & solid advice for brands starting up now. Rajiv has recently joined the Singapore-based early-stage venture capital and private equity firm Antler as head of India and local partner. Do reach out via Linkedin, he's extremely helpful! Do share the episode, would be awesome if you did! — Varun {host is on Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 00:15 - Intro to Rajiv & UL 07:17 - Early days of building a customer centric brand 09:02 - Using new channels for creating low cost marketing 12:40 - Scarcity & authenticity to drive user demand 13:30 - Genesis for Urban Ladder 15:40 - Keeping NPS as the North Star for Urban Ladder 21:48 - Tracking & setting up NPS 24:22 - Aligning & setting Brand values 26:43 - Learnings from the downswing of UL 32:00 - Is India ready to buy furniture online* 37:00 - Reflecting on experiences and getting into the habit of writing & being vulnerable 40:24 - Real Reasons to Startup 43:46 - Intro to Antler 47:40 - Closing thoughts Urban Ladder had raised Rs 770 Cr since 2012 and was acquired by Reliance for Rs 182 Cr in November 2020. Urban Ladder had raised capital from likes of Steadview, Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners and Kalaari Capital. The company had been struggling for the last two years of existence to find new backers whereas existing investors had not backed the company in follow on rounds. Urban Ladder and Pepperfry promised to disrupt the unorganised furniture and home decor market during the 2012-13 period. However some believe that Urban Ladder struggled for several reasons including challenges in supply chain management and believe that Ikea's entry had dried up the investors' confidence in the segment. With the acquisition of Urban Ladder, Pepperfry is the only independent large player in the online furniture segment, recently raising a $40 million round led by Pidilite at a valuation over $460 million.

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 middle of the pandemic? (1:57)Challenges of raising a fund during the pandemic? (5:29)Vinod's journey into VC (11:23)How do you do cold outreach to VCs (19:10)Chief Hustle Officer –– what do you mean by that? (29:30)Sourcing startups – Cold vs Direct (35:43)Experience at Kalaari (39:09)Experience which had the most impact on Vinod's life (45:41)Responsibilities that VCs bear on nurturing the ecosystem (54:30)How do you encourage sustainable businesses within VC? (1:01:14)Rapid fire (1:09:35)

In this episode, Rajiv Srivatsa, Partner @Antler India & Co-founder @Urban Ladder, joins our host Digjay, to talk about the Antler India program, building & scaling Urban Ladder, raising funds from Mr. Ratan Tata, difference in fundraising approach between 0-1 & 1-10 stage, managing stakeholders expectations & overcoming valleys of death as a founder. Prior to joining Antler India, Rajiv co-founded Urban Ladder (UL), one of India's top omni-channel furniture brand. Over ~8 years, UL raised over $100mm from top Indian VCs, like Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners (now Elevation Capital) & Steadview Capital. Prior to UL, he served as a Sr Product Manager with Yahoo. An IIT Madras/ IIM Bangalore alum, Rajiv has been featured multiple times on the Fortune 40 U/ 40 India list. You can connect with him here on Linkedin / Twitter ---- Show notes: 1. (01:35) Rajiv's background; Antler's mission & entry into India 2. (08:06) Unpacking the fundraising lifecycle of a startup 3. (12:06) Antler India operating model 4. (18:19) Building & scaling Urban ladder 5. (28:35) Raising funds from Mr. Ratan Tata; Difference in fundraising between 0-1 & 1-10 stage of a startup 6. (30:49) Managing expectations of different stakeholders of a company 7. (37:57) Overcoming valleys of death as a founder 8. (41:36) How being an entrepreneur has shaped Rajiv's personality over the years? 9. (44:46) Rapid fire and closing remarks ---- If you liked our episode, you can subscribe to our podcast on any of the major podcasting platforms like Spotify, Apple iTunes, Google Podcasts. We would really appreciate if you could leave us a review on Apple iTunes. This will help others discover the podcast. You can visit thevcpreneur.com and follow us on Twitter @thevcpreneur_ & Instagram @thevcpreneur for more episodes and interesting insights on the startup ecosystem. You can also follow our host Digjay on Linkedin & Twitter

Vani Kola is the Founder and Managing Director of Kalaari Capital, one of India's leading early-stage venture capital firms! In her recent LinkedIn post, Vani shares about "7 Tips to Pick a Right Co-founder?" This podcast, is the excerpt of that post.

