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Episode 153 / January 24, 2022

The Gardening approach of Seed Investing ft. Bipin Shah, Titan Capital

48 min

Episode 153 / January 24, 2022

The Gardening approach of Seed Investing ft. Bipin Shah, Titan Capital

48 min
Listen on

Since early 2020, we’ve noticed numerous startups becoming Unicorn one after another.

But something a bit unnoticed by the wider audience is the valuations of startups at Seed-stage, which has grown multiples in the last two years.

Bipin Shah, Partner at Titan Capital and this week’s guest, says, “Till 2019, a great startup idea with an awesome team would be valued around $2Mn to $3Mn, which has now gone up to $10Mn+.”

So far, Titan Capital has made more than 250+ investments in early-stage startups. Bipin shares his experience and the thesis around identifying, mentoring, and investing in seed-stage founders.

Notes –
01:18 – Joining Titan Capital
06:10 – Finding Soonicorns and Unicorns
08:27 – How did they manage to make 90+ investments in a year?
12:02 – What support does Titan Capital offer to portfolio companies?
15:58 – Thesis: Focus on bottom 50% of companies
28:10 – Change in valuation at the Seed stage
31:20 – Learnings in the last six years as an investor

 

Read the full transcript here:

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 00:00

Hi, this is Siddhartha Ahluwalia. Welcome to the 100x entrepreneur Podcast. Today I have with me, Bipin Shah, partner at Titan capital. Titan capital is considered to be one of the favourite seed stage VCs in India. Titan was formed by Kunal and Rohit, founder of snapdeal. And the journey has been incredible how Titan capital has played a transformational role in seed stage investing in India. Welcome Bipin to the podcast.

 

Bipin Shah 00:28

Hi Siddhartha, thanks for inviting me and telling great things about Titan capital. So, very much excited to answer your questions and help our audience learn more about Titan and also the dynamics of seed investing going on in country and also how Titan is trying to have a differentiating strategy to help companies. So, yeah, happy to say more about that.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 01:01

We would love to know about your journey, How did you connect with Kunal and Rohit initially to join Titan capital?

 

Bipin Shah 01:09

Yeah, very I think the most interesting question. it was 2015 when I met Kunal and that time, he had portfolio somewhere around 25-26 companies and he was looking for someone who can be in touch with those companies and he can see them through my lens. Okay, and also to like help portfolio companies if they need our help, observing as well as helping them and so I was the first guy who hired and I had the same question with him why you are hiring me, why you are not hiring some some VC professional 40 year old who can help companies better and why you are hiring me, before this I was a founding team member at lead angels 2013-15, I graduated from IIT Bombay in 13. So I was working with Susanto Mitra and so in Angel Investing domain when it is an Angel Network, they’re always looking for investing in new companies and looking for new companies, you hardly get time to like garden and help portfolio companies and I was looking for… I will say a garden and atmosphere and ecosystem where I can actually garden and help companies because we are in seed stage domain for first two three years of venture more than money, our portfolio companies need a lot of time and that time where investor need to help them on PMF, what should be how to focus on the right TG and what should be our Northstar metric, when company starts. So when I met Kunal he was also looking for someone who can help his companies where he and Rohit were had done angel investment and when I joined, he had already invested in Ola, UrbanClap and Razorpay out of six unicorns in our portfolio, three he had already invested they started investing mid 2011, agro star and Ola were first investments. And so this is the starting journey. And then then I joined and after two three years of me working with him and managing companies, investing in more companies then we realise it’s time to build a team and it’s very difficult to hire a team without name. And then in 2017, we coined the name Titan capital, and it is still not a sebi registered fund etc. It is still I will say friends office, not even family office, Kunal and Rohit are friend from school, So we call it friends office. So sort of family office, and I have been running it since then 2015. We have a very smart, small lean team, very hardworking people, only five member full time team. And this is how Titan capital got started. And, my journey with Kunal and Rohit and it’s been almost we’re about to complete seven years and now we are in 248 companies. So I just checked the number to be disclosed here. So and last year also we have done some 90-92 investments, but still the thesis is same that Titan capital is more sort of garden. And the approach is pure gardening. We are not here just to invest and move on looking for new companies that say very, I will say we invest in a new company, by default, we have a very strong deal flow, we keep looking for companies, which is fitting into our thesis, but we don’t take much stress. To be frank, we take the stress in helping our portfolio companies which company’s not doing well who is taking, who is looking for our health. So we spend more time on that.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 05:38

And if you can tell some metrics about these companies, you mentioned there are 6 unicorns, right. In one of your posts, you also mentioned that you can see 10 Plus software products, SAAS Enterprise tech from title portfolio, which will be 100 million ARR companies in the next five to 10 years, can you tell us about these companies, and how you invested with them?

