Reddy: Why Blume Ventures passed on investing in OYO's early round
Karthik Reddy · 100xEntrepreneur | Episode 14 | Karthik Reddy, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blume Ventures · Aug 16, 2019 · at 1:16:27
Karthik Reddy (co-founder of Blume Ventures) discusses why Blume missed out on investing early in Ritesh Agarwal's OYO.
0:00 / 0:28exact quote · 28.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“In the case of OYO, we had something remotely competing when Ritesh met us first as O'Revel even before the Thiel Fellowship. He was saying, I do like an Airbnb for India, right? And he said, yeah, but we have like a vacation rental place in our portfolio. How different is this? Bright kid, but, and that's it. After that, we, I mean, we again met him in the valley where he was a Thiel fellow, but we just said, I don't know whether there's enough for us to jump into it.”
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 Karthik Reddy
Reddy: India backs me-too copycats instead of novel behavior creation
“And it's because of new behavior creation that incredibly long, large long-term value gets created in the world. And India is almost the antithesis of it. All the large-term value you're trying to create is in Me Too's. Right? By pumping more money and trying …”
Reddy: Early Indian startups wouldn't exist without Tiger Global's Lee Fixel
“Because, you know, if, when Lee used to cut them from tiger, He's literally the only person in the world. If you think about it, you can say no, no, if Lee didn't, somebody else would have. I say bullshit. I say basically if Lee didn't, it wouldn't have happen…”
Reddy: Indian VC funds must target 5x returns to offset slower exits
“We don't want to be shooting for less than five X funds. In India, things take time, so I have to adjust for a time factor that things will take two years more, so that hits your IRR. We're measured by IRR. And so, don't want to take an easy way out and say, t…”
Reddy: Consensus themes are dangerous for seed funds seeking Series A
“So the more common themes that get picked are dangerous in some sense for a small player like us, because then you're always under headwinds, because there's a bigger guy who says, you know, I've already made a bet in the space or adjacent space. I won't fund …”
Reddy: Indian VCs will make the most money backing edge cases, not copycats
“Those risky bets are the ones which are going to make the most money. Like my LPs tell me, historically, you were shying away from that. It's probably true. It was basically, you didn't know what's going to work, what's going to take off, so you're hedging, ma…”