EP49: {Rohan Bhargava, Co-Founder of CashKaro} I speak with Rohan on building a business offering cashbacks that works with over 1500+ e-commerce websites. Famously, Cashkaro is a Ratan Tata backed startup. Rohan shares why he & his wife Swati gave up lucrative jobs in finance, moved back to India from London in the early days of starting up, how affiliate businesses operate and a lot more on this extremely intriguing conversation! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — As a category leader, CashKaro has made cashbacks an attractive way to save money for online shoppers, while offering marketers a high ROI acquisition and retention channel. Other Cashkaro properties includes Pouring Pounds, one of largest player in the UK, and Earnkaro which enables its users become entrepreneurs to make some additional cash by sharing deals. CashKaro is India's largest Cashback & Coupons site. The only venture capital backed Cashback site, funded by Kalaari Capital and Mr. Ratan Tata. More recently received $10 M in a Series B funding round led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP). Hope you enjoy another S&S special. Have a listen, share feedback and share the episode! Stay Safe! - V ( @varunvummidi ) Timeline: 1:00 - Introduction to Cashkaro & starting up 09:07 - The Cashkaro journey 12:45 - Convincing the wife to join the journey 15:40 - Starting off as a B2B service 19:21 - Transitioning Cashkaro to the Indian audience in 2014 23:15 - Raising money for Cashkaro & moving to India from London 26:24 - How has affiliate marketing budgets have changed since 2015 31:15 - Choosing Affiliate marketing vs Performance marketing 34:43 - Does affiliate marketing cannibalise an existing user? 36:00 - Can you build a moat in with cashbacks 41:40 - Launching Earnkaro - enticing entrepreneurs 47:03 - Biggest challenge of building CK 49:20 - What's the future for deals platforms?

EP42: {Ankit Ratan, Co-Founder of Signzy} Regulation is probably one of the key pillars of banking. Sometimes it does become an excuse for being the thing that ails the experience. All that is changing now with the emergence of Reg-Tech. The use of Video KYC, Aadhar authentication layer, digital lockers & the India Stack is enabling a lot of that change. One of those companies that is quietly enabling the BFSI sector is Signzy. Ankit, a silver medalist from IIT Delhi (2011), had worked in New York deploying fraud analytics solutions at Citi Bank and Metlife. In 2013, started an analytics company that worked with large private banks in detecting fraud, in India before founding Signzy along with Ankur Pandey, and brother Arpit Ratan. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Signzy currently offers a digital on-boarding solution for banks, NBFCs and other financial institutions, enabling them to go digital. Signzy solves for the poor consumer experiences in managing regulatory compliance by handling workflows. Their no-code AI model builder and Fintech API Marketplace of over 200+ APIs have enabled them to verify more than 3M documents per day without compromising on quality & security. Over 90+ FIs globally including the 4 largest banks in India and a Top 3 acquiring Bank in US trust Signzy. Signzy has raised funds from Stellaris Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital. Angel investors like Rajan Anandan, Amrish Rau, Dilip Khandelwal, and Vikram Chachra.. Stay safe & share the episode! - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 01:00 - Identifying the problem statement 04:45 - Educating and working with Bankers 07:27 - Stopped using the word Blockchain 10:21 - Working with BFSI on problems that they are not building for themselves 12:29 - What is Signzy today? 16:24 - Involvement of the Regulator & supporting clients with legal interpretations 19:03 - Advantages of having a Lawyer as a Sales co-founder in RegTech 23:30 - Change helps RegTech players 26:05 - Understanding when to "build" Product? 30:39 - Being part of Accelerators (K-Start, Google Launchpad & Mastercard StartPath) 41:36 - Selling to Global clients from India 46:05 - Business Model of Signzy 47:23 - On Premise vs Cloud for FIs 51:00 - Growth

