"But hey, we're making an SF Commons in the middle of Bengaluru."

Program Manager

Who do we think are the stupidest VC's in India/Globally? Funding batshit crazy companies with negligible diligence or thought   I'll go first  an orange and black striped animal + global

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Who do we think are the stupidest VC's in India/Globally? Funding batshit crazy companies with negligible diligence or thought 

I'll go first - an orange and black striped animal + global

Stupidest VC's

Investor

Stupidest VC's- Grapevine

So finally, someone spoke about this fraudulent startup AstroTalk. How they operate and how they take advantage of gullible people, is completely explained in the video. These kinds of startups need to be busted on LinkedIn and other social media platforms so that no one calls prey for such cheap tactics. This is just another BYJUs in the making. The cofounder is an IIT IIM grad. Shows how greed can even pollute the minds of even highly educated people. Really don't understand how the VCs can be so fucking dumb, funding them with 165 Crores!! Shocking but it isn't surprising since the Indian Startup ecosystem is filled with such scam artists.

Scam called AstroTalk - BYJUs 2.0

Jab tak hum jaise log IIM/IITians ki G chaat te rahenge tab tak ye hume chutiya banate rahenge. 4 din baad tum chutiye sab bhool jaoge fir kisi naye IIT/IIM led startup ko linkedin par praise karoge jab tak wo bubble itna bada na ho jaye ki use criticise kar pao…fir kisi anonymous platform par aajakr “OMG SO FUCKING DISGUSTING” bold doge kyuki linkedin par to tumhari gaand thandi ho jati hai kisi ko criticise karte hue…aur ye cycle bas chalta rahega…so moral of the story is, tum hi log chutiye ho wo nahi.

Product Designer

Sales

Which VC fund is the worst in India?

Venture Capital

Saw this on X so made an Indian VC version 😂

I'll start - One of the older VC firms with an office in Indiranagar (also probably planning to shut their scout vehicle fund after a few employee exits) reels of toxicity at the helm. GP who comes from a rich family has the habit of arm twisting employees and putting them down even on the smallest of the mistakes. What's your toxic VC story?

Let's discuss toxic VCs

Founder’s Office

Asking this on behalf of many founders like myself, wanted to collate across multiple inputs: what is it that VCs really want to hear/see from a startup? 

Would love to get inputs from VCs and other founders alike - basis your experience on what has worked what hasn't worked.

The usual suspects: obviously the founder credentials, TAM, insights, metrics. But, what else? 
Look forward to informed answers.

What do VCs really look for in startups? How do they evaluate?

Founder

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

Which Indian VC investor is a no-go and why? 
Share in person’s name - fund - reason(s) format if possible

Which VCs to avoid

Kya dikat hai bhai, udane do paisa. Tumhare thodi hai. 

Good firms genuinely perform well and return money. The ecosystem is not forgiving -- you don't survive very long if you don't create any big wins. It's an extremely high stress job with very little WLB. You do make money but it comes at a cost.

Layoffs are sad but at least those jobs existed in the first place? They wouldn't without VC money. India's VC scene is extremely young and it'll take time before we produce a Google. Entrepreneurs are not always right, they are not always nice either; but they definitely are courageous.

Unpopular Opinion: VCs get a lot of crap for no reason

VCs kill many startups with unrealistic targets that the main problem. Not every business is designed to give ultra quick returns VCs want . They ruin well potential startups

Software Engineer

Product Manager

During the bull run folks were investing in all kind of creator companies right from merchandising, community platforms, audience management to payments. 

Interesting to see only a few creator focused companies globally succeeding. 

What went wrong?

Creator economy rocketsip went down pretty quick

Software Developer

finally a VC fund that will actually support fraud openly 👏🏻

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

What stops you from *stealing* an idea that you found mind-blowing from a pitch of a startup trying to get a seed funding?

I have evaluated a lot of startups as part of my work. My approach has changed from being optimistic to being suspicious of a lot of founders, even before the process starts. 

The sheer number of founders that I come across that try to game metrics/play around with data to make the startup look good. 

Most commonly:
1) Completely changing the definition of margins, repeat rates, etc. and never clarifying that they are using different definition. 
2) Often giving rebates/discounts to key stakeholders but finding ways to hide it from their P&L so that it’s not visible. THIS IS SO COMMON - lot’s of them start showing revenues, and then you will see another cost item rising at the same pace, and lot’s of times it will just be money moving around
3) Sometimes completely giving the wrong picture of how their product works on ground. You then speak with their customers, and they describe something completely else.

Things like these are eating up the ecosystem. These founders also end up fooling some VCs, and then capital get’s kept away from actually good founders who have good intentions.

There was a recent major investment in the commerce space, and that is another one such example of a startup doing this. Needs to stop.

RANT: Founders who fake metrics

Product Owner

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

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

https://thearcweb.com/article/aadit-palicha-interview-zepto-funding-ceo-MYFcnwjefLSNkMwP

Bro didn’t hesitate when he said “no one in India has yet built a world-class internet company"

Analyst

What can be improved? Not people specific, but what you feel is wrong about us consistently across most conversations you've had?

Founders/Ex Founders on Grapevine, what can VCs get better at?

Content ke naam pe kuch bhi chalega it seems. Post has zero substance or logic.

Shameful to see how VCs have nothing useful to say but will still post something because they've probably hired someone to write this bs in the first place.

The most useless VC and fund I've come across so far.

VC getting inspired by PC?

Starting a small tradition of our own on Boxing Day: a roast of the Indian startup ecosystem!

Through the year, have seen some of the most Top Kek comments here, and I thought it’d be nice to do this for fun! 

Let’s keep it in good jest, no getting personal 🫣
Looking forward to some really creative burns!

PS: I do realize there’s no real correlation between Boxing Day and actual boxing :)

Boxing Day: A roast of Indian Startups 🥊

A very harsh year indeed 
 Almost 261k techies got laid off, and only 261 got laid :/ 
  
 (Sorry)

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