Arun Venkatachalam
Investor, Habrok Capital Management. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutiveanalyst@arunvenk ↗LinkedIn ↗
Arun Venkatachalam is an active angel investor and scion of India's Murugappa Group family, investing across fintech, B2B marketplaces, enterprise SaaS, and deep tech. His portfolio includes companies such as Zetwerk, Posist, M2P Fintech, Zoomcar, and AgniKul Cosmos, alongside exits including Innov8 and YourBus.
1shows
1appearances
21statements
1resolved
1supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
Everything Arun Venkatachalam said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Venkatachalam: Unsecured consumer lending is actually a collections business
“The problem with that is, you know, it's not really a lending business. It's actually a collections business.”
Venkatachalam: Building a $1B NBFC book results in 90% dilution
“So what ends up happening, you know, so that is people want to invest in NBFCs, but you don't realize that you'll be like 90% diluted by the time you build a billion dollar book, because you will just be pretty much operating at two to three X leverage.”
Venkatachalam: Tech lending startups hit a cliff and get valued like NBFCs
“If you want to come and invest in a lending business as a technology business, your valuation is just some random technology valuation, which is fine, right? But if you build that business consistently, the penultimate investor before an IPO will value it like…”
Venkatachalam: New angel investors mostly see deals top angels passed on
“If you are new and you're entering this market, it's, you know, it's almost likely that you will get a deck that probably a lot of angels who have the pick of the litter kind of passed out on, you know, passed on.”
Venkatachalam: Most Indian VCs are generalists unlike US and Israeli investors
“Most VC guys in India, I'd say, you know, there are a lot of generalists in this space. I don't think there are too many specialists, as you may see in other parts of the world, especially, you know, in Israel or the US.”
Venkatachalam: Angel investors should not expect winners in their first 4-5 years
“One Kind of thumb rule that's patient is don't expect to have a winner if you plan to do this consistently for the first four to five years, right?”
Venkatachalam: Indian public market gains are driven by low US interest rates
“Investing, you know, personal capital in the public market, which now looks great, but actually it's just a function of low interest rates in America, you know, pumping money into India.”
Venkatachalam: Investing small amounts in new sectors drives learning
“For learning, sometimes it's okay to allocate a little bit of capital into exciting new areas. So obviously I may not be an expert, but I will ask if I can be a part of it.”
Venkatachalam: Backs Sauce VC rather than investing directly in consumer brands
“In consumer brands, I won't do it on my own. It's just too hard. You have to just do that one in, you know, one sector all day, every day. So I normally was not an LP. I used to do things direct, but for consumer brands, I said, okay, I will be an LP in sauce …”
Venkatachalam: Small angel cap table allocations face information and buyout pressure
“Today this ecosystem has matured to a point where if you're too small on the cap table things are starting to get a little hard, right? Are you going to get information? You know, some people want you out. How are you going to be more meaningful?”
Venkatachalam: Shifting angel strategy to concentrated bets like a micro VC
“To be meaningful on the cap table and, you know, to be You know, important to a founder that, you know, I'm really putting my money where my mouth is do fewer, but do deeper and almost behave like a micro VC. This is just my changes as the industry does change…”
Venkatachalam: Zetwerk is a once-in-a-decade Indian company that can go global
“I, if this thing goes to the moon, it's pretty much got all the trappings Of a success story, because it's truly, you know, once in a decade, Indian company that can go global”
Venkatachalam: India's credit market constraint is supply, not demand
“In India, the issue is not demand. It's really supply of credit.”
Venkatachalam: Investors seeking diversified venture returns should be fund LPs, not angels
“If you want a portfolio approach and you wanted a portfolio like return, then obviously you should just try to be an LP in somebody else's fund, right?”
Venkatachalam: Investors ignored B2B medical supplies during Medikabazaar's raise
“So for example, in Medica Bazaar, everybody went to the B to C pharmaceutical delivery guy. No one wanted to spend time on the B to B, you know, medical supplies.”
Venkatachalam: Sourcing alpha requires deep sector focus and non-transactional networking
“If you really want to alpha in sourcing spend time in a specific sector that Irrespective of whether it's hot or not. You like it. You spend time. Go speak to people where there's no live deal. And build relationships with people. Nothing will come in the firs…”
Venkatachalam: Investing in Bajaj Auto Finance in 2009 was extremely lucky
“I happened to be lucky enough to invest in a company called Bajaj Auto Finance in 2009, which became Bajaj Finance. You know, it could have been the greatest investment of all time, but you know, it went up, it just constantly kept going up. I sold it 33 times…”
Venkatachalam: Portfolio exits have returned nearly all invested principal capital
“Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, for the most part. If I net off what I just did in the last six months, yeah.”
Venkatachalam: Posist hasn't diluted equity since 2014, growing purely on cash flows
“Since 2014, he's not diluted me even once, right? And he's built this entire business just on his own cash flows, right?”
Venkatachalam: Angel investing de-risks family's brick-and-mortar conglomerate holdings
“My family is not going to promote any technology businesses. Our business model is to, you know, brick and mortar. We will do, you know, value added manufacturing. We will buy a competitor who is, you know, on the ropes. We'll turn that business around. And we…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Arun's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 NEON SHOWLEDGER | Investor, Habrok Capital Management | 1 | 21 | 100% 1/1 | full record on the Neon Show → |