Mohanta Group’s Post

🚨 After taking his startup blinkx public, Suranga Chandratillake joined Balderton Capital. He talks to Sam Shead for VC Wednesdays, a weekly series featuring a Q&A interview with a venture capitalist. ✒ Who are your role models in venture and why? Michael Moritz at Crankstart – requires no introduction from a venture perspective, but he's my hero because of his background. His parents fled Nazi Germany, he went to state school in post-industrial Wales, got into the University of Oxford, then The Wharton School and finally into Sequoia Capital where (with others) he has built the global giant of our industry backing companies like Google, Stripe, PayPal, with a legendary ability to win entrepreneurs over. Laurel Bowden at 83NORTH – Laurel is one of the lowest profile VCs on the continent but her results are absolutely incredible and she has an almost spooky ability to consistently back companies others have passed on or ignored. ✒ What did you learn at blinx that helps you in your VC career today? Most importantly that the job of CEO is a uniquely tough one. You're pulled in every direction – employees, investors, board members, customers, partners – and have to be the piece that aligns a chaotic set of complicated, contrasting incentives. I loved the job but also found it really hard and that has instilled a sense of humility and empathy in what the CEOs I have backed are going through. ✒ How has the European venture industry changed since you became a VC? When I started in European venture there was great promise. Ten years on, we've delivered on that promise. It's great to be at a point where there are now countless European unicorns, many of which are public or have already been sold, leading to profits being re-invested into the next generation of exciting companies. Having a proven ecosystem means that venture here is now more competitive but also that there is more capital for the companies we work with to build themselves – bring it on! ✒ What advice are you currently sharing with the founders of your portfolio companies? It's a cliche but everyone must think about the implications of modern artificial intelligence. My second investment ever (ten years ago – Magic Pony Technology) was an AI company and so I fear the CEOs I work with must be getting tired of the message at this point but I think it's even more important today than it was then. Secondly, we're focusing a lot this year on being brave again.  The past few years have been tough in terms of selling (whether to businesses or consumers) and fundraising and that's led to a lot of focus on profitability rather than growth. That is a healthy stage to go through but it's equally important not to lose hope and I think 2024 is a year when companies can start to think again about the opportunity of upside. #VCWednesdays #vc #venturecapital #startups #TechonLinkedIn

Great to get Suranga Chandratillake involved with VC Wednesdays! Known for being one of the smartest and most thoughtful tech investors in London, Suranga reveals why Michael Moritz is one of his role models, what he gained from running a startup before entering the world of VC, and what advice he's currently sharing with founders in his portfolio. #VCWednesdays

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗩𝗖 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 - 𝟮𝟱𝟬𝟬𝗫 𝗶𝗻 𝟯 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀! In the 1990s, Vinod Khosla's $2.75 Million investment in Juniper Networks turned into $7 Billion, an eye-popping 2500X return in 3 years—the largest return on investment to date! In 1994, Vinod invested in Excite's seed round and continued mentoring the founders until it was sold to Home Network for $6.7 billion. It was his first venture capital deal of that size. He also incubated Cerent in 1997, which sold to Cisco 2 years later for $7.8Bn & Siara, which sold for $4.3Bn to Redback. First, as a general partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and then founding his venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures, Vinod Khosla is a recognized venture capitalist with several successful early-stage investments. Vinod co-founded Daisy Systems in 1981 but left soon. In 1982, Vinod co-founded Sun Microsystems. In 1986, Vinod left Sun Microsystems and joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a general partner. Soon, he became an influential investor in Silicon Valley. In 2004, Vinod founded Khosla Ventures with family and personal funds. Khosla Ventures was the first to invest in delivery services like Instacart and DoorDash. Fintech was also an area of focus where he had invested in companies like Stripe, Affirm, Worldcoin, and more. In 2019, he invested in the hottest startup of current times - OpenAI Today, Khosla Venture manages approximately $15 Billion in investor capital. Here are a few things to learn from this billionaire VC: 1. A strong belief system can build leadership: Vinod says, "Leadership is having a strong belief system about things, the company, markets, or products." 2. Honest feedback is crucial for informed decisions: One of Vinod Khosla's famous statements on the Khosla Ventures website is, "Brutal honesty trumps hypocritical politeness." He asks the right questions & provides honest feedback. 3. Surround yourself with the right people for advice: He suggests surrounding yourself with the right people and learning from them quickly. You can discover each other's strengths, seek advice, and prioritize them. 4. The ability to take risks: Vinod Khosla doesn't believe in playing safe. He says, "You must be comfortably uncomfortable." He also says, "Venture is Asymmetric. You don't want to take low risk; you must take high risk." 5. Accepting failure: According to him, the willingness to fail gives a person the ability to succeed. One should accept failure and consider it a part of the game. Vinod's advice to struggling founders is to "Survive long enough in your field to have time to get lucky." TDV Partners #VC #angelinvesting #entrepreneurship #investing #tech #ujwalsutaria #tdvpartners

