April 23, 2025 • 64 mins
What’s next in fintech? In this high-signal episode, Sheel Mohnot (GP at @ Better Tomorrow Ventures) shares deep insight into the future of financial services, AI’s impact on SaaS, and how VC is evolving in 2025.
🔍 In Sheel’s candid chat with Sanjay Swamy, You’ll learn:
• What US fintech can learn from India’s public infrastructure (UPI, DEPA, account aggregation)
• Why SaaS isn’t dead—but must evolve beyond subscription revenue
• How Sheel evaluates founder-market fit, velocity, and tenacity
• The co-lending revolution in India—and why it’s a structural shift
• Why BTV is betting big on hands-on accelerators and early-stage velocity
📌Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
01:30 – Sheel’s journey from Pittsburgh to VC
08:15 – U.S. vs India: Fintech regulation
15:30 – Is SaaS dead? The AI disruption
20:15 – India Stack vs U.S. payments
27:30 – Can Indian fintech go global?
30:00 – IPO readiness: India vs U.S.
34:00 – Will BTV invest in India?
45:00 – Red flags & founder filters
50:00 – What gets a “yes” from Sheel
54:00 – Fintech outlook for 2025
57:10 – Clubhouse, Bieber & Taco Bell wedding
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔️ Vertical SaaS is fintech in disguise – and it’s how modern software will scale revenue
✔️ AI is not just augmenting work—it’s replacing it in areas like accounting and underwriting
✔️ Regulation ≠ obstacle – In the U.S., a patchwork system creates an edge for savvy startups
✔️ Early-stage investing is about founder-market fit, and spotting overlooked “superpowers”
📌 Follow us:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/primevp
Twitter: https://twitter.com/primevp_in
Website: https://primevp.in
#Fintech #SaaS #AI #Startups #VentureCapital #IndiaStack #SheelMohnot #BetterTomorrowVentures #DigitalTransformation #FounderInsights #InvestorInsights #FutureOfFinance #PrimeVenturePartnersPodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've read about the Taco Bell wedding.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We've heard about the Justin.
Bieber video.
I had, or maybe have, over 3million followers in between
Oprah.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Winfrey, it took me a long time to understand what
Fit Daisy stood for.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Fund 1 was 75 million .
We're currently investing outof Fund 2, which is 150.
Fintech is hot again.
You know, if you're not a bank,it's actually in some ways
better than being a bank.
There are more seed dealshappening in New York than in
San Francisco Bullshit metrics.
What I'll say?
Like they talk about somethingthat like a proxy for a proxy
(00:34):
for a proxy for a proxy forrevenue, just like, tell me the
damn thing.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hi everybody.
Sanjay Swamy here again withthe Prime Venture Partners
podcast, and I have a reallygood internet friend of mine and
probably of several of you whofollow our podcast the one and
only czar of social media in thefintech world.
That's the new word these days.
I think I'm one of the few whohas not asked him how to
(01:07):
pronounce his last name.
I hopefully got it right.
Yeah, but welcome Sheen to theshow.
I was listening to theTechCrunch podcast the other day
and the lady was saying oh, Iwish I'd asked you before the
show, but yeah, great to be onExcited to chat.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's been a while, so just good to catch up too.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Before we get started , I think it'd be great for
people to know a bit about you,and it took me a long time to
understand what at Pit Daisystood for.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I understood the Daisy part then later realized
you're from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And so that's what that probably stands for.
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I understood that they see Padre and they can
realize you're from Pittsburgh,and so that's what that probably
means.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, that's right.
So great to have you here,sheel, and, of course, big fans
of the core key posts that youkeep putting out on Twitter, but
most of them, if you readbetween the lines, there's some
really high quality content aswell, and sometimes, of course,
very directly.
So let's get started.
A little bit about your journeyand how we got to where we are
(02:07):
today.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And then we'll talk about your views on the market
today.
Yeah, sounds good.
So backstory I grew up inPittsburgh, so I'm a Pittsburgh
Desi.
I've had that screen name.
It originates from 1995, soit's an old one 1995.
So it's an old one.
And you know, I grew up in ahousehold with my parents both
(02:36):
grew up in India, but I grew upin Pittsburgh.
