Opinion
Sinha says SaaS businesses are merely support tools, not market changers
“So, so therefore that is also one of the reasons I don't do a lot of software, right? So I don't do SaaS. I don't do enterprise SaaS or I, Don't do B to B SaaS. It's not like I don't like those businesses or they are not, they can't make money. They can make m…”
Insight
Outlier seed bets like ShareChat cannot happen via committee consensus
“You can't invest in a company like share chat by getting into a consensus, right? So it's impossible, right? Because there was hardly anything there, right? To say that you will basically create a social media company when you have a Facebook, when you have a …”
Insight
Conventional fund management applies only to $100M+ mega-funds
“I think fund manager thing only works when you are like managing hundreds of millions of dollars. You have that kind of pedigree where your job is largely doing money management, right? So we are not money management, right? Our job is not money management. Ou…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jun 2024
Sinha predicts ShareChat will grow at least 3x to 5x further
“So, and if share chat goes at least three to five times from here, Which I believe it will, because most of the investors who have invested in this round, they believe that.”
Disclosure
India Quotient launched with a strict rule to never syndicate deals
“Our strategy will be deciding the deal. So we will not do a syndicate kind of strategy. So we will we will invest and if the company raise more money, that's okay, but we will, our investment will not be subject to somebody else investment, right? So that was …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
India Quotient founders became tech investors despite zero coding experience
“We are full-fledged tech investors, as you can say, with me having zero experience of tech, by the way, I don't code. I don't understand code also, right? So of course I am an engineer, so I understand the logic of technology, but nothing hands-on. Similarly, …”
Disclosure
India Quotient used to give upfront checks alongside term sheets
“When we started investing in we had a rule that we would give a term sheet and along with the term sheet, we would Give a check of 10 lakhs or 20 lakhs to get started, right? So we will not say that, okay, now we are given a term sheet and now after two months…”
Disclosure
India Quotient did only two or three tranched deals in nine years
“Before starting India question, 60, 70% of the deals I would have done would have been a trans investment. So each investment will be broken into two, three, four steps, and then valuation will be based on certain parameters, so on, so forth. I think in the la…”
Disclosure
India Quotient publishes its standard term sheet online without modifications
“In our website, we have put out a term sheet and we don't make a lot of changes in the website when on the term sheet. We don't make a lot of changes in the term sheet when we are investing in a new company. We tell the founder to go and read it on the website…”
Disclosure
India Quotient partners can write first checks without consensus
“As a rule, what we do at India question is that when you are investing for the first time, right? We largely go by the gut of the champion partner over there. So if I am basically leading a deal, And I am very sure about doing the deal. Right. Then my partners…”
Opinion
Insufficient supporting capital makes deep tech investing difficult in India
“Unfortunately in India it is tough to invest in certain spaces because the capital which will be needed to support those investments is not available, right? So, so for example you would want to invest in a lot of companies in in the deep tech space, right? Or…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sinha predicts India Quotient will achieve a 10x+ return on Fund 2
“But I will only feel happy if I am able to do double digit multiples. I believe that we will do that in a fund too.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
India Quotient holds ~$150M position on $8M invested in ShareChat
“So I think till now we would have invested, I think 10,000,008, eight million dollars or so, right? Eight million dollars. And we would be sitting on, I think. One hundred fifty million dollars or so?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
India Quotient's first ShareChat check has returned over 500x
“So in share chat, our first check, which we had invested that is already multiplied more than 500 times, right?”
Assertion Supported
ShareChat founders launched with a ₹50L check instead of corporate jobs
“If you, even if you take the example of Shared guys in 2015, when they started, all of them had freshly graduated from IIT Kanpur. They could have easily got a job of 10, 20 lakh rupees in good, good companies, right? But they decided not to do that and take a…”
Disclosure
BharatAgri sees 60% to 80% renewal rates with farmers paying $7-$50
“Today, the company in two and a half years it has proven that not only farmers pay, but they pay again and again. So we have a, like, 70 to 80%, 60 to 80% renewal rates. We have like you know, in the pandemic, lot of things have got disrupted, but thankfully i…”
Disclosure
At least half of Sinha's annual investments come from portfolio founders
“And most of the deals which I do, which I, which is like three to four deals every year, I do four deals. Out of that, at least two deals I do, which come from the founders only, right?”
