Opinion
Banglani: Returning a $300M fund today is easier than $90M in 2017
“So I'm actually more bullish on
Being able to deliver on a three hundred million dollar fund today than I was in being able to deliver a ninety million dollar fund in 2017.”
Insight
Banglani: VCs should focus on controllable input metrics rather than DPI
“DPI is an output variable Siddharth. We don't really measure ourselves on the on the output that's for our LPs to do. That's for the market to do. We measure ourselves on our ability to attract the best entrepreneurs to ourselves. So, and we try to measure tha…”
Insight
Banglani: VCs Outside Founders' First-Choice List Face Severe Adverse Selection
“For entrepreneurs, it's a funnel. In the first reach out, you will not go to all the 30 odd funds that that exist in India. You will go to a list of five funds. If those five do not invest in you, then you go to the next list of 10 funds, and then you'll go to…”
Disclosure
Banglani: Alok Goyal and I initially opposed Stellaris investing in Mamaearth
“With Mama Arth with Mama Arth, I'm quite relieved that Rahul did the deal, even though Alok and I were quite opposed to it at that point.”
Insight
Banglani: AI makes previously unviable business models profitable via delivery cost collapse
“So it enables business models that did not exist before, or that were unviable before, because of that, because that delivery cost is crunched massively.”
Insight
Banglani: Venture capital returns depend on deal access before deal analysis
“Unlike many other asset areas, the one important thing in venture is that not everyone has equal access. I might be smart enough to recognize the next Zomato, But if the founder of the next Zomato is not coming to pitch to me, I'll make exactly zero dollars fr…”
Insight
Banglani: 100% deal coverage means no proprietary venture deal flow exists
“Nobody wants a hundred percent because that means there are no proprietary deals in the market, not for us, not for others. Just like we want we want to access certain entrepreneurs before they even start their fundraise. So do our peers and competitors. So a …”
Disclosure
Banglani: Stellaris remains strictly tech-only, India-only, and early-stage-only
“We took that call relatively early on that we will we will be tech only, India only, and early stage only. And for the past eight plus years, we have followed that strategy.”
Insight
Banglani: One-off late-stage investments increase portfolio risk and hurt LP fundraising
“We can't have a one-off late stage investment in our portfolio because it increases the risk. It makes fundraising harder. And of course that is not our area of expertise either. So we have said no to those kinds of opportunities.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Banglani: Credit will become a substantial part of India's UPI
“If you look at the largest payment systems globally, whether it is Visa or MasterCard or American Express in the US, or whether it is Alipay in China, they have a substantial, if not majority credit component. In India, UPI is massive, but it's debit only. So …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Banglani: Generative AI cuts Dashtune's comic creation costs by 90%
“So with generative AI, they are able to crash the cost of creating a comic by 90%.”
Disclosure
Banglani: Six Stellaris portfolio companies crossed $1M ARR in under a year
“I started in venture in 2007, in that 2007 through 11 period, when we used to build projections for our portfolio companies, we would project them to get to, we would project that they would get to a million dollars in annualized revenue in three to four years…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Banglani: Cost reduction from AI will drive Indian consumer AI startups globally
“I think as Indian entrepreneurs realize that they can sell globally and that AI reduces the cost to that extent that it becomes viable to sell globally, we should see a lot more consumer AI startups come out of India.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Banglani: Stellaris Sees Over 90% of Relevant Indian Market Deals
“When we started, our coverage ratio was about 55%. So we were seeing roughly half of the deals that were happening in the market at the right time. And I'm quite proud of the fact that for the last three years, that coverage ratio for us has been more than 90%…”
Disclosure
Banglani: Stellaris sold small secondary stakes during early COVID
“So we took a decision at that point to do small secondaries in two of our companies so that we have the capital to help our portfolio if needed.”
Disclosure
Banglani: Stellaris backed 8-9 companies from Flipkart-Myntra ecosystem
“Just the Flipkart and Myntra ecosystem. And just with one fund ours, we have funded at least eight or nine companies just from that one ecosystem.”
