Wouldn't call it a lobby, more like closed door community. Many of them are often paid a success fee to get investors. But yes, such people do exist.

Generalist

Do elaborate 
 Which institutions / which background? 
 Which kind of investors did you talk to? Were they angels or microVCs or early VC?

Business analyst

Recently I met a few investors to seek funding for my startup, my observation was there is a Looby which promotes founders from specific institutions or from specific background and has a bais appr...

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Recently I met a few investors to seek funding for my startup, my observation was there is a Looby which promotes founders from specific institutions or from specific background and has a bais approach. 
Am I right or this is just my perception.

Investors lobby

Founder

Investors lobby- Grapevine

So many news of fake or bankrupt investment firms. What pointers do you check/see before accepting the funds?

[Startup Series] Q2. To founders, how do analyse VC/investors for funding?

Consultant

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!

VC here. Doing this for fun.
Don't take all views seriously.

Comment a startup's name, I'll share if it's promising or whatever I know

Analyst

willl try my best to be honest, ask me anything

AMA - I work at a VC fund

Do you find high quality, with strong operator experience? I'm a bits21 grad looking to start up and wanted to get a lay of the land. Either funds or VC partner names!

Which VC in India

Product Owner

Something I've found very frustrating while pitching to investors, platforms and funds is that so many of them actually just bait and switch.

They pose like gyani people earnestly looking for investments or helping entrepreneurs, but when you speak to them they start selling you their services.

Fundraise is apparently just a step away, need to signup here first, or create xyz report first, or do outreach to xyz number of people, or do market research and fresh pitch deck creation, or hire xyz consultant/agency to get to the "next level" - basically a bunch of barriers you need to pay to clear despite having a profitable business with paying customers. 

Fact of the matter is there are plenty of people raising money based off of pitch decks with no MVP , or even just the right conversations with the right people. But they are rare and hard to find organically. Requires lots of networking and connecting dots over months and years.

The point is, this selling in the guise of securing investment is tiresome and a waste of time for most entrepreneurs. They probably do get a few suckers occasionally which helps them stay afloat I guess.

Some of them might even take your ideas and start building something of their own or back someone to build it under them. Once you start pitching, the deck starts floating around in VC groups and networks mostly beyond the reach of the average entrepreneur.

Considering all this, just keeping one's head down and bootstrapping forever in peace seems like a better approach.

Disingenuous behaviour in startup ecosystem

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Go ahead, ask if we pushed founders to commit fraud.

AMA: Worked at tier 2 VC - got in post a few years of workex and a tier 2 Indian uni

Absolutely sad to see the state of the startups, most of them.
I am a founder myself, and this is a post with equal disappointment with myself as much as it is for anyone else who relates.
Look at all these companies that have raised shit tons of capital, and now make a fraction of money that has been invested in them.
The raised money is spent on outsized, non business sense making acquisition costs, only to keep repeating it till the tap runs dry.
Then when all stakeholders get bored, the service quality plummets, the employees are fired and whole sectors are admonished as being bad.

But, my question is, which sector where large sums of money was invested in early days have come out with flying colours. Fucking nothing !
Edtech, proptech, agritech, ecommerce etc. etc. etc. kuch bhi nahi. 

Is there any sector where a startup which has raised in the 100s of millions in the first 5 years have actually built a sustainable business at any scale ?
Then scaling down, isse acha, scale slowly.
The worst part of this whole drama, is pushing the innovation wheel backward and destroying customer sentiment.

Isse acha, raise less money inititally, build slowly, and only scale when the market is ready. Artifical growth makes no sense, unless you have a treasure chest that shall never run out.
Even in that case, spend the money on assets and not on random acquisition costs, direct or indirect.

As founders, let's do better, nahi ?

Rant or is it ?

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!

Looks like a big round. What’s their business model?

Software Developer

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

Hey everyone. 

Thought I could do an AMA. A bit about me - have 4 years of work experience and graduated from a non engineering college. Was at a startup before (from Series B to Series D) before becoming a VC

Personally look at consumer and B2B investments here 

Happy to answer any questions around life as a junior VC, startup ecosystem, career growth etc.

AMA: I work at a large VC Fund focusing on early stage investments

Investment Associate

Hello! As someone who works with startups (not in)and has a well paying job, I am often intrigued and keen to invest money (say a few lacs, and provide some mentorship) as a micro angel investor in early age pre series/ seed rounds,  to try my hand. Not talking about becoming a LP or joining a VC/PE. (I know the pros and cos, the glamour and the ugly pieces) . While there are some fintech startups where you can invest as low as 5000/- in a startup, I believe these aren’t for me. Any guidance on how I begin and any learnings?

