Indian Venture Capital Industry – Where Do Things Stand?

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Sasha Mirchandani, Managing Partner of Kae Capital, an early stage venture fund. Sasha is also a co-founder of Mumbai Angels.

Sasha re-emphasized two points that we have heard before: Indian VCs only invest in India-facing B-to-C ventures and global B-to-B startups. India-facing B-to-B is not a sector that gets any investment, although we have covered exceptions like Knowlarity here that have received significant funding.

We discussed the issue of the lack of exits in India, as well as the missing late-stage funding for B-to-C ventures facing the Indian market. Global B-to-B ventures pretty much routinely start in India, but move to California or some other US location after Series A. Thus, they can tap into the global capital pool, and are unconstrained by late stage funding availability in India.

Those of you who are working out of India would do well to keep these key points in mind.

Also, in this context, let me refer you to Mahesh Murthy’s provocative article, Is Venture Capital Killing Indian Startups? Mahesh raises the question whether in a relatively slow-growth market like India, you can build companies within the US venture capital timeline. The article is worth reading for the valid questions it raises.

My discussion with Sasha today, as well as several others in this series with other Indian investors, will all point you to one conclusion: most Indian VCs are aware of the fact that India is a slow-growth market, and they’re trying to tap into global growth rates, US-scale adoption when it comes to B-to-B tech companies.

In B-to-C, especially e-commerce, there is a massive gating item restricting growth: lack of acceptance of credit card transactions online. When this will change, we don’t know. If it does change, there will be massive acceleration. Until then, Mahesh Murthy’s question remains a valid one.

As for the pitches, we had Dushyant Parikh from Ahmedabad, India, pitch the HG Group, a supplier of artisanal fabrics to the Western fashion brands. The company is part of the 1M/1M premium program and has already crossed the $1M mark. Dushyant is currently focused on getting to the next milestone of $10M a year.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

As always, I would very much like to hear about your business, so let me invite you to come and pitch at one of our free 1M/1M public roundtables. We will be holding future roundtables at 8 a.m. PST on:

Thursday, March 3, Register Here.
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If you want a deeper relationship with me, you are very welcome to join the 1M/1M premium program. If you have any questions about the program, please, first study the website, especially What to expect from the 1M/1M premium program and the FAQs. If you have additional questions, please email me, and I would be very happy to respond. Please note that I work exclusively with 1M/1M entrepreneurs.