Why VCs hit refresh and found startups?

Mostly it's because of the money! Just kidding. In fact, usually that's not the case since the risk of the startup failing is exorbitantly high. And VCs perhaps know that better than anyone else given the number of startups we meet and track. For myself, I have made the switch from investor to entrepreneur three times in my life. First time, I joined a family business after Lombard Investments. Second time, I joined Rocket Internet and founded/managed a few ventures after Kleiner Perkins. Third time, I co-founded Karbon after 01VC. So why make these switches. First time, it was because of family obligation. Second it was to experience the nuts and bolts of growing startups. This time it is to solve acute pain points and problems for pretty much all startups.

While investing in Indian startups, I witnessed the numerous challenges faced by the entrepreneurs. One such major challenge is that Indian banks simply do not trust startups with a corporate credit card. The banks will ask for personal guarantee from the entrepreneurs and a 110% fixed deposit guarantee before consider issuing a card. Regardless of the name, I don't consider that a credit card. But at the same time, I can understand why banks do that. Startups are known to be very risky and so the banks need to protect themselves. One short side story is that in Chinese, the name venture capital 风险投资 literally means "risky investment". So once a startup came up to me and asked if I was doing venture capital. I replied yes and he said "then you must invest in me because my startup is very risky":p Jokes aside, the world does equate startups with high risk. But in my eyes, these startup founders have solid background and run extremely sound businesses. They should never have to be treated the way banks are treating them.

So me and my co-founders decided to start KarbonCard, which requires no fixed deposit, no personal guarantee and is issued within 24 hours of application. The sweet thing is that it does not have any hidden interest expenses or fees. We also offer many startup specific rewards such as AWS credits, discounts from MakeMyTrip, Uber, WeWork and many other Saas products (Hubspot, Segment, Freshworks, etc). Again, entirely free. So you might be wondering, as a former VC with strong Chinese entrepreneur (ie. $$$) blood, why are we doing this all for free? The answer is that KarbonCard makes money from the merchants that accept the credit card. Voila, we serve the startups for free and still get paid for it. Amazing and beautiful model! Anyways, if you are a startup in India and would like to learn more about us, please visit www.karboncard.com or can contact me directly via Linkedin. Have a great Coronavirus-free day!!