I was going back to India everyyou could say year or two years
throughout my childhood andthen, you know, as an adult, I
went to Carnegie MellonUniversity, also in Pittsburgh,
and ultimately went intosoftware.
I made software for hospitalsat a company called Cerner.
(02:59):
Then I got into managementconsulting, ended up spending
some time in uh, in india.
Actually, as an adult, I, uh, Iwent to india.
I was there 2006 and 2007 and Iwas working in microfinance,
living like my borrowers, uh on.
(03:20):
I think it was 2 000 rupees amonth is what I was.
Which year was this?
All my expenses 2006 and 2007.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And which part of India?
I?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
was in Ahmedabad.
I see Wow, and so it was a cool, it was a great experience.
You know, something I nevercould do today, but in my young
age I was uh, I was more capable, such things, yeah it's all
relative.
Yeah, it's all relative, but um,and then, uh, you know, went
(03:57):
back to consulting.
I worked at bcg servingfinancial institutions.
Um, a friend of mine had anidea for a company.
We we ended up starting apayments company.
That company got acquired in2012.
I started doing some angelinvesting, found I really liked
it.
Another friend of mine had anidea for a company, said why
don't we do this together?
(04:17):
It was an auction company.
So I ended up starting thatcompany about a year after the
exit of the first company, andthat company, too, ended up
having some modest success in2015.
And from that point onward I'vebeen investing and started out
(04:38):
investing my own capital.
I had joined 500 Startups, rana fintech focused fund there
called 500 FinTech, and then westarted BTV about five and a
half years ago now, and BTVstands for Better Tomorrow
Ventures.
We started fund one was 75million.
(04:59):
Then we're currently investingout of fund two, which is 150.
And shortly we'll be investingout of fund two, which is 150.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And, uh, shortly we'll be investing out of fund
three very cool and, uh, broadly, uh, your funds focus on on
what areas, what geography, whatverticals?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
yeah, so we we lead pre-seed and seed rounds in and
around fintech.
And when I say around fintechor fintech adjacent, what I mean
is, you know, there are a lotof businesses which today may
not look like fintech companiesbut in the future will.
(05:39):
As an example, vertical SaaS.
As an example, vertical SaaS soin the United States there's a
large, now public company calledToast that builds restaurant
point of sale software and whenit started out it was a point of
(06:00):
sale company charging $100 perrestaurant and now 83% of their
revenue comes from financialservices.
And we think that there are alot more opportunities to build
businesses like this, and everyfuture vertical SaaS company
will have a large component offintech.
And so maybe you charge $100 amonth for your SaaS product, but
(06:22):
then you make another $200 onpayments, you make money on
lending, you make money onbanking, accounting, payroll, et
cetera, and ultimately, 80% to90% of your business is a
fintech business.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
And do you think all of these companies?
I mean?
I shared a very similar pointof view in India, in fact my
partner any company that's notdoing well, they say, can I just
hand it over to Sanjay andhe'll turn it into a FinTech as
a joke.
But you know, I think that'scertainly the one big profit
pool and I think that benefits alot from digitization of what
(06:56):
used to be traditionally offlineprocesses.
Right, the question I had foryou is these are all regulated
spaces and traditionally notsomething that such founders
would have a background in,right, and in India it's
becoming certainly more and moreclear that you just need to
become a regulated entity by theRBI and get an MDFC license and
(07:19):
so on.
How is the landscape in the USand do you see it going more in
that direction?
Or do you think there'll bespecialized companies with sort
of an embedded finance type ofmodule that they will be
licensing, and is theopportunity there?
Or is the opportunity in thesoftware company that is
targeting the customer, or both?
(07:41):
How do you think about it?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, it's interesting In the United States
.
So, first of all, as you arevery well aware, we had a change
in leadership here a couplemonths ago no really, and I
think it has some implicationswhich we can cover.
But what I'd say overall isit's different than India.
(08:05):
So let's just use banking as anexample.
There are pretty greatadvantages to not being a bank.
So we can use the neobanks asan example.
Chime is the largest of them onthe consumer side, the largest
(08:25):
of them on the consumer side.
