Kanwaljit Singh
Managing Partner & Founder, Fireside Ventures. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
Kanwaljit Singh is the Managing Partner and Founder of Fireside Ventures, an early-stage fund dedicated to consumer brands. Prior to founding Fireside, he was an angel investor in companies such as Paperboat and IDFresh.
1shows
1appearances
21statements
6resolved
4supported
0contradicted
67%fully supported
2said about them ↓ Everything Kanwaljit Singh said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Singh: 60% to 70% of Fireside portfolio companies will achieve successful outcomes
“We believe that we will see anywhere from 60 to 70% of our companies with successful outcomes. So our dependence on one single success or two single success companies, which will do significantly high returns at the cost of some of the others not being able to…”
Singh: Entrepreneurs should grow on their own steam and avoid unnecessary VC
“A lot of times, you know, we meet entrepreneurs where our advice is don't raise VC money. I mean, you have a great business, you have a great idea, you're doing well, actually manage to grow it on your own steam. Go to an investor only when you truly believe t…”
Singh: Macro factors will enable hundreds of new Indian consumer brands
“The whole idea of Fireside was born out of this belief that something very interesting was happening in the consumer brand space, driven by some macro factors which we are really excited about, and I decided that I would probably focus my time and effort on th…”
Favorable unit economics allow struggling consumer startups to survive without shutting down
“So what happens is that in most of these businesses, because like I said earlier, the unit economics is quite favorable. The companies can continue to, you know, almost manage their expenses and manage their burn. Without having to shut down for a fairly long …”
Fireside expects consumer brands to reach ₹100 crore revenue within five years
“As a thumb rule, we believe that we can participate in a company which comes in at say five to 10 crores of revenue and help them achieve a hundred crore revenue in about five years. So that's our thumb rule norm that we are following now. And typically you ca…”
Founders should delegate daily operations by ₹50 crore in revenue
“One of the things that we are very conscious about is you start bringing in senior leadership into the organization. So that by the time you are at a 50 crore run rate, you have enough strength of people in your team who can do the day-to-day business on an on…”
Singh: Venture capitalists are kingmakers, but the entrepreneur is always the king
“You are always a mentor, or that somebody called it, you are a kingmaker, but never the king. I think automatically does make you less egoistic, because you know that eventually, you know, you are helping an entrepreneur succeed. Almost the first ownership of …”
Singh: Paperboat grew from zero to several hundred crores in revenue
“One of them was, of course, a company called Paperboat. This has been, you know, a fascinating journey to see how a company grew from nothing to, you know, several hundred crores of revenues today.”
Fireside writes ₹3-8 crore initial checks for startups at ₹5 crore revenue
“So our ticket size typically can vary from three, four crores up to seven to eight crores as our first check. And we believe that that's a point where a company typically, again, we would look at some companies who would be in the revenue range of maybe 40, 50…”
Fireside deploys up to ₹25 crore total capital per winning portfolio company
“Once we get comfort around that, then we write a much larger check typically which could go from 15 to even 20 crores of rupees. So, in a company that is showing all the right elements of success and the basic DNA that we believe can build a large business, Ty…”
Fireside has a 1-in-80 investment hit rate, backing 18 of 1,500 pitches
“Eventually I think our hit rate would be more like one in 71 in 80 kind of investment. So we have done 18. We have seen 1500. So that's a good way of defining it.”
Singh personally angel-invested in direct-to-consumer fresh meat brand Licious
“One of my favorite examples is a company I was a personal investor in called Licious, which is a direct to home company which supplies meat and meat based products.”
boAt built its audio business by disrupting distribution via e-commerce marketplaces
“We have a company called Boat, which has now built a very large Mobile accessory business primarily audio headsets and earphones and wireless speakers, which has disrupted the whole approach of how this business can be built, working with partners like Amazon,…”
Singh: boAt crossed the ₹100 crore revenue milestone by 2019
“Both of course. Is one of the companies which has crossed the hundred crore mark. We have several companies which are in the 50 crore plus range.”
Paper Boat, Epigamia, Licious, and iD Fresh all crossed ₹100 crore revenue
“Paperboard, Epigamia, Licious, ID Fresh they are all in the hundred plus crore range.”
Founders can gauge market reaction to a new product within 18 months
“And we also realize that, you know, in literally a year, year and a half's timeframe, you can get a good sense on how the market is reacting to your product.”
The Mariwala family backed Mamaearth while WestBridge Capital invested in Design Cafe
“We have family offices, the Mariwala family from Mariko invested in Mama Earth, and then we have private equity investors, like Westbridge invested in Design Cafe.”
Premji Invest, Unilever, ITC, and the Mariwala family are Fireside LPs
“Our LPs are either large consumer family offices or even, in many cases, the consumer companies themselves. And we have publicly announced that, you know, the Premji Invest and the Marivala family and Unilever and ITC, these are some of our investors.”
Singh: Vahdam Teas grew 10 to 15 times between 2015 and 2019
“I was also a personal investor in his company, so I've seen him, you know, grow significantly. One is the business has done really well. And although I can't share the numbers, the company has grown. Maybe from the time that I met him first till today, almost …”
Singh made 12 to 15 personal angel investments before starting Fireside
“Personally, I would say, I don't have a final count, but maybe between 12 and 15. This is before Fireside started. Now, I don't do any personal investing.”
Fireside's first exit was vending machine startup Qwik 24's sale to BigBasket
“So we had one exit. The fund is only two years old, so a little early to talk about actual numbers, but we did have one exit which was a company called Quick 24. This was a vending machine business very interesting concept, which was acquired by Big Basket las…”
The other half of the tape: Kanwaljit Singh's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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2021 1 mention in 1 episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Kanwaljit'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 | Managing Partner & Founder, Fireside Ventures | 1 | 21 | 67% 4/6 | full record on the Neon Show → |