The Exchanges

Q strategic business management. In 2018, Mitesh Shah, along with Vinay Bansal, Ankur Mittal, co-founded Inflection Point Ventures. From two 83 investors on their platform in 2018, they have over 3500 investors now who are all CXOs in different companies. So, Mitesh, we would love to know you. What, what made you shift to venture capital from, you know, being a traditional CFO, right? CFOs are more risk-averse in their nature.

A Uh, no, very well put Siddharth. Uh, I think that's the general notion. Uh, but if you look at the recent read of CFOs and all, uh, I think there has been a tremendous shift, right? I think the community as a whole, uh, CFOs have realized that I think, uh, where you try to kind of protect that, you know, one X downside, there is greater merit in actually trying to capture the 20 X upside, right? And that's how, uh, you know, there is a way to look at every potential idea. That's what I've learned, uh, you know, in my career. Uh, working with three of the top most consumer brands, starting with Being Human and then Ola and then Book My Show. I've been fortunate enough to work with two of the top most digital consumer brands, Ola and Book My Show. Uh, and, uh, you know, my fascination or penchant for the startup, uh, investment or mentoring started with my Ola disc. Uh, my first investment I did somewhere around 2015. Uh, right. When I funded a company which was founded by one of my ex colleagues from Bandana. Uh, a peer to peer lending company called Indian club. Uh, the idea was that I was working on a digital startup Ola and looked at new ways of doing business. I think, uh, we started again, when I joined Ola was a very small company. We were about a 150 in size, uh, present across only three cities, right? Uh, running only, uh, two categories, uh, of cabs also. And as we gre…

AI assessment note: “my fascination or penchant for the startup, uh, investment or mentoring started with my Ola”

Q And also, can you share the structure or the platform of Inflection Point Ventures, how it operates?

A Yeah, sure. So, like I said, Inflection Point Ventures founded in, uh, in late, 2018 by a few of us. It's a platform, uh, which has investors on one hand and has the founders on the other hand. Every month, we look at close to 200, uh, startup ideas, uh, you know, uh, Understand them, meet the founders, uh, meet the market sources, try and understand the space in detail, and finally choose a handful of ideas out of this to be presented to our investors, uh, three and a half thousand plus investors who are spread across 21 plus different countries of the world. So present to them through founder pitch calls, uh, you know, on a Saturday morning over Zoom call, uh, the ideas get pitched to the investors. Uh, we get a very structured feedback from the investors, uh, On the potential of the idea on the potential of the founding team. On top of that, with our experience and with the subject matter experts who are, uh, typically part of our group itself, uh, we do a thorough due diligence and analysis of the startup idea, uh, including various aspects of the business market size, demand situation, supply situation, uh, unit economics, competitive landscape, uh, uh, funding, funding structure, and a lot of other things. And then finally we decide, uh, to invest into the startup, uh, and pass the call to our investors. Uh, who then, you know, invest into this particular startup. So we h…

AI assessment note: “It's a platform, uh, which has investors on one hand and has the founders”

Q So Ashneesh shared on one media outlet, you know, that, uh, the first round valuation was like post money, three million dollars. So I think it's the size of the exit rate, if we don't consider dilution is 300 times, obviously with dilution coming in is 80 to 90, 80 to 90. So was IAPV the only seed investor or there were other seed investors also in that round?

A No, there were other seed investors as well on the round. I think he was looking to raise, uh, close to about, uh, a million dollar plus. So apart from IPV, there were other seed investors also, uh, in the round, but like I said, it was a very few chosen, uh, investor base, uh, right. And because of, uh, our association with him, we were, uh, IPV was kind of one of the few chosen ones initially, and that's how we ended up investing in Bharat. I mean, Today, obviously it's a proven story. Everybody knows that it's a unicorn and everybody knows the strength of it. Think of it two and a half years ago when, uh, like I said, I'm just reiterating myself that it's that belief in that founder at that point of time, uh, where the idea that he came up with, uh, you know, uh, there was no plan for monetization. There was no plan how the growth will actually come from, but it was something that we knew that he was, he was working on a very strong technological product. It was working, uh, with a full understanding of the market landscape, and that was most important thing at that point. So yes, I think apart from IPV, there were other investors also, but at IPV, we were very, very bullish about it.

