So whats in it for Google?
- Continued monopoly on India, without EU style fines.
- No checks on various unethical practices- algorithms :)
- Corner important local innovations (eg. Gpay)
- No subsidiary in India- no listing, no taxes
Let's not celebrate like Brown sepoys.
I fear that India is on the path to the highest number of Corona cases as well as the biggest impact on the economy, coupled with the tiniest economic stimulus among all countries.
In 2021/22 we are giving £55.3m to India in Foreign Aid. I am a strong supporter of foreign aid and voted against this Government’s reduction of it.
However if we sanction Putin’s mates, it’s time to end this donation too. Far worthier causes around.
In 2013 we said 'Let's make 2 bets every year to discover the next Facebook from India'
From days when big VCs said 'Indians can't design' to when Bytedance copied Sharechat pixel to pixel.
Let's make India great again!
Raising Fund 4!
Thanks to all startups who trusted us.
It's their ambition and grit that drives our DPI and IRR,
For our investors who backed us long, incredible and awesome.
India built UPI.
And then gave away the front-end to MNCs. What a colossal oversight.
And it's cloud storage is with MNCs too.
All tech should be made in India, listed in India, like in auto or in Banking.
India -- like many emerging economies -- has debated the dominance of systems like SWIFT, Visa and Mastercard for years.
They feared these could be weaponised. And now they have, bringing decades-old fears to life. I write.
RBI has told banks no need for Moratorium to NBFCs.
Zero relief for businessmen.
Tax rate rises every budget.
Bureaucrats think of businesses as adversaries.
I am a fan
@PMOIndia
, but you will have to earn the moral right to request businessmen to not lay off.
Parents are playing it safe wrt law this year and kids are now celebrating Halloween instead in gated communities of Upper classes. This might be the last generation that celebrates Diwali.
Word for 2020:
'Rhino. A company that is worth a billion dollars by virtue of profits.'
Unlike Unicorns, Rhinos are real and very thick skinned.
-
@gautammago
All the banned apps have no subsidiary in India. They have no CEO in India and have only 3rd party contract employees here. So who do you catch hold of if they are supplying data to an enemy country?
That is a huge difference in enforcing law and order. 4/n
Early Indian startup successes have given rise to lazy ‘pattern matching’ from VCs.
Founders need to prove a lot more if they are not a team of ‘Bansals’ from IIT Delhi!
Inspirational stories need to break stereotypes, not create them.
Sign of the times.
Ads in the IPL were dominated by things that promise to make you rich:
-Two crypto exhanges
-Two stock brokers
-a platform for huge rewards
-a real money betting app
What did I miss?
Today is a dream come true for me - from humble beginnings in
#Trichy
to ringing the bell at
@Nasdaq
for the FreshWorks IPO. Thank you to our employees, customers, partners, and investors for believing in this dream.
#Freshworks
#IPO
#NASDAQ
Brainvisa! People from unknown Pune company are founders of 4 unicorns: Firstcry, Expressbees, Globalbees and Rebel Foods.
Supam Maheshwari the OG behind 3 unicorns who doesn't angel invest, doesn't tweet and doesn't raise VC every 6 months.
First time founders.
Very Young.
No special pedigree.
First cheque from a small fund.
And yet, 4 of our portfolio
Startups in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia.
Watch out for our Post-Corona Party!!!
How media misleads you.
Its a Govt bungalow, not 'her house'. And she is not entitled to one because she holds no public post.
This is why social media is paramount for accountability in public life.
We returned our debut Fund.
Thanks to all the founders and investors and colleagues who backed some nobodies when India used to be about who knows whom.
We used to see so many such articles about Flipkart. We even had dedicated blogs and Books(!)
And look how it turned out.
Anything can happen, but I would bet on
@kunalb11
any day.
Sending kids to learn Sanskrit and some values might actually work better for their brain than sending them to coding schools for the explicit purpose of getting rich quick.
Maa Saraswati ka ashirwaad sab par bana rahe.
On the Padma Shree award, it is a huge honor and I feel humbled. I dedicate this to our employees, my extended family, for keeping the faith.
I want to thank friends and well-wishers for all your messages that have poured in. Your support keeps me going. 🙏🙏🙏
The 1st unicorn took more than a decade,
companies came and went & the hair turned gray..
Founders I feel you as we watch the 🦄 parade,
But would you lead your life any other way?
Let's build things that last as many will fade,
And leave a legacy behind after we go away...
🆕🆕After clocking partial exits from portfolio firms like Sharechat and Sugar Cosmetics, India Quotient gets $64 million from domestic investors for the first close of its 4th fund,
@anandlunia
@sinhamadhukar
While the VC world was stuck with 'who funded whom', Indiamart has become a unicorn, trading at ~30x of run rate earnings. Even public markets don't understand yet that the stock is Infoedge all over again.
Spoke to my fav founder team am realised that they are killing themselves by staying in cheap hotels etc. Guys there are lots of other ways to save money. Please be kind to yourself because this is a long long journey.
ICICI Bank has over 40% FII holding. Nobody knows which country has eventual beneficiary holding.
