Software Engineer

Indian startup fundraising be like

Indian startup fundraising be like- Grapevine

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Acquiring funding for a startup in india has become a hassle. I myself have been doing research on seed funding Vc's and angel investors. All they ask is pitch deck and LinkedIn profile. Which they don't even go through and just reply with an email saying we are not eligible for funding. On the other side US and other countries are getting funding at the ideation stage. I guess we can't even go for crowdfunding. Started building MVP, but halfway through the hurdle and unable to resume the development due to limited resources.

Tired of applying everywhere for funding.

Too many instances of global funds entering India. This will be interesting. The big existing ones (Peak, LSIP, Accel, Elevation) will be forced to deploy because the new ones will  have a lot more appetite. 

General Catalyst investing in Zepto for example. Entering with a bang.
Glade Brook, GC, and rumours of the two biggest ones in the US - one that used to exist earlier here.

Interesting times ahead for founders and invest.

Indian VC ecosystem heating up, global funds incoming

Investment Associate

Hi folks, 

I'm Kashish, the CEO of EquityList and Founder of Cloud Capital which I run as a solo GP.
A little bit about what we do: 

EquityList is a full-stack equity management platform by AngelList India. Companies across India, US and Singapore use EquityList to manage their cap table, stock options (ESOP/SAR), shareholders, and related compliances. Managing equity for 10k+ stakeholders, 250+ companies and ~$1B in stock options.

Cloud Capital has deployed $8M+ in 55+ startups such as Airmeet, Rupifi, Orange Health, DevRev, ZET (OneCode) and others. I've also angel invested in startups such as OSlash, Atlys, Chronicle, Even Healthcare and others.

Excited to do this AMA, and look forward to answering any of your questions about ESOPs, cap table management, investing, entrepreneurship, and more!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kashisharma

Live AMA: Hey everyone, I'm Kashish, CEO of EquityList. Ask me anything!

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Which startups are in talks to raise funds?

Content Strategist

I want to find seed stage startups to join as a founding engineer. I want to take some risk while I can and try if I can get a good return.

How should I go about this? 

I have 7 years of experience. Building distributed systems, backend services with Go, Clojure, etc. I have some frontend experience as well with SvelteKit, Tailwind, etc. I also made a SaaS product recently and got around 10 small businesses as customers on subscription. The product itself got acquired for 5 figures USD after I ran it for 2 months

How to find seed stage startups?

Take a free subscription of crunchbase. Find startups funded in the last 2 years by good funds and cancel subscription. The founders are generally easy to cold call

Founder

Painful to see so many startups run out of money/ shut down. Is your company doing good?

Founders are not shitposting on the socials, so that’s good I think 😅

Second meeting with the guy, thought his outlook might improve because we had better numbers than the first meeting (few months ago). Didn't even remember the first conversation, or our business, didn't do any research on our startup or industry before the meeting. Kept forcing opinions on me instead of listening, same as the first meeting.

Extremely rude and a waste of time. He said many things no founder should say, that too for another founder.

(Pitching is difficult as is, rejection is common and it's very easy to get demotivated)

When I said I'll share my experience with other founders and startups so they don't engage with that platform, got a reply saying they'll send me a defamation notice if I do, and will also tell other investors in the community that we are doing this startup as a "hobby" and no investor will come onboard.

It's amazing to see the kind of arrogance some people have, especially in the investor and VC network. Would have loved to name and shame him but I have better things to do than to get into petty court cases with assholes. 

Fellow founders, please be very careful and choosy with who you talk to about your startup's fundraise. Indian VC ecosystem is mostly a circlejerk and a shitshow. You're better off raising from friends and family and even individual angel investors than trying to bargain with devils in disguise.

I will most likely stop pitching for investment altogether and focus on growing my profitability than waste time convincing idiots who'd rather throw money on pitch decks without an MVP and startups without PMF, revenue or profitability.

/endrant

Defamation notice threat: Pitching in India

Fuck the defamation notice. Don’t take shit from anyone, if someone crosses their line, reply to them then and there, so that you never think about that again. 
  
 VC and angel market is big in India now. No one has full control of the full ecosystem.  
 This is not Bollywood and there is not Salman khan and Karan Johar. 
  
 Here even fraudsters are getting second chance. Keep building.

Generalist

There are multiple companies worldwide leading the forefront of AI, with inovative strides in GPTs, Multi Agent models, GANs etc. However, most Indian AI startups are not working on the cutting edge. Rather, most of them are building wrappers around GPT-4 for a consumer experience.

With the lack of any meaningful innovation within this space, is it unreasonable for Indian founders to raise on similar multiples as our counterparts in the west?

Because honestly? I can see a lot of "crypto-nerd" founders shilling the new oil called "AI" after their previous NFT/crypto/ICO-crap didn't float.

[Thread] Will AI in India be the next Crypto?

Product Manager

Picture speaks a thousand words

How to become investor in a very early stage start up? Like investing 2/3 lakh per company?

