@HarshjitSethi
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economictimes.indiatimes.com Zetwerk IPO: Zetwerk’s early backers stand to make returns of up to 38-fold at IPO price - The... Venture capital (VC) firms Kae Capital, Accel, Peak XV Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners will together sell 76.3 million shares, accounting for more than half the 144.5 million shares offered... Deedy you are right about some aspects of the past, but its more nuanced then this, and likely different going forward. am sticking to the perspective of founders (vs employees & vcs).View quoted post on X
If you were building for India consumer, the last 5 years have shown that you absolutely could have built significant cos and personal wealth by being in india (>$5b cos - flipkart, zomato, lenskart, meesho, groww, paytm, phonepe, swiggy, policybazaar, nykaa… ) and execs at these places also saw a lot of value being created. I was in a room of startup founders by @ETAwards on friday night and there were a lot of billionaires there! and 50+ other venture backed cos in the $500m-5b range, where also the outcomes have been significant for founders and execs.
if you were building for global software buyers, you need to be closer to the customers and the US is that. market insights matter more then cost of engineering. many global software cos have large india teams (zscaler! wealthiest indian american in the US) but the bulk of the value to founders and execs are in the market they serve. it still makes sense for most global founders to be in the US if thats what you are creating, and we have good examples like freshworks, postman and composio where cos started in india and migrated over various points in the past decade.
other areas like manufacturing/“deeptech”/atoms based businesses, India has significant advantages and we are just starting to see the outcomes. ather energy ($6b), skyroot ($3b), zetwerk (going public soon) are showing the way, and these cos have far lower costs to develop and manufacture vs other places.
finally, there is something to be said for patriotism or impact on soceity. zomato helps employ 1% of india (or something like that) and thats a stepping stone to a brighter future for many. skyroot inspired some young kid somewhere that said i’m gonna do that too. building a enterprise sw product in palo alto is awesome, but for some gives less intrinsic motivation.
building in india has many challenges (most self inclicted), but a good choice for many smart people vs a couple of decades ago! we do now have healthy capital markets, a better policy environment, and very smart young people (now enabled by AI!). we absolutely need more risk capital and some of us are working to do that!