P.s have posted under finance section too. But thought might get some guidance  here too!

Becoming a micro angel investor for investments?

Account manager

Welcome to Confessions's Private Community

When I was in 12th and gave my exams for JEE Mains I got -

Physics : 1
Chemistry : 2
Maths : -3

Basically:0 but it was intentional. I got 99% on my 12th and 10th board. Qualified for NERIST Entrance Exam. Got everything but wanted to prove a point, “One piece of paper won’t decide my future.”

Guess I was wrong. Now no investors wants to invest in my ideas because they look for pedigree.

My friends got into IIT Bombay, Delhi and Kharagpur. But unfortunately for them they couldn’t get a job????

My friend who got into IITK got the highest marks in our state batch of 2018. Now his doing coaching. My IITB friend didn’t get an interview nor placement. Lastly my IITD friend is back at studying for MTech.

Don’t understand what is happening. I can build but investors don’t invest. They can work but got no job.￼

Biggest regret of not getting in IIT

Welcome to Personal Finance's Private Community

Hello! As someone who works with startups (not in)and has a well paying job, I am often intrigued and keen to invest money (say a few lacs, and provide some mentorship) as a micro angel investor in early age pre series/ seed rounds,  to try my hand. Not talking about becoming a LP or joining a VC/PE. (I know the pros and cos, the glamour and the ugly pieces) . While there are some fintech startups where you can invest as low as 5000/- in a startup, I believe these aren’t for me. Any guidance on how I begin. (Apart from- go out there and network with startup founders and events) ?

Becoming a micro angel investors.

AMA- 15 yrs exp across consulting, VC & Growth stage company. Now a founder

I have been following the Indian startup scene for a while now, and I have to say that I am not impressed. It seems like most of the startups here are nothing more than people chasing quick bucks and the entire scene is a circlejerk of people doing everything, attending these stupid conferences and gatherings than actually building something game-changing.

Every founder is chasing nothing more than a valuation just so they can exit and there’s nothing wrong with it but don’t sit on a moral high ground talking about building business etc. There’s a reason we don’t see startups here penetrating west because most of the founders in the Indian ecosystem reek of ego and it’s all because we don’t judge business on merit but based on the degree the founders have. We all can count stupid startups draining money all because they are from some IIT or IIM or now some fancy degree from Ivy and yes it takes effort and hard work to reach there. Still, it automatically doesn’t translate to you naturally being better than a guy working his ass off to make up that difference.

Also, just because you used your dad’s money to start a 'Venture Firm or be an angel investor after college doesn’t mean you’re an expert at everything. You’re just adding to the noise and the hype that is already too much in this space. You’re not helping anyone but yourself and your ego.

So a friendly reminder can we all actually focus on building things based on hard work and merit instead of glorifying this circlejerk. Can we stop being obsessed with funding rounds and valuations and start being obsessed with solving real problems and creating value for customers and society? Can we stop being influenced by the media and the hype and start being influenced by the data and the feedback? Can we stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution?

Startup scene being a complete circlejerk.

Product Manager

Sharing frustrations with starting up a business. In my career I have raised over $30m over multiple rounds.

Co-founders in non-business roles get pushed out by politics. Sharing control with co-founders is messy, inconvenient, time consuming. Money lets you hire people who have to answer to you.

If you are not the main ‘Business person’ in a startup high chance you are disposable, no matter what skills you have. And it sucks to spend so much effort only to get bullied out and left with nothing.

Some investors will follow you on social media, if your business is not growing QoQ don’t post anything on social media that implies you are not working every weekend. They will ask why you are not working.

 If you are CEO, be ready for every random person to tell you how to run your business. Not in a ‘friendly advice’ kind of way, if you are the CEO you have a target on your back.

 Investors don’t know about your industry or have very dated knowledge. Some will just say random tips like ‘try web3’ or ‘try SaaS’ and blame you for following their advice when it fails.

 Your progress is measured against fraud companies who fake numbers, or the 1 in thousands who succeed. Get made to feel like you are failing to live up to super high expectations constantly.

 Employees work half your hours, off sick usuall one day a week, deliver next to nothing and expect 20% hikes every year because that’s what their friends make, or they read some dumb startup hires freshers at 20LPA. 

Smooth talking people with the same idea as you, no traction, never shipped a product in life, will raise a huge seed round due to 'pedigree' and spend it all on self promotion. You will always be compared to these clowns who find ways to lecture others while building nothing of value.

Investors lobby

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