Venture Highway

💍A $9.1M Love Story ✨ We’re over the moon to share that #Meragi has raised $9.1M in the Series A round led by Accel! We want to thank our believers Accel, Peak XV Partners, Surge, Venture Highway & Anupam Mittal for backing us and enabling us to transform the wedding space, making exceptional services and beautiful designs accessible to all. With the new round of funding, we are excited to launch new cities, offer new service categories and build more exciting products! To the thousands of couples who’ve been a part of our journey & to those who are about to join us, we raise our glasses to you🥂. We can’t wait to create thousands more of magical moments & delightful experiences. #FundingAlert #SeriesA #WeddingStartup #WeddingServices

"In venture capital, every investment is an experiment, and every entrepreneur is a scientist exploring a new frontier." Reflecting on my phenomenal summer internship journey at Venture Highway, I can say I have truly lived this quote. When I was applying to Venture Highway, I was curious to experience the VC world & at the same time anxious if I had what it takes to be a VC. The Student Venture Program is not just another internship, but a road to learning, introspection, & evolution. Parth Chhaparwal was part of my journey right from the start, being my interviewer to becoming an outstanding mentor in sourcing, portfolio project, & detailed diligence. I sourced around 199 start-ups & delved into the nuances of "Should my fund go ahead with this start-up?" by engaging in 10+ founder calls. The post-call analysis with Parth & Akul was truly enlightening. It was insightful to work with Meenal, Divij, Ayush, Vinit was as we continued to learn from each other's experiences. I learnt a lot while working with Parth and Shashank on a product strategy piece for VH's portfolio company. This not only helped me understand a niche but also provided a 0-1 deep dive into a B2B start-up. I also had the opportunity to work on deeper diligence with Parth & Siddhant, which helped me develop a knack for detailed analysis and witness the speed of delivery. I am humbled to have worked under Siddhant along with Rahul, Vinit, Somya, and Anchit on a very detailed AI infrastructure thesis. It was a diverse team with different skillsets and that made the thesis building enriching. Digging through databases, discussing perspectives and analysing reports we did it all. The candid AMA sessions with Senior leadership at VH Rahul Garg, CFA & Priya Mohan & the founders were much more than life lessons. - Priya's parting words on Validation being internal and learning from "The cathedral and the Bazar" are my personal favourites - Pinak Dattaray said, "what you dream, move in its direction, and you shall achieve," embodying the true sense of Ikigai. - Bhavik Koladiya's call for action and relentless pursuit of changing what was uncomfortable for him was inspiring. - Brands excited me, but Arjun Vaidya introduced us the nuances of leveraging his family's legacy to pioneer in a space with changing ICP and distribution networks. - Nidhi Duggal was sweet to answer all our curious questions around Investor relations, term sheets and risk management. The program culminated in the most inspiring way possible with insightful parting interactions with Hemant Taneja & Neeraj Arora. Akul with all his humour, along with Siddhi Kasliwal & Abishek Chopra with their poise, have made this experience memorable. PS: One clear learning which was underscored yet again was the power of story telling, people management, curiosity & one's risk taking ability. #VentureCapital #Internship #LearningJourney #StartupLife #VentureHighway #Mentorship #Growth

People and purpose are two things I look for as I gain more professional experiences. My recent stint at Venture Highway as a Student Venture Partner left me with takeaways and learnings full of purpose along with people that I admired and enjoyed working with The program started with deal sourcing, wherein Siddhi my mentor, taught me how to analyse startups and build a structured point of view; as well as increase coverage across and within sectors. I was able to source 150+ startups while learning to build quality within my coverage I also worked with Somya, Tushar and Meenal on a portfolio project for Grip Invest. Interactions with the amazing folks at Grip: Nikhil, Ved and Medhavi were extremely informative, but what was even more memorable were the deck iterations on long gmeets and Akul’s relentless mentorship(Taiyaari jeet ki :p) helping us get better in developing useful insights on the alternative investments space. Some of the most thorough and precise feedback was given to us on our research by Aakanksha and I speak for all of us when I say every word of yours taught us a lot and helped us sharpen our work. The reason for most of my late nights and brain-wrecking moments was the incredibly steep learning curve while developing a thesis on AI Infrastructure under the steady guidance of Siddhant. Building a point of view on tech whilst having the right mix of ownership and nudging gave me truly the full VC experience. Somya Agrawal , Vinit, Stuti and Anchit were true siblings-in-arms as we waded through databases, reports, case studies and research to build frameworks to evaluate the Goliath of a sector that is AI Infrastructure. What truly separated the Venture Highway experience were the candid Ask-Me-Anything sessions set up for us with VH leadership-Priya and Rahul which gave me the opportunity to express my curiosity about the industry and what it’s like to lead a VC. Additionally, the AMA sessions with stalwart founders Pinak Dattaray, Arjun Vaidya and Bhavik Koladiya gave us a chance to ask extremely insightful and extremely candid questions, with the right mix of personal touch and industry expertise. PS: Arjun’s favourite quote is also mine now, will stick with it for life (: A huge thanks to the entire VH team for the effort to run the SVP program. A special thanks to Parth and Ishita for introducing me to it, definitely an experience to remember!