 

Bipin Shah 06:04

So unicorns are already listed on our website. So you can see OLA, Urbanclap, Razorpay, then recently turned mamaearth. And offbusiness also last fyi, and we are also as family office also invested in snapdeal, so we count that also. So its 6 and in terms of that LinkedIn post, which I used to do every week earlier last five-six months, there was no time I was so busy in again portfolio and new investments, I need to restart, one of the post I had told that, there’s in fact, more than 10 companies, but this is something because now we have so many companies in portfolio. And we have good number of unicorns, and we have a huge number of soonicorns, where the valuation is between 300 to a billion dollar, like two companies I got to know after I like in last two weeks that they are raising their funds at unicorn valuation, yet to be disclosed, it will take one or two months. So many of them are also in software. So companies which I see will be like crossing more than 100 million dollar in next five years, three years or 10 years. I think we are very sure about companies like hello messenger, Fleet x, I have made a note. And again in SAAS, if we can see, there is razorpay, pepper, teachmint there are many such companies.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 07:59

Currently, last year, you said you did 90 plus investments. So how many companies you would have seen last year in title as a whole.

 

Bipin Shah 08:16

So basically, our approach is this that many companies apply at us at Titan, through email, or reaching out to team or through LinkedIn post from LinkedIn messages, and also applying on our website. But also our team keep reviewing companies on different portals. So if we combine all of them, then it’s definitely around 3500-4000 definitely, because we have a good pool of interns also. And it’s their responsibility to keep going through them. And we have figured out some thesis after a good number of investments and almost a decade of seed investing. So even our intern is aware of what fits into Titan thesis. And they create a funnel which every VC funds to, okay even like series A or seed stage, everyone has a mechanism and but definitely it’s around 3500, If you count all of them, but the companies which which are presented to me by team would be around maybe maybe 500 in a year out of 500 We ended up investing in 90-95

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 09:43

And what does the investment process look like? Like once you have viewed it, then you Kunal and Rohit discuss about the company, have a call together with the founder?

 

Bipin Shah 09:57

Yeah, so I try my best to like to disturb Kunal and Rohit minimum because they are completely focused on Snapdeal and now, there is IPO process also going on. So, the process is as such, as I told you just now that we I review maybe 450 or 500 companies in a year. So, it comes down to around 10 companies, so, I meet 10 companies a week. So, and then if we have done 90 to 91 investments, so, it’s around eight investments a month. So, two investments a week, maths is very simple, if I made 10 companies a week, we end up investing to two, maybe I would be discussing with Kunal and Rohit maybe three or four companies out of 10, I am meeting a week and out of those four, we end up investing in one to two or three depending on whether the week is very good or it’s done because there have been some months where we have not invested at all or we invested in just one or two companies, the average is 7-8 but there have been months like in second wave in the month of April, we just I think invested one or two companies. So, but on an average this is the maths, but that is very clear my one very key responsibility is to navigate the flow accordingly and manage the investment process such that I take minimum time of Kunal Rohit which they also do the final meetings mostly in evenings or weekend.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 11:45

And once you have invested, what kind of support is there from Titan side to the portfolio company?

 