For people working in startups, how do you access knowledge of an industry. Lets say, for example, I want to understand the supply chain of a startup operating in FMCG category. As a BCG consultant, I always had access to expert networks, which honestly cost a fortune. I just wish to know how startups navigate this challenge and what do you think might help in solving the access problem

Accessing Industry Knowledge

Consultant

-Online brands are expanding offline to achieve scale
 -Late stage startups are gearing towards profitability earlier than planned 
-Biz models built on behavior during Covid are struggling (like edtech) 
-Startups which got funded due to TikTok ban are struggling 
-Finfluencers are soon expected to struggle
 -Credit Fintech w/o NBFC license is a struggle
 -Very few consumer content startups frm India are seeing scale and profitability
 -RMG is struggling due to regulations
 -India focused creator economy startups finding it difficult to scale 
-PLG led Indian SaaS startups not able to cross $20M ARR
 -Some VCs finding it tough to raise without DPI 
-Public markets thrashing innovative/vanity metrics of pvt VC funded cos. and their pvt market valuations 
-Series B and beyond is tough, down round/flat round is now common
 - Deals happening at single digit ARR multiple for SaaS valuations 
- Web3 startups not getting funded 
- Most GenAI startups not able to build any defensibility
- Most B2B Commerce startups are not able to increase gross margins or reduce NWC
 - CACs are ever increasing 
- Compliance issues at many startups - Layoffs to continue 
- startups which got funded in 2021, will soon be out of runway
 - no liquidity event for vested ESOPs in most Indian startups
 - secondaries happening at 35% discount in some cases 
- deal closure times have become 2x - less FOMO amongst VCs 
- More instances of M&A falling through

Harsh realities of Indian startup ecosystem

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

Dukaan turned profitable

Isne Twitter post auto trigger pe rakh diya tha. 
  
 if profit > 0 { 
  postOnTwitter(); 
  } else { 
  initiateLayoffAndCreatePostOnAI(); 
 }

What could they do to undo this downward spiral?

How long before Byjus runs out of funds?

Year is ending in another 1 month.
A rough year for many startups winding off
Which startups do you think will wind off in next, 6 months?
Which startup should be saved and get VC fundings for continuing operations as Dhandha mode

Belly up startups

Have been an entrepreneur since college days. Went full time on same idea and worked on it for a good 4 years full time before starting something new, raising some money, later pivoting (fucked up here) and eventually shutting shop last year. 

Life has been tough since then since there is no clarity on what to spend next 2-5 years on - acquisition offer falling apart, tried looking for jobs but didn't finalise and later did a bit of consulting (good pay but didn't really work out).

I now have a few good conversations going on right now - leading product & EIR/Founders Office. What do you suggest would be an ideal thing to do? 

Profile - Solid Generalist. Non tech. Money ain't really an issue right now but can't stay dependent on savings for so long - its stupid.

PS - If you or someone you know is hiring, please reach out. Happy exploring ideas as well.

2 time ex-founder / 6+ years of entrepreneurial experience

The timing of Zeptos fundraise is significant given the slump in investments into growth- and late-stage startups on the one hand and the correction being witnessed in the quick commerce segment on the other.

Unicorn drought ends as Zepto raises $200 million at $1.4 billion valuation

Zepto becomes India's 1st 2023 unicorn

Everything kept aside, it’s genuinely awe-inspiring that they’ve been able to do this in a market with close to zero interest in consumer internet plays, and most models failing  
  
 There’s definitely something about the way they executed. And many good things are said within the ecosystem about Aadit as a founder!

Analyst

Hey Everyone,

I'm Vaibhav Vardhan, Co-Founder & CEO at Inc42. We are India’s #1 startup media & intelligence platform that informs, educates and empowers startup leaders & operators through our incisive reporting and industry-leading executive programs like FounderX.

I'd love to chat with you folks about my journey in building Inc42, why we’ve built FounderX and more!

Ask Me Anything :)
I’ll be back at 5PM and answer all your questions!

I'm Vaibhav Vardhan, Co-Founder & CEO of Inc42. Ask me anything!

300+ startups got a deal ( sorry funding, shark tank degraded my startup vocab)

Indian startups mopped up $2.77 billion across 326 deals in the March quarter or Q1 2024, as per data compiled by TheKredible.

Indian startups mop up $2.77 Bn in March 2024 quarter: Report

Funding winter is over

Senior Consultant

https://anonymfile.com/NEEXl/tiger-global-draft-of-new-yorker-story-doing-the-rounds-in-nyc.pdf

TLDR: Tiger Global may pass soon.

Leaked NewYorker Article on Tiger Global

A few summary points:
- LP risk is over exposed to VC funds (Tiger, for these LPs)
- Tiger has had abysmal investments and returns these last few years
- They've actively looking to pass on their assets to buyers where they can find them 
- Lee Fixel, the most prolific investor they had left a few years back
- The fund has been led by Scott Shleifer; who has reported to been an alcoholic, hosts drug parties, and invests with very little DD/deep dive.

All in all, this is scary stuff. With Softbank and Tiger both seeing difficult times, this feels like the Lehman moment for the VC industry.

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