The Exchanges

Q And what are the companies where you have led investment at Venture Highway?

A Um, quite a few, but I'd like to highlight, I mean, EdTech after a long time, uh, took a bet on this company called SwiftLearn. Uh, very, very excited. SwiftLearn is a, you know, I'm a mother of a twelve-year-old today, uh, and, You know, she's moved from an ICSE school to a, uh, to an IB now. But I, I've been very close to the EdTech, uh, scenario, not just as a founder, but also being a mother. And the SwiftLearn tries to solve for trying to be the best after school supplementary brand for online tuitions, right? And if you think about it, You know, today if you want to send your kid to a Kumon, right? Why would you send your kid to Kumon? Because you're not worried about the teachers. People who send their kids to Kumon, they like the framework. They like the pedagogy. There's a certain ROI you're getting. What happens today is, intuitions are largely still fragmented, right? Most of the middle school parents send their kids to a tuition, which is nothing but the teachers themselves in the school, and the kids are huddled up in their houses, and they're practicing the same thing that is taught in school, right? But there's a huge learning gap there, and you know, in Vidyartha, I had this massive data, uh, state by state to show how there's a huge gap between aptitude and academics, because kids are taught to score, right? But they're not taught to learn. But scoring is equal…

AI assessment note: “took a bet on this company called SwiftLearn”

Q So Priya, post the acquisition, how did you get the clarity that you wanted to be a VC?

A Um, well, Siddharth, I didn't get that clarity. Actually, the, the better clarity was that I wanted to take a break. And that was my, and the common joke was, Every time I meet a founder, I say this, right, and it's genuinely, the situation is when a founder sells, and you know, everybody sees the outcome. I think overwhelmingly one should also realize that it's a, venture is a very, very, uh, low probability game, right, and the kind of, very often it's also being at the right place at the right time, so that kind of gives you that gratitude That, you know, you've been lucky enough for the outcome to happen, all things being equal, of course, every one of us works hard, and we have this goal in life. And for the longest time, the joke would be, you know, HDFC would send me a message saying, minimum balance gone beyond, below 10,000. And for the first time, you know, and you should remember that both my husband and I were first generation founders, right? So we had an EMI, I had a three year old and we were both running businesses, so there was no salary coming in. Today, when I look back, I was like, how foolish we have been. But from there to this, the first thing I wanted to just sit back, right? Just put down my shoulders and, you know, probably take a break. Then I realized, you know, I'm not built that way. So while I'm taking a break, you know, I want to start thinking a…

AI assessment note: “I didn't get that clarity. Actually, the, the better clarity was that I wanted”

Q So, so would like to know, you know, you're, both you are, and Sami are in the leadership positions and you call your, uh, Uh, you know, title is startup Sensai. What's, what's been decision making like at Venture Highway? Uh, and you now are connected to other VC firms also. How are you guys different?

A We come from an operating background, right? Uh, so Neeraj obviously has, has, uh, you know, been very closely associated with WhatsApp and has been the CXO. And then, um, Sameer, while he was at Google, of course, he's done that corporate M&A and everything, but he came back and seven years, he was managing his family business. Uh, you know, literally he says he, his joke would be, you know, I let go of Google's free food to come in, you know, be in the factories of Faridabad. And of course, I have not had their global exposure. I've been eternally, uh, you know, throughout been working in India and Indian companies, right? And I've the last seven years of my own. I think that's the first thing all of us are operators. I think the decision making, I would say is one of complete collaboration. Having said that, it's also not, what I like about Venture Highway is that, um, each of us literally Take conviction bets, and you know, even if the other person, and that's, that's where I feel you find these amazing companies, right? If there's too much consensus, right? I don't know if, uh, too much consensus, I mean, again, Siddharth, I'm talking about with two years experience at VC, so you have, you may want to take my entire, uh, gyan with a pinch of salt, but I feel some of these bets need to be on a conviction basis, and in, more often than not, one person is more convinced than …

AI assessment note: “the decision making, I would say is one of complete collaboration”

Q So Priya, tell us about your Vidyartha journey, like, you know, uh, what, what is the problem, you know, uh, solving through tech in, in Vidyartha and to what scale you grew in, you know, let's say yearly revenues and number of paid subscribers or students you had and how big was the exit?

A Um, so let me start with the problem statement. I think I'm going to cut to the pivot because there was a, there was a little bit of the first year was more on the discovery. Essentially our problem statement was today parents and students were buying a lot of products and services, but very often this products and services that they were buying were instant purchases which were determined by Oh, my child is doing so badly in math, so I'm going to put her on a math tuition, or I'm going to get a Kumon, or I'm going to get a Baiju. And you would have heard most of them, you know, not really thinking about the long-term impact of buying those products and services. So our idea was, Can we, we had a diagnostic platform, which was pretty powerful, uh, where, you know, we, uh, identified, uh, the learning, uh, you know, uh, the learning, uh, path of a kid under four different quadrants, which included interest, aptitude, personality, and academics, and built, kept building algorithms, which were very, very specific and very tied into our boards, which is CBSE, ICSE. We did very few international schools, but We did a majority of CBSE ICSC. And we started figuring out in the long term, where is this child likely to go? What are the subjects he or she is likely to follow? And where is this, you know, where are the gaps from an aptitude and academics perspective? To give you an example…

AI assessment note: “let me start with the problem statement.”

Q And, uh, on your LinkedIn, you also write, you know, board member in Marsplay and, and any other companies where, where you hold a board position at?

A So, you know, um, a lot of these companies, we, you know, uh, we have board positions, but we choose to take it at an appropriate time. So we don't necessarily exercise the board position. Uh, Marsplay again is a community content. So Marsplay, the thesis is run by, uh, founder Misbah. Misbah is, you know, pretty, uh, Uh, uh, uh, quite a, uh, talk. I mean, he, he's quite popular in Twitter. He, he's very connected in the startup community. And Mizbah's thesis in mass play was about, can we make content shoppable, right? And he focused on building this community of tier two, tier three young people. Uh, where the platform becomes, uh, very interesting for creators to again, you know, sort of allow their content to become shoppable. Uh, so that's, uh, mass play. They're young. They're just, uh, you know, uh, they've been around for about a year, year and a few months. Uh, again, very, very different, uh, styles of leadership and very different space.

AI assessment note: “we don't necessarily exercise the board position. Uh, Marsplay again is a community content”