Why are so many startups shutting shop in December?
There’s now a list of 4-6 startups that have shut down and announced closure in December. Why is this happening
Been long since I wrote here. A casual post to discuss anything startup/VC related. Which startups are doing good, which ones not too good. Especially if you're a founder - how is the market feeling?
My pov: despite the excess capital with VCs, funding is still very much dry. For a bit during the last year, there was a flurry of investments in SaaS and AI. Even that has dried up now. Slowest I have seen.
Why: I think there's no push factor to invest, there's a lack of people starting up (vs. previous years). Awaiting some inflection point, so that things kickstart again.
My pov- am part of some of these startup communities and spoke to VCs over last 2 months.
1 - B2B & Dukaan Tech was quite unique to India, but got pretty fucked. 2 - SO FUCKING TRUE. There aren't enough good founders, but lots of "dry powder" and so any hotshot founder instantly gets a $5-10Mn cheque. 3 - A good thing! 4 - AI something Edtech will be nice, yet to see great examples in India. 5 - I don't like this so much. It inhibits large consumer businesses. But okay, it's the sign of the times. 6 - Fuck yes - you are spot on. It's been a surprising transition for me. Models that were earlier always PE types, are now attractive to VCs. 7 - Hahahaha, I do write theses at my fund, don't know where those land up
Love the points. Curious, what do you do? That's too many things very spot on.
Spot on @AngryBus91 . Another pt to startup becoming unsexy, only seeing ‘older’ founders raising funding like >5 yrs of sector expertise
I just helped a "tier 1" undergrad with pitch deck and GTM for a VCs business idea that he has no idea how to build but is doing it because the VCs want him to 🤡
Speaking as a founder I'm honestly seeing a revival in funding interest in fundamentally good and sound businesses generating decent profit.
Also seeing multiple money making opportunities in various domains but I have limited time and resources at hand to pursue them.
Had an idea around a tool recently that could compete with Adobe and Canva. But with tech and SaaS, there's no longer any defensible moat as such. Doesn't take long to get copied, need relentless execution and decent funding to even get a small percentage of market share. Goal would be acquisition I suppose.
@LooseGoose any other interesting ideas that have potential? Any untapped pockets in outsourcing?
Why are people not building startups? Why do you think that is ?
Has due diligence become better by any chance?
It has, yes. We have more time to evaluate, so we go deeper. In 2020/2021, often we would have to evaluate a startup within a few days because some hotshot fund was evaluating/investing in them. Now that's not the case, you usually get more time to go into the details.
I like that.
My pov is that Indian VCs were worst thing that could have happened to Indian startups system. A bunch of non-founders consultants who didn’t do any real work in their work experience and shuffled and format a couple of ppts became VCs in India. These people didn’t know how to pick right company. All they incentivize was bad players in the startup ecosystem who only motive was to how to raise next round to make money. I hate to say but with such a large population, India has failed to create a single world- level startup. All are copy cats or failed startups with zero business model. The first thing India needs is cleaning its house and make sure entrepreneurs are positively incentivized rather than being taught how to run away with money
Extremely well put. I personally come from a non IIT non MBB background but 80% of the people I work with have one of those, or both.
You're very right about the problems. I don't feel the ecosystem hasn't done well though, I feel within those people, there are some who aren't constrained by their past consultant lives and actually think originally and have invested well.
But you're quite right. I love that take.
There’s now a list of 4-6 startups that have shut down and announced closure in December. Why is this happening
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 co...
This is the biggest problem with VC ecosystem 4 yoe kids taking calls on experienced, hardworking founders. Dude firs...
Inc42 just released their Indian Tech Startup Funding Report H1 2024 - find it at tinyurl.com/24lr2s6c
As we dissect the data, several key trends emerge that paint a picture of an ecosystem in transition: