Ashvin Chadha, co-founder of Anicut Capital and early investor in Bira 91, reflects on the craft beer brand's turnaround and future trajectory.
Insight
Chadha: Restructuring Debt with Honest Founders Preserves Capital 99% of Time
“Our view is we, on the debt side, if we can avoid litigation, NCLT, bankruptcy, et cetera to do settlements as much as we can, to do restructuring if required, give people, founders more time. If they're good founders, if you haven't funded a fraud you will ge…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Chadha predicts 1,000x returns will become common in Indian venture investing
“We're gonna see you know, not just in our portfolio, but in general, we're gonna see a thousand X becoming what 10 X and hundred X were in their timeframe. Very soon. So you're gonna see Those kinds of returns are being generated. There's already a few compani…”
Disclosure
Chadha gave written-off personal loans to founders to make payroll
“Personally, for instance, when founders are really struggling unable to make payroll or things like that, you know we've given them a short term loan that effectively we had written off, right?”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Chadha: Lendingkart Is Profitable and Will IPO in 2–3 Years
“Lending cart is from initially, you know, losing a lot of money because for running for growth is, you know, tremendously profitable now. So then I think that I, I'm very confident I'll see, we'll see an IPO in the next two, three years as well.”
Insight
Chadha: The first and last deals of a VC fund are usually the worst
“And I always kid to our team that usually the first deal is your worst deal. Because you're in a hurry to do it. You want to show this, that first and last deals of a portfolio are ones that you should never back on.”
Insight
Chadha: Bank collateral requirements exclude first-generation founders, enabling private debt
“Banks are very limited in what they do and whatever they want to do, they want collateral. First generation founders don't have that flexibility of offering a, you know, large house or legacy property, et cetera.”