In this episode of the #KalaariPodcast, Divya Gokulnath, Co-founder of Byju's, shares her perspective1. Why brand advocacy is a crucial metric for #customer retention 2. How it's essential not just to start a mission-driven company, but also, stay mission-driven 3. How mentors are important to encourage #womenleaders 4. Her approach to building teams for a fast scaling company and how #tech plays a vital role in that When it comes to #startups, there is no fast track to #success. Almost all startup teams go through a variety of crises and challenges Behind The Scenes. Having been a part of many startup journeys over the last decade at Kalaari Capital, we believe that there are valuable lessons to be gained from the journeys of others. These episodes from Kalaari come from our continued commitment to empower and encourage #entrepreneurship.podcasts@kalaari.com

In this episode of the #KalaariPodcast, Shamik Sharma, Head of Digital Initiatives at CureFit, shares his perspective on:·      Why lateral thinking is key to analyse and stay ahead of new #tech trends ·      How to not get drawn into hype cycles of tech ·      How to make quick #pivots·      His thesis on video tech & the potential applicationsWhen it comes to #startups, there is no fast track to #success. Almost all startup teams go through a variety of crises and challenges Behind The Scenes. Having been a part of many startup journeys over the last decade at Kalaari Capital, we believe that there are valuable lessons to be gained from the journeys of others. These episodes from Kalaari come from our continued commitment to empower and encourage #entrepreneursIf you have any suggestions, please reach out to us, podcasts@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you. 

From Ambala to Singapore to London & then back to India! Here is the story of Swati Bhargava, the Co-Founder of CashKaro.com India's largest & fastest growing cashback & coupons site. Remember your class topper in school? Well, Swati was the scholar of her batch scoring a 100/100 in maths in her 10th standard board exams. A young Ambala girl aspiring to study at the prestigious St. Stephens College in Delhi, but as the saying goes “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans” - Life had alternate plans for Swati & she flew to Singapore instead to complete her further schooling after winning a scholarship from the Singaporean government.  Earning another scholarship Swati flew next to London to study at the revered London School of Economics. Here in London Swati began her career as a part of the Investment Banking team at Goldman Sachs. It was also here that she met her husband and co-founder.  While booking her honeymoon trip she came across the concept of cashback & an idea was born which eventually led to her first startup - Pouring Pounds & then to CashKaro.  Today CashKaro is the only VC backed cashback site and has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Kalaari Capital & has also raised investment from Ratan Tata! (Do not miss out on this anecdote where Swati pitched CashKaro to Ratan Data)  Swati is a recipient of  India's first Digital Women Award for the Best Service Offering Company in the Ecommerce Industry & has also been featured in Fortune 40 Under 40 List in 2019. She has also been a keynote speaker at several prestigious events.  Here are our key takeaways from our conversation with Swati:  Raising angel funding in 48 hours Customer acquisition strategy Pitching to Ratan Tata.  Growing an engaged social media followership

EP21: 55 million app downloads, business of magazines & newspapers and starting with apps early {Girish Ramdas, Co-founder & CEO of Magzter} If you've had a smart phone since early days you'd likely recognise Magzter. Along with Zinio they were they apps that you could find your favourite magazines from across the world to access and read. They have over 55 million downloads of their apps and Girish speaks off how they hit 1 million downloads a months recently and likely greater than normal downloads due to COVID. On the episode I speak with Girish Ramdas, the CEO of Magzter. We have an unhinged conversation about Magzter, their successes, the journey of starting and scaling. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Magzter is hiring! Do check them out. Founded in 2011, by C.R. Venkatesh, Girish Ramdas & Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan. Magzter has raised a total of US$ 13M from investors including the Singapore Press Holdings & Kalaari Capital. This episode on YouTube . Timeline: 02:27 - Inspiration for Magzter 03:55 - App businesses in early '10s 05:42 - Everyone had a Magzter app 07:17 - The reading destination 08:38 - Deprioritizing products & choosing a path 11:12 - Achieving product market fit after 4-5 years (2015) 11:47 - Newspapers leading to max DAUs; shift in habit 14:14 - National gold medals in rifle shooting & staying active 18:02 - Running a marathon 21:42 - Yogic practice 25:20 - Operating from NYC 26:22 - B2B adoption & new use cases 32:28 - Changing interaction 35:27 - Discovering the Zone use case 37:12 - COVID Baby 38:52 - “Trending” content in education? 40:37 - Academic journals 43:37 - 1 Million download a month, 50% growth in May 43:42 - Retention 45:37 - Splitting the pie 47:27 - User Generated Content 49:37 - Savings using Magzter 50:32 - Form factor 55:12 - Content to Commerce via Magzter 57:53 - Services Business & managing that business 1:03:42 -Trap of being in the services businesses 1:05:02 - Hardware play, moving into new verticals 1:08:49 - Raising money & becoming cashflow positive 1:12:49 - Hiring