Yet, its as Indian a bank as you can get. RBI can shut it down, and send the CEO to custody.
YES! 3/n
Dear
@PMOIndia
job cuts will start from April 1. And we will spiral downwards so much that the crash of 2008-9 will feel like the good days.
It will be on you if you don't act in the next 3 days.
There were a few rocket scientists in India who did not sell their skills to build arrow buttons for discount merchandise apps.
Can't wait for what comes next from ISRO!
There are 5 common types of 🦄 SaaS companies
10 users paying 10M/year
100 users paying 1M/year
1000 users paying 100K/year
10000 users paying 10K/year
100000 users paying 1K/year
Which one are you trying to be?
Indian startup investors finally discover that Syndicate leads are just content creators with a mailing list and with skin-in-the-game less than bankers.
Will explain the math if I get 100 RTs
In most sensitive sectors, there is are requirements of minimum capitalization, local partnerships and limit to ownership.
Would you buy life insurance from a 3rd-grade foreign fashion app, where you can never cancel, recover or complaint? 5/n
Early-stage investment firm India Quotient is selling a part of its stake in vernacular social network Sharechat to China's Hillhouse Capital in a transaction pegged at around Rs 50 crore, giving it 25-30 times returns on its initial investment.
Most people jumping on gleefully to this comment are those who write for a living.
No GK, no awareness, just bias and hatred.
10K is the limit on Paytm. And he's asking everyone to do 10k.
🚨 Breaking: Brutal layoff of 700 at LinkedIn
The Tech reckoning is here, and it's hitting even the most profitable companies.
(LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.)
If you work in tech, your job security is a myth.
In India, SaaS a great opportunity for VCs and Founders alike for one special reason:
The market does not belong to those who raise/dump tons of money and flex discounting power.
Best cos win over the most-funded cos.
Clearly Falguni cared about ownership and control, diluted only as much as needed and played the long game.
Can't think of many executives from the startup ecosystem who could carry on this legacy.
Right decision.
Time has come for online brands and online lenders to shed the pretence of being 'tech startups' as per their pitch decks. They are just one of the small players in very competitive and tough markets where everyone will be using tech and data science.
Founders need to pick their role models.
One cohort is building fundraising machines. At cost of company building.
A small set is building lasting companies, slowly. Many of these are not even VC-led.
Fork in the road.
You leave us with a lesson- Founders need to take care of themselves. Eat, travel, live comfortably. Take time off. spend an hour a day on yourself. Take secondary exits when feasible. Without fear of being judged.
Many don't know:
- She was Miss Jhansi
- Got great campus jobs, topped MICA exam, but chose to work for Teach for India
- Read 5000 books
- Trained classical dancer
- Wanted to join Bollywood, did a commercial too
And somewhere Mallya will be wondering that if only he had.... after cases were filed, he would get called for interviews, B-school lectures, startup podcasts and writing books...
Every time you think of strategy, think as if it's day 1, like an entrepreneur. Be willing to the same risks you took before starting.
Don't try to preserve status quo by incremental changes, like a manager.
ONDC will eventually work. High probability. Because our establishment and sellers all want to defeat big tech monopolies.
Many UPI skeptics lost a chance to take leadership there.
Grateful to our LPs and founders for the opportunity to build enduring companies in this region. We now have dedicated vehicles for venture and growth to be able to partner across stages with our founders!
@Sequoia_India
8/ Not many know this story. Not many need to know this story. But if you're wondering WHY IQ? It's because:
They don't claim to be founder-friendly. They are intensely founder-friendly.
They don't encourage you to hustle and grind. They are the OGs of hustling and grinding.
Flip a public stock for a year and pay 10% plus surcharge on your gains.
@nsitharaman
reduced surcharge for these people.
Build a co for a decade and pay 20 % AND super surcharge.
Because we 'reward' entrepreneurs.
'Startup India' circus is all fake and insincere.
The fallouts of this are
A. Domestic investors continue to heavily patronise the pub markets when they should be shifting some allocation to pvt
B. Intl capital dominates VC in India even after all these years and successes: 35 unicorns in 9 years & over $65B in value creation
Sorry, again disagree :)
We give house keys to our maid.
And trust our accountant blindly with money.
And give cheques to founders without agreements.
Try some small towns.
With pathetic contract reinforcement by judiciary, it's 'trust' that keeps the wheels of business moving.
All the best brains in the country are focused on delivering discounted stuff in the fastest time.
Some may call it Brain Drain, but aren't they wrong?
दस मिनट में डिलीवर करेगा इंडिया
तभी तो आगे बढ़ेगा इंडिया
My newest corporate venture:
I am starting a Swiggy/Zomato like app. I will provide food at 40% discount with a loss of only Rs 3000 cr. If you think the loss is less, I will give 60% discount. I will then list it at Rs 1 lakh cr.
Looking for suckers to invest!
No signs of an economic stimulus package yet. Small businesses, their workers, daily wagers- what happens to all of them? I am wondering how do they even access food? And how do businesses hold back on job cuts unless some subsidy is on the way?