At Forum we look at thousands of deals each year across our Accelerator and Pre-Seed funds but only end up investing in a little over 1% of those startups.  As an early stage VC, I am in the business of saying no to nearly every startup I meet, and while there is nuanced rationale for many of the startups I pass on, a vast majority of businesses that don’t meet the qualification to get funded typically fall into one of two buckets. ▪ First time founders have a tendency to go out to market too early to raise pre-seed capital ▪   I’m sure most founders have heard some iteration of this from VCs that ultimately pass on their business.  In some cases it's a blanket excuse covering up for other pass reasons- perhaps a VC doesn’t believe in a team or isn’t bullish on the market opportunity - but in many cases founders simply haven't proven enough to the market to warrant an investment. I meet many teams with an articulate vision for the product that they want to build, but they either haven't performed enough customer discovery to prove demand for their initial wedge product, or need to raise pre-seed capital to build out an MVP.  In those cases, pre-seed investors are unwilling to underwrite those risks.  To be default fundable, teams need to be able to keep costs low, perform extensive customer discovery, and ship some version of an early product - pilots and early paid customers are key. A huge piece of this is having founding engineering talent on the team. ▪Not every startup is a venture opportunity ▪ By definition, a venture backed business is solving a problem within a market opportunity so massive and so desperately needed, that its growth rate is off the charts.   It spreads like a weed, absorbing almost unlimited amounts of capital to fulfill demand within its customer base.   Each year there are maybe 20 companies launched that ultimately have venture scale outcomes. The bar to reach this rarified air is unfathomably high and the reality is the vast majority of founders simply aren’t building for opportunities that have the potential to be one of these generational companies. Many startup founders view VC as the only viable option for capitalizing their business, but not every great business is a venture business, and most successful founders never take VC dollars.  In order to reach an IPO/acquisition large enough to generate venture returns, a startup needs a credible path to $100s of millions in revenue. This is the standard by which early stage opportunities are evaluated. The flip side to this, and I share this feedback often with founders I meet that are building interesting business in non venture markets, if you are able to scale to $10- $20M in revenue that can be a massively successful outcome for a founder.  There are investors who focus on these type outcomes, namely lower middle market PE shops, and the typical path to those deals is a bootstrapped business or a friends/family capital raise.

Thank you Rocco Strydom for doing everything and sharing! I really enjoy working with amazing and creative startup founders. I believe it translates and attracts great teams to work with. I love every second of that journey. So proud seeing the teams thrive! Check it out in NFT Today Magazine #startp #life #mentorship #investments #moneytalk

In a world where the rush for venture capital often overshadows the essence of true innovation, we ask: What truly matters in the journey of a startup? Daniel Sexton's insightful article on the perils and pitfalls reminds us that chasing venture capital is powerful and that aligning one's startup vision with core values and meaningful objectives is essential. In a landscape saturated with 'Junk Startups,' driven by the allure of becoming the next unicorn, it's easy to lose sight of what constitutes success. Why chase ephemeral gains, when the real treasure lies in creating lasting impact? At Hone Ventures, we believe in investing not just capital, but faith, support, and guidance in startups that dare to dream differently. Startups that prioritize innovation, societal value, and sustainability over fleeting valuation spikes. Venture capital should not be an end, but a means to an end – a tool to amplify visions that are poised to make a difference in the world. It's about finding the right partners who share your vision, understand your journey, and are committed to walking alongside you, not ahead of you. Let's cultivate a startup ecosystem that thrives on authenticity, purpose, and innovation. Where success is not measured by funding rounds or market caps, but by the positive change we bring to society, the environment, and the economy. Because ultimately, what matters is not how much capital we raise but the legacy we leave behind. #VentureCapital #Innovation #Startups #Entrepreneurship #SustainableInvesting #HoneVentures Here’s How Not To Raise Venture Capital http://dlvr.it/T5H7Zy

From Pitching Angels: Get behind how investors evaluate your company in terms of long-term valuation, and what the investors need for their portfolio to pencil out "If you want to build a successful, profitable business, you can have a very comfortable life on $5M in profits every year. But you’ll have to find another way to fund it, because that doesn’t fit the VC model." DC Palter #StartupLeadership #startupadvice #startupfunding  #vcfunding #Startups #StartupEquity #startuptech

We’re a quarter of the way through the 2020s and for a lot of VCs and startups, it has been a period of intense ups and downs.Kjartan Rist for Forbes shares five key lessons that VCs and startup founders will take from the early 2020s #VC #VentureCapital #Startups #Founders #Investment

Top Decile startup fund TDV Partners launches their new fund of Rs 50 Crore Early Stage focused micro VC firm Trillion Dollar Ventures has announced the launch of their second fund with a total corpus of Rs 50 Crore. The fund aims to back innovative founders with a global outlook from Day 1, supporting companies in the pre-seed and seed stages with cheque sizes ranging from Rs 1-2 crore per startup. The vision of the fund is to collaborate and nurture companies that can potentially become Trillion Dollar Ventures of tomorrow. Founded in 2021, by Ujwal Sutaria & General Partner, TDV Partners, is a 2X founder turned investor, thus bringing in founders experience along with investing. He collaborates with entrepreneurs from pre-revenue stages, offering support in brainstorming ideas, finding PMF, gaining early traction and follow-on fundraising. The firm's investment thesis focuses on backing serial founders or those with deep domain expertise, with a strong preference for high-tech, low-operations businesses. The fund lifecycle has also been kept between 5 – 7 years which is half of traditional fund life cycles that ranges from 10 – 12 years, thus returning capital faster to the LPs for more active deployments. With the new fund launch, the VC firm will invest in business models like Platform plays, Marketplaces, and Exchange businesses across various consumer tech(B2C) categories such as Spirituality Tech, Fintech, Gaming, Creator Economy, Social, and Consumer Upgrade. TDV is one of the few funds in India today focusing on new category building segments like spiritual tech and consumer upgrade. The firm believes that they are at an inflection point to scout early stage companies in these sectors and back some of the eventual category winners generating a multi-bagger opportunity for the fund. The Fund has already been receiving strong commitments from LPs in India as well as across countries like US, UK, UAE, SG further validating the early stage investment model and the high returns it can generate. The backers include top global unicorn founders, family offices and many CXOs across industries globally.

The bar for Series A investment appears much higher in 2024 and fewer startups are reaching it, writes guest author Dan Gray of Equidam. He explains the valuation conundrum many of today’s Series A venture investors face and what we can expect to see in subsequent series raises. #vc #startups #strategy https://lnkd.in/gJaccjcH