Kushal Bhagia explains why Indian accelerators struggle to compete with Y Combinator when offering less founder-friendly terms.
Opinion
Bhagia: Y Combinator is the only VC brand that outlived its founders
“I think everybody else, the, how much of an institution you build, if the people change the funds ranking changes. Like Kleiner Perkins used to be one of the top funds. They then went down, right? That cycle keeps repeating in the Valley as well by sees the on…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
India could have 1,000 tech unicorns by 2035
“It's like today we have what? 40, 45 unicorns in India, right? It's possible that by 2035, we may have a thousand unicorns.”
Opinion
Bhagia: Most Indian VCs ghost founders after pitch meetings
“Most we see in India still don't honestly close the loop with a founder. There's still a lot of ghosting and just like somebody comes and pours their life's dream out to you and you just don't reply after that.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bhagia: Meesho successfully took on e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart
“Vidit had once told, like before they went up competing against Flipkart and Amazon yet told me I'm going to do it. I was just like, this guy is crazy, man. Like was at that time, Amazon Flipkart were like these giants, right? Like you couldn't imagine that th…”
Disclosure
First Cheque invests almost blindly if a venture partner vouches for founders
“If the deal has come through a venture partner, and if the venture partner knows the founder, right, and is watching for the founder, then we will almost blindly invest. Then it doesn't even, like, as long as it's a VC fundable space, we'll go ahead and invest…”
Disclosure
First Cheque will invest in competing startups if venture partners vouch
“If a venture partner knows the founder, then we'll still do the deal, even if it's a competing company, because as I said, we are investing at pre-seed, right? So the market and team is what is important to us, not the current product.”