Bipin Shah 11:59

that is very interesting part of our Titan business, we are very clear as a joint consensus between Kunal, Rohit and myself that our team needs to be available for our portfolio companies wherever they need that, we are not someone who goes there and, like force founder to do this, to do that, or like force them to do board meetings, or TITAN will impose their own thesis on you. So we don’t do that, Infact, Titan has thesis to not join any board as director also, okay, we generally join as observer and we remain very silent and that also I am on board of maybe only 10-12 companies out of 249-250 investments, maybe out of 250 investments we have done 150 last two, maybe three years, they are still early, and but investment which we did till 2018 They have already grown up or or many of them have shut down also. So we don’t need to be involved there. But those 150 companies, at least, I try to talk to them once a month on phone and whenever they need our help. we have kept ourselves very much I will say approachable, not also for portfolio. And also for people who are applying a titan like I’m very active on my LinkedIn message. And same with like Kunal and Rohit, whenever they get any inbound deal application, they immediately forward it to me. And we are very active in like, across not only portfolio, but out of that also because many of the companies, they try to reach out to you that maybe sometimes they don’t want to raise funds, they just want to talk, they want to talk and they want to get connected to some of our portfolio companies. And that’s how sometimes we build a relationship also, that when they when they will be raising after six months and one year, they will come to us that is very important. So we have a very simple thesis of helping our founders and don’t try to manage them or micromanage them. So, I will tell you one story, one company one founder, he replied back to me and he told that business is not working out the idea which they presented to tighten in month of April, I think month of June, June last year. And then we invested rewired the money by July sometime. And he is telling that he is in sports business and sports training and people again this third waves has come and he’s very uncertain if people will turn out to sport facilities, how it will work. And now I’m more available to him. So we do weekly meeting I generally do suppose if a portfolio company doing well having good revenues, suppose pepper will come to me and they will say we are evolving, we are doing some pivot and we are evolving our product more and they are already at a good run rate, which is north of $2 million arr. So, then I will be available with him whenever he is calling me, but I will hardly set up maybe monthly call with him to review his product or team building etc, but this company because he is completely changing his idea and see this day, I am weekly available for him and we jointly brainstorm multiple ideas, he is trying to do again because he is not going ahead with that sports idea. So, our thesis is to focus on to be frank, bottom 50% companies in portfolio, then in VC, you will see fund managers they have, they will prioritise top 20% of portfolio companies, okay, out of 10 investments they did last year will focus on top two, three companies, which is close to PMF. So that I can help them in raising new round, it is easier to scale them up. Okay, because they’ve already done PMF. In our case, we’re very lucky also. And I’m also learning that companies who are actually doing well, and we are seed stage investors. So they are easily picked up by VCs for Series A, they are already there to help them and we are available if they need us. But companies are not able to raise series A, the bottom 50% Like, if now my priority, I was also on break last month for my wedding. And when I came back, I started I’m completely busy on reviewing portfolio companies who are not doing well out of the companies. We have invested, I will say till mid of 2021 that’s the strategy or we don’t judge companies where we have invested in last six months, we don’t just a ticker we are available for helping them but like suppose we have one whatever we have invested in last two years, till May of 2021 till six months back and if they’re not doing well, then it’s my responsibility to call them and and just to activate them because do you need my help? What is going on? Let’s sit Let’s discuss. And so we spend most of our time there. And we have seen a lot of turn around and PMF happening because of this proactive help, we do for companies. And it’s at stage it’s very chaotic, where there are more number of companies. So that’s why it’s very important for Titan team to keep building resource not only for me, but for my colleagues which is in team for them also and which they also understand very well and they they do comply with that, to be in touch with companies. Because if you’re getting our help we are available because sometimes we have seen founders are also not very confident. Is this the right stage that I raised this problem with my investor, will they judge me ki kisme paisa daal diya. we need to be very casual and very cool and very, genuinely very supportive. Okay, and I came back from break and all those two three situations came to me, I told my team boss abhi mai new investments se door hu, you manage the full December I was away and I am focusing on all those problems in Portfolio First, I need to scream I need to solve them even before i sleep. So we have that kind of very deep strategy to help and we are very much committed to our portfolio, So I think that is the core of Titan capital and and we call this gardening approach. Ke khaad daalte rahenge aur paudhe ko grow karenge, so I think that is something which has helped us and that will remain the core of Titan.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 19:38

An in out those 250 companies that you have invested in, how many shutdowns you have seen?

 

Bipin Shah 19:45

So generally we consider shut down every year, we review it twice, okay, for companies, where we have invested like more than like three years back, And you will have a situation where like founders are already telling you the boss it’s not working out. And this is our fourth year, we have done multiple pivots and we are shuting it down. So, that is one and then there are cases where you will figure out that business is not growing. Okay. And it’s stagnant, but founder is running that. So, in that case, we stay there, okay, we always stay there, I have seen a company where it was not growing, but it turned from negative hugh burn five years back four years back to profitability, two years back and since then, they are profitable, and but it was not growing at all. Okay, and that company recently got acquired and we made money on that. So, that’s why we stay there. And third case will be there we have seen cases where like co-founders have split and like they were not gelling up well, and then company was shut down. So in that case also we exit, if considering first case and third case, there would be around definitely 22 to 23 companies, which would have shut down or we would have just got the principal back combining both of them it will be around 20 to 22.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 21:40

almost 10% of the portfolio.

