Any VC who know this market, would love to get thought on this, why Indian startup market in not enough mature like YC

Product Manager

Software Engineer

India is one of the growing ecosystem, why Indian vc accel atom program and even sequoia surgehead won't able to make buzz like YC. Why are not active too much.. Does anyone know any active acceler...

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

India is one of the growing ecosystem, why Indian vc accel atom program and even sequoia surgehead won't able to make buzz like YC.
Why are not active too much..
Does anyone know any active accelerator program like YC in india.

Why accel atom, surgehead are not able to buzz in startup ecosystem

Why accel atom, surgehead are not able to buzz in startup ecosystem- Grapevine

The proportion of Indian startups in Y Combinator’s cohorts has been steadily declining over the last three years.

In India, Y Combinator is faced with the question: Why Combinator?

YC vs Surge

Which YC funded Indian startups have been successful over the years?

Successful = Profitable / Growing Revenue YoY with necessary burn / Dominant Market share. 

The Indian startups accepted list seems to have increased to a handful every year, but don't see any of them creating the impact that one expects from businesses selected by a seed platform that prides itself on extreme scrutiny for all applicants. 

Where do you think is the gap?  American understanding of Indian business models / consumers / market or somewhere else?

YC StartUps in India

Sales Manager

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 am building something, say like a social network, for the consumer where they will use it. Now, I don't feel good raising from any VC because of their heinous nature, 

Can I raise pre-seed funding for my startup via equity as tokens worth 1 lakhs- 5 lakhs for my own customers to purchase and minimum hold for 3 years as investment? (Given the value proposition and vision aligns with their customers) 

Is this possible? Ofc. Yes.

Questions: Is this legal? If not, can it be made legal via some procedure like crowd funding? Unlike, ICO.

Can we raise from equity tokens?

Solution Architect

Welcome to Personal Finance's Private Community

Global VC Fund Investor here. AMA

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

Starting an India centric podcast focused on venture capital. Personally based in SF but keep hearing a lot of chatter about India VCs here so interested to unpack it. Who are the top firms and investment partners in the market?

Top VCs in India?

Product Owner

A friend of mine is being courted by both Lightspeed and accel. He likes them both but wanted to get some founder takes on this.. at Accel it's a jr partner, at Lightspeed it's one of the well known partner.

Which VC firm?

In a landmark deal, Silicon Valley powerhouse General Catalyst has acquired Venture Highway, a seed-stage investment firm with a track record of backing winners like Meesho and Mobile Premier League.

The Deal:
- Rare instance of consolidation in the Indian VC market
- VH to be rebranded as General Catalyst India
- GC plans to invest $500 million to $1 billion in India over the next three years
- Acquisition driven by desire to build strong local team and tap into local LP network

But the move also raises important questions. Will this trigger a wave of consolidation in the Indian VC market? Will other global firms follow suit and snap up local players to gain a foothold in the country? And how will this influx of foreign capital shape the trajectory of India's startup ecosystem?

As the dust settles on this landmark deal, one thing is clear: India's startup scene is entering a new era, one where local innovation and global capital are increasingly intertwined.  Always long on India 🇮🇳

Image Credits: The Arc

General Catalyst's Venture Highway Acquisition: A Strategic Play for India 🇮🇳

Journalist

A lot of folks working at startups seem to be "passionate " about their job. Some of them possibly, truly are. Some foolishly reverse engineer this passion because they're paid really well and they've been doing a good job and it's good personal PR to say "passion".  A few reality checks.

1. Your cool Bangalore lifestyle is a result of investment risks/bets taken by VC's .

2. Your salary is as much about the market demand as it is about your " passion " and talent.

3. Startups will generally lower the bar for hiring processes to meet their demand for talent. Why need so much talent? Because the startup  needs to spend that 100M$ Series C that just made them a unicorn. That's how they convince the VC to give more money. "We are going to 2x revenue by 2xing our salesforce and buying 10M$ worth of Saas that will increase our productivity by 5x. " And boom ...100M$ transferred into you SVB bank account.

4. You are as replaceable as a garbage bag on your dustbin. The HR is probably flirting with 10 other like you over linkedin.


5. The "values" this startup apparently espouses are mostly nothing but a honey trap and positioning to lure talent.

It's great to have a nice tech job that pays well and allows you to gloat on twitter like a techbro but don't let it fool you into getting an inflated sense of entitlement. You're probably living on borrowed time....and money. :)

" Passionate " Startup folks

Heard from a little bird that General Catalyst's deal of acquiring VH has fallen through? Can someone confirm?

Also what do you think of VH in general? I feel expensive bets with low single digit stakes. Personally, the folks especially Associates are way way too cocky and only believe in Faff

GC not acquiring Venture Highway

Venture Capital

Heard from most people that there’s a lot of crunch. Wondering if anyone at their companies feels like their startup is growing despite the slowdown. 

Razorpay, CRED, and are seeing tighter regulations and downrounds. The food delivery companies have all gone through their down rounds and readjustment of expectations. Even SaaS most founders have a poor revenue/employee ratio and the india story is still yet to play out for the newer bets. 

Just yesterday Oslash announced it’s shutting down its app.

Any green shoots ☘️? And if there are maybe it’s a good thread for folks to try and hire.

Any Indian startups doing well currently ?

i am looking to give entrepreneurship a shot. best way to find a Co-founder??

best place to find a Co-founder

Hello everyone,

I'm Varun, the co-founder of Mesa School of Business. We’re Asia’s first startup focused business school focused on fostering the next generation of startup leaders in India.

Prior to Mesa, I was a Sr. Product Manager at Amazon in Seattle, and did my MBA from Kellogg School of Management.

I'd love to chat with you folks about my journey in building Mesa, my thoughts on higher education, 0-to-1 building, amongst other things.

Ask me anything! :)
I'll be back at 5 pm and start answering.

I'm Varun, Co-Founder at Mesa School of Business. Ask me anything!

I love to read about tech and how startups evolved. Have spent a lot of time figuring out how the good product companies in the US got built: Google, FB, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest etc. etc. 

One thing stands out: A lot of these started out as just projects, and not a real startup. 
Instagram was just an idea to make photo filtering better. Reddit was just a project around making a cooler internet.

They set off as projects, and got some traction before becoming funded startups. Because they had devs in the founding team, who were always doing projects as side hustles. 

This wasn't the time when SDE salaries were so pumped up, they didn't want to just become good devs, they probably wanted to solve real problems. 

My takeaway: 

Maybe Engineers shouldn’t be too incentivised to just code. They should be incentivised to think business. 
Thats how FB, Google, Insta etc happened as companies.

In India, high pay endears engineers to stick to coding, do less business thinking.
That’s why we don’t see too many coders posting their side projects on X, Reddit, GV within India. Maybe there just aren’t enough. 

Have just been thinking about this. 

Open to thoughts from the community - maybe my view is limited. Would love to hear.

Why Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley, and why that will likely not happen in India

This is an actually very true. 
  
 I’ve seen developers who are very good in the stuff they do but lack the thinking from a customer / business POV. They take the PRD and convert it into code but never ever question whether this is the experience they want to provide to the end user.  
  
 Everyone needs to understand code is a way to achieve business and to achieve business , you would need to think from a business prospective. 
  
 That’s why , I always tell my juniors whenever they code , always take a step back and put yourself in the customer shoes and think what you are doing is what you want as a customer or not

Software Developer

Corporate Strategist

After sequoia rebranding, funds leaving the country, hearing that accel is looking to cut down on India investment corpus. Big news for a top global fund to step back.

Why accel atom, surgehead are not able to buzz in startup ecosystem

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