Agarwal: Info Edge mandates independent audit provisions even in early-stage startups
Kitty Agarwal · Episode 44 | Kitty Agarwal, Partner, Info Edge Ventures · Feb 18, 2020 · at 26:20
Kitty Agarwal, partner at Info Edge Ventures, describes the institutional corporate governance requirements the firm introduces to seed and early-stage portfolio companies.
0:00 / 0:18exact quote · 18.7s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Once we invest we do put in place the audit committee and we put in place other committees, right? And we make sure that there is independence of those committees at all times. We also make a provision for an independent director, even in our extremely early state startups, even if those seats remain Unfulfilled for a while.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Kitty Agarwal
Agarwal: Outsized startup growth is heavily driven by luck and timing
“So I would say the ones who are lucky enough, because luck also plays a big role, we believe, ah, for all these factors to come together, they grow, end up growing 5000 X, and the ones that are slightly unlucky or, you know, just wrong time, wrong place, at ti…”
Agarwal: Indian edtech market size poses challenges for traditional VC returns
“Overall, we think it's a market that is very attractive. Finding you know, kind of a market size you know, think that can be a bit challenging for conventional VC investors, we think, because each of these companies can probably scale to a certain point, and t…”
Agarwal: Info Edge refuses to back competitors of portfolio companies
“The reason it also looks way more diverse is because we don't invest in competition once we've invested in a company. And we are, we hold that very, very strongly irrespective of how that company is performing. That till we hold shares in one founder, We do no…”
Agarwal: Info Edge holds a majority stake in only one portfolio startup
“Because if you look at the current portfolio, only in one company we have over 50% stake out of that, out, all the others are minority investments, and the first shareholding that we look for when we enter is typically between 15 to 25%, which is extremely reg…”
Agarwal: Info Edge flash-sales investment failed as capital flooded the sector
“So we did, we took an early bet in a fashion e-commerce, one of those flash sales companies, which did not work for us because a lot of capital flooded the sector immediately after we invested and unit economics did not work.”