 

Bipin Shah 21:43

yes but we have a long history of investing of 10 years so in last two three years Yeah, generally we don’t exit in companies, where we have we have invested in just last two or three years, we generally review for companies where we have invested till three years back, but there have been cases, I am just recalling where we invested within last last three years and that has not worked well. And we are in the process of exiting. But total if you take it’s around 21-22

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 22:41

And how many exits you have seen in 250 companies?

 

Bipin Shah 22:46

So, we have philosophy to not exit at all, to be frank, to stay there till IPO or m&a but still we have exited few of our mature companies just because we have to keep writing new cheques, because we are not a funding structure where we have external capital. This is purely Kunal and Rohit proprietary capital. And so, that is a reason we had to keep exiting from mature companies, we would have taken around and that also we started when our flux of investment increased two years back, I think our flux increased in 2020 early or since 19, we are writing more number of cheques yearly and I will say that is also in sync with the how overall seed stage investment market has grown in India. Since 2019, every funds writing more number of cheques, more number of companies they are investing. So and we also started exiting 2019 completely to sponsor our new cheques. So it would be around 8 to 10 companies are few of them which is already in media.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 24:33

In 2021, what was the average cheque deployed across these 90 companies?

 

Bipin Shah 24:42

We write somewhere around 100k, not more, because there will be some companies where we would have done maybe 1.5 CR, but there would be definitely some companies where we have done 30-40 lakhs also. So if we take average, It will come around 75 to 80 lakhs, we don’t have too much money okay. So, why people come to Titan, we are truly seed investors, well actually even a crore rupee matters to a company and people come to us for a right network of Titan and and right guidance, I will say what founders keep saying because we also keep asking and we have a survey model. So, where we take feedback from our founders. So, but yeah we investor last year all the seed cheques we wrote were ranging anywhere between 50k to maximum 300k. We have done 300k also but, average would be around you can assume average would be around maybe 90-100 lakhs maximum not more than that.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 26:08

what is the maximum valuation that you go up to while investing?

 

Bipin Shah 26:12

that question no more exist after the year we saw 2021 and 20. So, this is constant debate in our team that I am the person who is like very much into, we have classified our deal flow into two categories TST and HVD. And sometimes team also get frustrated yeh Bipin kya coin karte rehte hai yeh nayi terma, TST is Titan seed deals where the valuation is less than 20 cr and HVD is anything which is more than 20 cr, but cannot be more than 100 crore. The idea was this that we will not do deals where the valuation is more than 100 Crore, we will not see them and by mid of 2021, our TSD deals where the valuation was less than 20 cr, Titan Seed Deals and, High valuation deals Okay, TSD went to zero and it was all HVD every month okay high valuation deals. So, and then I had to remove that barrier that Demarcation Line ki hum TSD kar rhe hai ya HVD like hardly you get companies where the valuation is now, which used to be till two years back like our average valuation at which we were writing cheques used to be 13-14 cr. Okay, not more than $2 million, average valuation till 2019 calendar year, okay. And 2020 went to somewhere around 40 Cr. And now, I did match recently, in fact, when I was studying all our portfolio performance for last year, I checked it is around 48-50, The average valuation for last four or five months, second half of last calendar year. If we take the full year, it is around 40-41 cr. But it used to be 13-14 cr three years back. So it has definitely gone high. And it’s very difficult to actually where where we actually become so sure yeh deal bahut acha hai, market bahut acha hai and team bhi acha hai and this problem needs to be solved and eventually large company will be built. Eventually you will hear from founders that valuation is eight to $10 million. It’s no brainer. So and this has become new norm like valuation for obvious deals has gone from $2-$3 million to $8 to $10 million pre money. And that is a big challenge for us kind of people where capital is limited. When you have external capital, you can write more larger cheque. You have you have unlimited money, you can raise new funds, new forms and new funds. That’s the challenge for Titan capital. So we can’t extend our cheque size. Okay, so that’s why we don’t have any hard limitation on the percentage we are taking, but definitely we have very high bar on team not idea to be prime, if we see a very strong team working on an idea or somehow we are not liking at all okay. So that is again a special case. But we have also seen a company formation in our portfolio where we liked the team very much and we told them boss we are not liking this idea and reach out to us when you agree with this and they’re very strong team in fact they are founders of lime chat and IIT delhi boys, very adamant ki yeh Bipin ye aapne kya bol diya, and then they were doing election campaign management for political parties, and then they themselves came back three months down the line and said we need to work rework our idea and then we worked with them and we form and we worked with them on new ideas and then finally they took it and then they scaled out. So, those kinds of investment also we do, but any any such great team coming to us and with refined ideas and early traction and sent then 8 to 10 million is the minimum valuation

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 31:07

if you have to summarise your learnings from seed investing in the last six years, what would they be?

