venture capital Archives

Startup capital is a tricky area for many entrepreneurs, hence we organized a session called – Bootstrapping vs. Fundraising – When & How.

Here are the notable points from our speaker Prashant Mehta, who is a Venture Capitalist at Lightbox Ventures.

Do read and share with fellow entrepreneurs.

Bootstrap and show us the money and we will give you more.
Bootstrapping shows confidence the entrepreneur has on his/her venture.
At Lightbox, we give 80% weightage to decide to fund or not based on team(s).
A team should have ability to attract similar or more talented people than they are.
We consider to fund service business if they can show the growth potential without necessarily growing the number of people/resources. i.e if a service business can grow 10x by increasing resource by just 2x, that’s great model.
Take tough decisions first and take it deep.
Building a right culture is extremely critical, having a DNA and looking for talent with right DNA is imperative.
Scaling is a very broad term, just hiring more people does not amount to scaling.
Technology and infrastructure such as cloud computing, servers, open source languages, etc are now so much more affordable and makes it easy and cheap to bootstrap.
Its OK to think about exit, but do not talk about it to a VC while asking for funds.
Last mile delivery is a challenge area in India, if this can be addressed, then a significant positive impact will accrue.
If two different teams approach them with similar ideas; the brighter team will be considered for funding.
Tech startups requiring funding in India are not assessed the same way like US. This is because of cultural factors like ‘how one takes risk and handles failure’
In the Indian Geography, Execution of Ideas/Innovation has relatively more importance than Innovation!
If a VC asks ‘why do you need funding? It is completely Ok to say ‘we aim to create wealth for all stakeholder’
Level 2 and 3 are very important resources in building a great company, they have to be treated well and given options like ESOP to make them wealthy when startup exits.

See more pictures from the event here.

Read the notes from the meeting here gbgmumbai.org/vc-notes/

The world is full of ideas, everyone of us have a profound knowledge of something in our own field of work and an idea follows immediately to make it better. But then, Ideas are dime a dozen, the challenge is in execution. Of the many challenges that hinders executing a world changing idea is access to resources (aka money).

To take the plunge and getting things done is not everyone’s cup of tea, thankfully there are Angels (Friends, Family) who take the leap of faith along with a wannabe entrepreneur to setup shop and grow the startup.

We wish it was that easy! Well, consider this scenarios:

Can your competitors take over the market if they raise capital and you bootstrap?
Can your business continue growing without external funding?
What are your chances for successful fundraising? or should you even try?
You may need the VCs, but does VCs need you?

If answering these questions was not hard enough, there are more jargons in the world of fundraising, Pre-Money, Post-Money, Rights of capital protection, Political rights, Liquidation preferences…does this mean one must give up hopes and resort to just bootstrapping?

Let us remember, ‘raising capital is not equal to success, not raising is not equal to failure’. Whether bootstrapped or funded, the money is just a means to an end. But how does one decide what to do and how to go about?

GBG Mumbai brings you an exclusive session – ‘Bootstrapping vs. Fundraising – When and How‘ where you can hear two perspective on the same topic; one from a Venture Capitalist, another from an Entrepreneur who recently raised funds.

Speaker Profile:

Prashanth Mehta, Partner, Lightbox Venture (Lightbox’s portfolio includes InMobi, Cleartrip, Naukri)
Prateek Shukla, Co-founder / CEO, grabhouse.com (the startup that gives you broker free house renting)

Date & Time: Saturday, Nov 29th. 3.45pm. Seminar Hall, Harkisan Mehta Institute of Journalism. Mithibai College. Vile Parle.

Entry: Free and by registration only. Please fill the form below and await your confirmation.

Who should attend? If you are a startup or intending to start one in the near future, and would like to know how to the nuances of bootstrapping and raising money, then this event is for you.