Insight
Anand: First-time founders need M&A advisors to enforce bidding timelines unemotionally
“So that can be best told by a third party. Because, you know you're always a bit nervous. You know, you were selling your first company. You know, you're talking to somebody in the transaction team or the M&A team of a large company. Do you tell that with that…”
Disclosure
Anand: WNS's initial acquisition draft mandated clawbacks for key employee departures
“And the, when we saw the shareholders, the first draft that came from, they was Shardola Merchant, WNS. We kind of had a heart attack, right? Because they had things like, you know, if somebody leaves, then they'll have a claw back and so on. They had identifi…”
Insight
Anand: Selling a company takes three times the effort of fundraising
“Let me tell you that an exit is at least three times more work and effort than a fundraise, right? If you think a fundraise is, you know highly energetic and, you know, takes a lot, very demanding. And I mean, an exit is at least three times”
Assertion Partly supported
Anand: ValueEdge sold for $20M with $17.5M cash and RSUs
“It was a twenty million dollar exit with, you know, 17.5 million cash upfront and then the balance in RSUs and all the cash 70% was you know, paid on day one and the 30% was paid over three years.”
Insight
Anand: Product companies yield higher valuation multiples than services for equal effort
“The effort and the time is the same, right? But just imagine the multiple that you get on a tech product company versus the product multiple that you get on the services company, and many good reasons for that are well known reasons for that. But, you know if …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Anand: Roche accounted for $2M of ValueEdge's $6.5M–$7M revenue
“In the short journey of Value Edge of seven, eight years, Roche became a two million dollar business. And in, in a company which eventually had a business size of around six and a half, seven million dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Anand: ValueEdge reached 150 employees and multiple $1M+ clients bootstrapped
“At the time of exit you know, we had a couple of million-dollar-plus clients. There was Roche, there was Merck, there was Bayer you know, blue-chip clients. And it was about a 150 people team with offices in the US in Europe, in Frankfurt and in Switzerland. S…”
Disclosure
Anand: ValueEdge shortlisted five serious bidders from forty potential acquirers
“I recall we identified something like, fuck the possible you know, acquirers. And you know, given that we were in the life sciences domain analytics domain, I mean, that, 40 is the reasonable number. And then they ran the sort of teaser, right? And I remember …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Anand: WNS acquired ValueEdge for life sciences capability, not revenue
“They were not acquiring us for the revenue, right? I think they were acquiring us for the capability in life sciences. They had a large life sciences practice with one client with, they had like seven, 800 people with that one client where they had built an ou…”
What-if
Founders Should Negotiate Acquirer Stock to Capture Post-Deal Upside
“One of the learnings that I could have, and that was again, hindsight was that maybe part of the payment could be made in cash or part of the payment could have been made in you know, more like a stock component, which comes upfront. That allows us to also par…”
Disclosure
Anand: 1DigitalStack on track for $1.2M ARR by end of April 2022
“Today we are a 40 person company. We have about 24 clients. 25% of the businesses outside India. We're about in, by end April, we are looking at 1.2 million dollar ARR.”
Assertion Contradicted
Anand: Global e-commerce advertising spend totals roughly $300 billion
“E-commerce advertising alone is, you know, Amazon and everybody else put together is about three hundred billion, right?”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Anand: 1DigitalStack targets $3M ARR within 18 months
“In the next 18 months Siddharth, we're looking to take this to three million. Right. And then after that, we do want to fast track it.”
Disclosure
Rohit Anand allocates 90% of his wealth conservatively, capping venture at 10%
“90% of the money is in various equity funds or debt funds, et cetera. It's a 10%, which is you know, across where I am also LP in some funds and I'm also you know, an angel investor.”
Disclosure
Rohit Anand discloses LP investments in YourNest, Pi Ventures, Stellaris, and Sixth Sense
“I am an angel investor in, for example, your nest one, two, your nest one, three five ventures right. A fund, a mixed fund, like Stellaris you know, fund two, which is between consumer and tech, right? The only consumer, large consumer fund where I'm an LP is …”
Disclosure
Rohit Anand reveals angel investments in Neeman's, Virohan, Biryani Blues, and Navia Healthcare
“Investments in Neiman Shoes you know, where you advised me many years back, so I'll never forget that. Virohan on the health tech side Plutokai Coffee Biryani Blues Viziki you know, and several others Navia Healthcare, et cetera.”
Disclosure
Anand Invested ₹25 Lakhs of Personal Savings Into a 1999 Dot-Com
“And I decided to take the plunge put in my savings of around 20, 25 lakhs. That was a huge amount in those days. And start something which was a woman's community portal.”