 

Bipin Shah 31:15

Last six years, kaafi learnings hai, I think the one very good takeaway is this that great companies are being created one is good companies, and then one is great companies, okay. So and also like seed investment, I have been doing this from college days only I was heading e-cell of IIT Bombay. And then those days, startups were not that popular and not that celebrated, you know, 2008-13 When I was studying there, when 13 I graduated, everyone was joining large companies as consultant and analyst, financial analyst, or going for an MBA, so PhDs, so I jumped into lead angels and learn from Susanto and he had been great mentor, and I learned all my SHA, drag along, tag along all the board writes everything from him, and I’m very thankful to him. But I was always aligned to help seed stage investing, people will not believe, people who are graduating now, they will not believe what the actual dynamics were in 2012-13, I remember in fact OLA, one of my friends that I was interning in OLA. And then in 2011 during college and he was helping founders in making presentation his his job profile into 2011-12 was to create presentation for Ola to raise their seed round and their office was in dream small Bombay and I used to discuss with him It took them four or five months to raise there that Indian Angel Network, Kunal and Anupam Mittal’s round and then into 2015 I joined Kunal and very small world, and I was managing this as a portfolio okay. So I used to listen from him that how difficult it was and 2013 then also I was very much confident that this is something which I want to do in my life. I was never knowing is scale pe bada ho jaayega India ecosystem and then I will be working with Kunal and Rohit and the Titan capital itna kch nhi socha tha maine but I need to contribute. I need to help companies generally yeh wali feeling jab aap khud ki company bana lete ho, when you are in your 40s then you actually get into VC. Okay, but somehow mujhe karna tha, and it was I was completely alone in this vision. I was not able to discuss this with my friends. To be frank I had very different kind of career journey and us zamane me bade VC me part nhi ban sakte the jab aap turant IIT se graduate huye ho. aapko bade consulting me kaam karna tha, McKinsey, BCG phir mba karte the. Phir jaakr aap tier 1 fund me analust bante the. but somehow I wanted to help portfolio companies immediately after college and this was a very weird vision. And that vision was actually very weird to me, right. I was completely alone in that journey. but maine kiya, and then 13 to 15 and then 16 also it was not but I think everything I also started getting grip over this after working with Kunal for two years in 15 to 17-18, I will accept I got some grip, and then I started actually, like, taking better investment decisions and helping portfolio better. So overall ab jaakr lagta hai sach me acha decision tha, and just that this is right time, and I jumped in this at very right time when it was very premature these early days. Okay, and I’m also riding the wave, overall first takeaway, I will say that this is an era where great companies are being built, and seed investors have the opportunity to partner with many of them. Okay, if you’re doing your own company, then it’s just one company, if you are a series ABC, then in a year, you can write, each partner cannot write more than 8-10 checks, because you have to have limited bandwidth, and all those dynamic but as a seed investor partner, I can write 50 Plus cheques, and I can allocate my time also to them, okay, because I don’t have to micromanage them or, you know, sit with them to make, annual plan and everything I need to be available when they need me. Okay, and that is also takes a lot of effort, and I actually work 24/7 to help them. So number one learning is that to be part two, that there is an opportunity to participate in a lot of great companies in progress in work in progress, and I focus more on am I enjoying with that company working or is this or the other team is enjoying solving that problem. So, and team is passionate enough or not, then automatically even that person calls me at 9pm at night or messaging me or when I am on break on my vacation, then also I’m replying to him, okay. And that person is very much excited about building and solving a problem so then for VC also, then there is no boundary of your personal time and professional time because it’s very important if a founder is stuck somewhere and he is getting a new product idea or he is talking to some next stage VC and he has to take that call ki kai kisse paisa lu and you’re having dinner somewhere on Sunday evening, you will have to reply toh uske liye passion bht important hai and woh entrepreneur me hota hai and that is core of Titan investment philosophy and second learning is this again connecting to our gardening philosophy, if we helpour founders then word of mouth publicity hogi and then they will tell their friends and family members who are starting up and they will automatically come to us we don’t have to go and to publicity of Titan ki come we are investing raise funds from us, we never do that we never like to be that. This is my first podcast of my life. Okay, we are very busy in helping our portfolio companies evaluating new applicants very busy. And so, just to summarise first learning is this is great time to participate in great company is in progress, which I have realised over time and this decade truly belongs to India and for entrepreneurs who are building companies and and the third thing which is again all are connected and second thing was portfolio support which will eventually result into your good name and helping engage great deal flow. And third point is a lot of companies are going across across sectors, which I have seen in last three four years in our portfolio. Not only our software companies, enterprise tech or SAAS but also a D2C portfolio like Bira went global like Now we can see Mamaearth, Beardo from portfolio now Jeeva is also thinking or OZiva is also selling US, our food product portfolio company Anveshan, they’re also now thinking to sell in US markets, so across software D2C, service marketplace UrbanClap they are also global, we all know since a long time that I think three four years back then they had launched their Dubai chapter. So, that is also called learning it’s not a time when Indian Indian companies are only focused on Indian market, okay, even in like marketplace or D2C, they are also thinking global. And so, that is a huge opportunity I see. And, also for thing I would like to say that this is the time of when we have two or one very major learning I see a lot of pivots also happened when you spend more time with portfolio companies. And then as a VC professional, where we end up spending more time with them in in seed stage, when still the PMF is about to happen. When you spend more time with them being as a friend, rather than a umpire. We need to be a friend and coach not an umpire. We need to be always like be empathetic and be very kind be very supportive. Definitely we need to be true elder brother to them. Be elder brother or elder sister, it should be like to sibling which we see in our families through like they can reach out to you in any of their situations.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 42:10