So Chime as a neobank, theyserve a population that does not
have a ton of money likeunderbank population, and
they're able to actually make alot more money on this customer
than they could if they were anactual bank.
And the reason for that is theway that you make money off this
(08:49):
customer is interchange whenthey swipe their debit card.
And the United States.
About 15 years ago, there was aregulation called the Durbin
Amendment, the Dodd-Frank DurbinAmendment.
Yep, Exactly, Exactly, yes.
That regulated how much bankscould charge on interchange, and
(09:10):
banks with some $10 billion indeposits were able to charge
more on debit interchange thanlarger banks.
And so it actually.
You know as you scale, you knowif you're not a bank.
It's actually in some waysbetter than being a bank and
(09:35):
getting a banking license inthis country is a real pain,
it's tough?
Yeah, it's tough.
And we don't exactly have aNBFC equivalent in the United
States yeah, exactly.
And then the same is true in abunch of other industries.
I think there are some areaswhere you do want to get
(10:00):
regulated and, for example, wehave this concept of a money
transmitter, and it's kind ofstrangely still done state by
state, and we do encourage ourcompanies to get the money
transmitter licenses.
So in some cases we doencourage them to be licensed.
But for the most part theregulatory environment isn't
(10:25):
necessarily set up only forregulated entities to succeed.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Cool.
So you expect that fintechswill partner with regulated
entities that build a muscle forpartnering with the fintechs
and plow along much faster and,in some ways, stay unregulated.
What about some of the largerplayers?
Like you know, all these thingswork very well when you're
(10:53):
small, but when you get to thescale of someone like a Stripe
or a Chime as well, isn't therean expectation that they will
eventually need to get regulated?
So is it a zero to one and oneto 10 phase where they can get
away or, you know, can they stayunregulated forever?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
You know it.
I think it depends on what youmean by regulated.
Like you know, when I say there, there's no such thing as an
nbfc in the united states, likethere's sort of.
That's mostly true and that,like you know, we have a
(11:34):
regulatory.
We don't have like an rbiregulated nbfc type of thing,
but but they're all there's likepatchwork framework throughout
the united states, so, um.
So I mentioned state levelregulation for money
transmission, so these guys allhave that.
Then they also have lendinglicenses in each state in which
(11:55):
they're in business and so theyare regulated in some ways, but
not via a centralized regulatorlike in India.
It's basically a bunch ofdifferent layers and fragmented,
and then you know it can befrustrating.
Also, united States, like you,might be regulated by the FTC.
(12:17):
We talked about the Dodd-FrankAct.
There's the Fair CreditReporting Act, equal Credit
Opportunity Act, the ConsumerFinancial Protection Bureau,
which Trump is eliminating, allthese different and the OCC,
which is the Office of theComptroller of the Currency
which controls banks, fdic.
(12:37):
All these are differentregulations but in some ways,
like we don't have a centralizedregulator, like I think is the
case in India, more so than theUnited States but these are all
regulated in some way.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Right, well, so let's move on to some of the areas
that are exciting you a lot.
I think you tweeted recentlyabout SaaS.
Is there or not there?
It depends on which side of thevenue you've been from and we're
(13:15):
all going through that.
You know this extraordinaryexcitement around, obviously,
the foundational layers of AI,but I think some of the
applications you know we'relooking at it.
In fact, I finally went andhired engineers to actually
build out some tools for us inour own operations.
Initially the finance team justgrabbed him and said, oh, we
need to do all of the MISreporting and stuff like that.
(13:35):
But eventually, of course, Ithink a lot will get into our
own research and underwriting ofareas and startups and founders
and so on.
But you know, in terms ofbuilding large companies here
around financial services,fintech and with this whole AI
boom that's happening, thiswhole dynamic of companies
(13:58):
moving to a thought processwhere they could build their own
software themselves andprobably, you know, build much
more targeted offerings how areyou dissecting this whole space
and what scares you?
What excites you?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah, so a lot of folks are saying, okay, saas is
dead.
I don't think it's dead.
I don't think that's the rightway to think about it.
I do think in our own work,what I tweeted about was we were
looking or we are, I should say, still looking at a software to
help us manage our own business, to manage information we get
(14:36):
from our portfolio companies.
