We invested in Sharechat when it was just a thought on paper, and ‘Indian Social’ was not even a category. Then we did the same thing for Sugar, Lendingkart, Vyapar, Dhiwise, Frnd et al.
It’s never too early for us to invest. We prefer demos over decks, but an email will do just fine.
Sometimes founders need us to roll up our sleeves, and sometimes they just need space. Mostly we just cheerlead them to do better with what they are already good at.
We invest at paper stage with as much conviction as we have when you have a handful of customers. This has enabled many of our founders to skip the angel round. We have been doing the same thing for the last 14 years.
Twice a year, we take 2 days off with our entire portfolio and select LPs.
Founders form teams to comment on strategies of other companies. The best advice, as they say, comes from your peers.
Every month or so we get together informally around some industry experts and discuss topics of interest over cocktails. Founders catch up, exchange war stories, and get inspired.
We have an active peer group on WhatsApp where founders solve problems for each other and exchange knowledge and insights. If you can’t find the answer on Google, you will find it here.
We promise no ‘Board Meetings’. We help founders identify the right things to measure, and the right things to spend time on. We do our homework before meetings. Founders think of us as friends and mentors, not as ‘directors’.
The intersection of smartphone, big data, and design is changing our lives. We see people around us doing almost everything on the smartphone. Buying, talking, learning, playing, getting entertained, paying bills, and more. We think that a country of our size has big markets and bigger markets. Choosing a market is about relative size, be it food, water, housing, healthcare, education, finance, SaaS, or discretionary spends. We invest in:
It starts with an initial call - usually on one Zoom with a partner or an associate. There may be a follow-up action or call after that. The next step? Pitch to a larger group - two or more partners after which its either a pass or a final pitch to the whole IndiaQuotient team. There will be intermediate coffees that will be more about knowing you. After our IC, we will get a termsheet out in 24 hours. The whole process can take as little as one week, but we prefer a bit of “slow dating” to give founders a chance to know us better.
We have been funding companies that not too many people seem to like initially. These companies solve rather unsexy problems of rather common people across the world. We don't care if it looks ugly, as long as it promises to grow like weed.However, the process is rather subjective. Sometimes we feel network effect is more important than the tech, or that tech is more important than design. At other times, we feel distribution is more important than engagement. These discussions help us judge how strongly you feel about the market and your approach to it.
Find us on LinkedIn and Twitter, at events and conferences, or via common friends. Become friends with our existing founders. As a last resort, you could even write us an email or fill this form.
Sunday evening, because we just can’t wait for the week to start!
It is never too early to reach out to us. The best time to pitch is when you haven’t got a single customer, and the best form of pitching is a link to your product.
It will help if you describe yourself in a word or two: hacker and blogger, designer mom of two, consultant turned cook, musician turned data analyst, doctor turned banker, etc. We ideally want you to be all of these.
Thorough research on Google has shown that the following criteria define a good entrepreneur. We want all of these, or just the last one!
We think it’s about the execution, not the idea. In India, some business models are just dead on arrival. And yet there are many ideas that will work very well here. We don’t mind if you are inspired by somebody, but we prefer that you write your own script. Thanks, Firstround!
We have sleepless nights after we say ‘sorry’ to an entrepreneur. So, please make sure your company is disrupting something, shaking things up, offending a lot of people. Take a cue or two from this list:
Here is what our term sheet looks like. It’s rather similar to the ones other funds have, but we sincerely hope you will want to work with us despite it. Please think of us as cool people because we have put it out in the open.
It’s an extra round of dilution. Period. Most of our founders raise their first cheque from us, and many of them add angels of their choice to our round.
We have the highest graduation rate from our round to follow-on rounds, at over 75%. And we have given bridge rounds to each and every portfolio company when they asked for it.
We promise no ‘board meetings’ till we are the only investors in the company. You will find us available any time of the day, but won’t hear from us chasing you for ‘data’ and reports. You don’t treat us as your ‘directors’ in the real sense, but as a resource that you can leverage when you need.
You will always get a partner on your board, along with another supporting partner. And each partner does not more than 3 deals a year, staking their personal credibility behind the company, regardless of the deal size. So whether its 150K or 2M, you will be equally important to us.