And if you had to summarise your top three learnings, each from Kunal and Rohit, what would they be?

 

Bipin Shah 42:20

That is a very tricky question. So I very personally and professionally I’m very thankful to Kunal and Rohit, which I keep saying to all my not only friends from professional world, but my personal world people also. And so what I have learned especially from Kunal he’s very paranoid. And it’s very difficult to calm him and stabilise him, he’s always thinking that he’s missing something. And, he figures it out, and then he comes up with a lot of new ideas. Okay. And, then and he keeps throwing on me from Titan point of and then it’s my responsibility to say structure it but he is the guy who will, he doesn’t allow me to be complacent to calm down. Always he will make sure that the bipin is innovating on something and I will say my personality which has which has become now to keep innovating or to keep thinking more to do new good, great investments. I think 50% Kunal is responsible. Okay, and it has completely come from his paranoia nature and that thing now I haven’t truly appreciate. Earlier I was like, Oh my God, but let’s calm down. But now I see it has really helped me. It has really helped me and now my family they tell me you are a restless person. Because even on weekend I keep innovating something in households. I remember I was not like this five years back. I think Titan has taken over my personal space also positively. I have learned a lot of things from kunal, in terms of you know doing new be restless be paranoid, and not like and not eventually be so complacent he’s that kind of person and I have learned that thing from him. And from Rohit one thing I would like to say, like this positive I’m telling you is in both of them okay. But what thing they they have done mastery they have done they have mastered that. Okay, so one highlight for each of the which I’ve learned. So, Rohit doesn’t care like he wants to see data whatever you propose to him he wants to see data. So and it is very difficult I will say in those qualities, I think they are a bit different one is if North Pole and one the South Pole, both poles are good, okay, but I found running Titan somewhere stuck in between north pole, south pole, north pole, south pole, and now I’m somewhere at equator okay. So, Rohit is too much into data, if I propose an investment Rohit wants to see data, how founders are spending money and how revenues they’re making, what a margin is structure, Rohit is very much detached, he take all his decisions on basis of data. And that really helps and globally that’s the trend, if you see all the smart decisions if you see if it is based on good data history. But obviously you need to make your own judgments using your gut feeling, your experience or when you review data, but data is always important that I also inculcated that habit, not at the level of Rohit, but somewhere to you know, always see data before making a decision. So that one thing I have learned from him and I appreciate it.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 47:00

Thank you. It’s been amazing conversation with you for sharing your learning your experiences and your journey of building Titan capital.

 

Bipin Shah 47:13

great interacting with you. And I hope I was able to answer your questions and satisfy our audience with all their curiosity about Titan capital operations and structure and how we help our portfolio companies.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 47:35

Absolutely

 

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Prime is a high conviction, high support investor, backing star teams with differentiated ideas. All partners at Prime work actively with the entrepreneurs post-investment to accelerate building a great company.

Prime focuses on building differentiating companies whose solutions are 10X better and are powered by technology and product.

Prime is now investing from its fourth fund of $100M and is often the first institutional investor in category-creating tech startups such as MyGate, HackerEarth, Mfine, Wheelseye.

To know more about Prime visit primevp.in

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