CashKaro's Co-Founder, Swati Bhargava is a global entrepreneur, who along with Co-Founder, Rohan Bhargava has turned around India's online shopping landscape. Together they ensure users save money in the form of Cashback whenever they shop online and make CashKaro a household name. A Fortune 40Under40 entrepreneur, Swati is an exemplary leader with over 15 years of work experience. At CashKaro she spearheads departments like Investor Relations, Marketing & PR, Strategic Partnerships & Alliances among other domains. CashKaro is India's Largest Cashback & Coupons Site which has nearly 4Mn registered users. It is also India's #1 savings destination as here users can get the best Cashback deals over discounts from 1,500+ online retailers. One can shop for categories such as electronics, fashion, large appliances, medicines, grocery, etc., via CashKaro and earn extra Cashback on every purchase. CashKaro is the only VC funded Cashback site in India and has so far raised a total of $4.6Mn led by Kalaari Capital and Mr Ratan Tata.

Vani Kola, Founder and MD, Kalaari Capital speaks to Business Insider's Chief Editor Sriram Iyer about the current lockdown and what kind if sectors are likely to see an uptick after the lockdown eases.

Dev Bajaj is a Venture Partner at Kalaari Capital, an early-stage, technology-oriented VC firm headquartered in Bangalore, India. Prior to joining Kalaari, Dev founded MITRA, one of India's largest AgTech startups. Dev built and led a team of 150 people to sell 4 different patented technologies. In 2018, Mahindra & Mahindra, the largest tractor company in the world, entered into an agreement to acquire MITRA to grow M&M's horticulture business.Dev spent the early years of his career in investment banking and private equity in the US, and then went on to receive his MBA from INSEAD.Startups in his portfolio include: Instamojo, RKSV, Active Intelligence, Agnext.You can follow Dev on Twitter – @devneetbajaj and read more about him here. While you're at it you can also follow our host, Akash Bhat - @bhatvakash and visit us at thedesivc.com…Glossary of terms you will encounter in this episode:1. APRU – APRU or Average revenue per unit is the measure of the revenue generated per unit or user.2. DAU – DAU or Daily Active User is the measure of how many users visit or interact with the product or service over a given interval (i.e. per day)3. MAU – MAU or Monthly Active User is the measure of how many users visit or interact with the product or service over a given interval (i.e. per month)4. GMV – GMV or Gross merchandise value is the total value of merchandise sold over a given period of time through a customer-to-customer exchange platforms.5. GTV – GTV or Gross Transaction Value is the measure of number of items sold multiplied by the price collected6. Unit Economics – direct revenues and costs associated with a particular business model, and are specifically expressed on a per unit basis7. EBITDA – EBITDA or earnings, before interest expenses, taxes, depreciation, and amortization is a proxy for a company's current operating profitability i.e. how much profit it makes with its present assets and its operations on the products it produces and sells, as well as providing a proxy for cash flow.8. NPS – NPS or Net Promoter Score is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company's products or services to others. It is used as a proxy for gauging the customer's overall satisfaction with a company's product or service and the customer's loyalty to the brand.9. Me-too business: Businesses that are designed to be similar to a very popular product made by another company (sometimes in an another country).10. Momentum Investing: Momentum investing involves a strategy to capitalize on the continuance of an existing market trend.…In this episode, you'll learn about:1. Dev's story and how he ended up as an investor2. Responsible and sustainable investing and why it is more important than ever before3. Growth metrics important for startups4. His doubts about FinTech and why the funding numbers in FinTech are misleading5. Successful traits of entrepreneurs from within Kalaari's portfolio6. Things he'd like to change about Indian VC7. Portfolio companies that he's most excited about8. Dev's insights on investing and growing businesses9. Why VCs ask for business plans