AI assessment note: “No, there were other seed investors as well on the round.”

Q And tell us about the other companies which have gone large, right? We are still a shareholder, right? What are the other large companies from the portfolio except Bharat Pay?

A Well, quite a few of them, uh, uh, you know, to begin with, uh, we have Fable in the Health Tech, uh, which, which got funded by, by Manipal Group, BPG. Uh, uh, we got, uh, Touch, which is in, uh, artificial intelligence, ML-based, uh, platform, uh, works with almost all the larger content players, uh, and even, uh, uh, you know, media players supporting sports and all, uh, that have grown leaps and bounds, uh, uh, you know, very soon you'll hear some Uh, stories, uh, some big news about them. Uh, uh, and likewise, a lot of other players, uh, there have been players on the SaaS platform. Uh, there have been players on the, uh, you know, virtual tech platform. Uh, uh, you know, again, uh, given the sensitive nature of information or at various stages of deal making that they are, won't be really comfortable in sharing names. But like I said, there have been 12 follow-on rounds and five exits. So almost all of them have been at very good stage. And, uh, a few recent investment, uh, which I think we are Uh, we have invested into OTP earlier, uh, which is growing really well. Uh, probably, uh, one of the smartest, uh, founders that we know, or we have come across, uh, platform growing, uh, very, very well. Uh, consumers are really happy with that platform. And likewise, uh, we have always believed in great founders. So, so blue smart, uh, on the EV space, mobility space in the plac…

AI assessment note: “to begin with, uh, we have Fable in the Health Tech... we got, uh, Touch”

Q Mitesh, tell us about your investment in Bharat Pay. How did you meet Ashneer very early, and how did the current exit happen, and what was the exit for IPV there?

A So very interesting topic and, uh, you know, nostalgic, uh, Ashneer and my friendship goes back to actually days when I was CFO with Ola and Ashneer was, uh, with American Express Bank. Uh, we have been interacting with each other ever since then, and then he joined, uh, Grofers as CFO. Uh, I joined, took my show. Uh, he moved out of Grofers as well. And then it was, uh, you know, we actually, we were the part of the founding team at, uh, IPV as well, where Ashneer was also one of the, Few believers early on, uh, work with us, uh, That's when actually he came up with this thought of, uh, you know, doing something in the fintech space, uh, by leveraging on the strength of the QR code, uh, delivering a ubiquitous QR code, which can kind of help customer, uh, to use any payment system, UPI also at the backend and pay through any other, uh, uh, any other wallet or any other, uh, player. Uh, that was the idea for me, uh, you know, Asneer came, pitched the idea. Uh, it was, it was a very simple conviction for me, two things only, right? One, obviously Asneer as a founder. A great guy. I have known him for long. And that's one of the pieces that we at IPV also follow always is that, uh, invest in great founders. I think businesses will keep pivoting. Uh, there'll be external tailwinds or headwinds. Uh, it's up to the founder, how dynamic he is in terms of either capitalizing on the ta…

AI assessment note: “Ashneer and my friendship goes back to actually days when I was CFO with Ola”

Q We all know the valuation of Bharat Pay right now. It's nine hundred million. I think nine or one million, but at what valuation you entered into Bharat Pay?

A I think, uh, you will be smart enough in maths yourself. Uh, as we all know, as we discussed about in the media, it's an ATX return. So remove the, uh, the, the dilution impact and all. I, I'm not sure if I'm free to divulge the details of the investment, the price at which I entered, but, uh, the only thing that I can say is it was any other Seed stage around that you will not blink your eye to kind of invest in that idea, uh, provided you have belief in the founder. We do come across a lot of such early stage idea every day in our life. Uh, lot of them we don't take seriously, right? I think it's, it's that ability to identify that one winner. Uh, right. And nobody can get it a hundred percent.

AI assessment note: “I'm not sure if I'm free to divulge the details of the investment”