There are a few providers thatoffer this solution.
They're charging like 25 or 30kUSD per year, and so we've been
thinking, okay, that's a lot ofmoney to spend for software.
Like, could we just build itourselves?
So we're starting to prototypeand while I have some technical
(14:57):
background, I haven't reallybuilt anything in a very long
time 15 plus years.
So I started playing with allof these new AI products and
it's pretty impressive what youcan do pretty quickly, and so it
feels like if I'm rethinking,if I'm already rethinking the
(15:21):
25K per year contract withsomebody, then you know, know, I
might be ahead of the curve alittle bit, but there's a lot of
that coming.
So I I do think there's a worldin which the the you know, the
future looks a little bitdifferent and more, more
(15:44):
customized.
I think there are a few thingswe still think are important to
get right.
So like, if you, if you doinvest in SaaS, I think and
we're still trying to figurethis out but what we're looking
(16:04):
for is some sort of complexitybarrier, so like, is it hard to
solve technically or is itsomething fairly easy?
You know, we have businessesthat are, I don't know like.
The first thing that came tomind is like there's a business
that when you enter into anoffice like you, you, you enter
(16:26):
your name to check in and likethat's.
Envoy Right and like.
I'm sure they have many moreproducts now, but it seems like,
okay, could I build that myselfin a relatively short period of
time.
Yes, what's their right to win?
It's not that hard technically,but they might have some other
thing, and so the second thingthat they probably do have that
(16:49):
I'm missing is they have somenetwork effects Like they're
able to have.
They have information aboutpeople across, across buildings
and all sorts of stuff like that, so maybe there's an advantage
He'll always take that third cupof stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So maybe there's an advantage there He'll always
take that third cup of coffee.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, exactly, do they have some sort of
integration or workflowstickiness?
So this is the thing in mybusiness, I think we think about
a lot.
It's like, if we're investinginto a company, what's their
right to continue existing?
And I think it's really wherewe have landed on is, are they
(17:26):
embedded into the workflow?
So we have invested a bunch inthese you know what we call
services as software businessesand we're finding that there's a
large demand from theseenterprises to adopt AI.
And where they want to adopt iswhere there's a hair on fire
(17:51):
problem.
If we can't hire enough peopleto do a particular task or it's
too expensive to do a task andso we don't do it, that's a big
opportunity.
I can give you a couple ofexamples.
So we're investors in a companycalled Basis it's an AI for
accounting product and theyultimately will be doing the
(18:13):
work of a junior accountant.
And in the United States there'sa huge accountant shortage.
And the United States there's ahuge accountant shortage
Basically, people.
It became very uncool to becomean accountant and so people
stopped doing it.
Like, even from the time when Igraduated college till now, the
(18:34):
number of new college graduatesin accounting have dropped 50%,
but actually the demand isstill there, more than ever, so
there's a strong demand foraccountants.
We're actually importing them.
There's a lot of decent numberof H1Bs that are accountants,
but even then there's a shortage, and so these guys are
automating the work of alow-level accountant, and all of
(18:57):
the accounting firms want theproduct.
It's like a no-brainer for them, and so that's.
One Another is we have acompany in the loan underwriting
space called Kaj.
They do a bunch of work toautomate SMB loans, do a bunch
(19:21):
of work to automate SMB loans,and so what that enables is a
lender who previously was takingso much work to do the
underwriting it didn't makesense to do a loan under $50,000
.
Now, that lender is able to do aloan that's like $20,000.
So it is furthering thebusiness.
Then we have a bunch of othersin this sort of broad theme
(19:41):
that's like truly20,000.
So it is furthering thebusiness.
Then we have a bunch of othersin this sort of broad theme
that's like truly automatingwork.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
So it's kind of interesting some of these
opportunities, at least in India.
I mean, obviously, basis is thecore thing, right.
I think it's going to be aproblem everywhere in the world,
especially if a lot of the H1Bsstart taking all the
accountants from India to the US.
Then we're going to have ashortage on this side of the
world.
But I think the one thing thathappened in India over the last
(20:12):
decade and I had a small role toplay in it in the early days
especially was this wholedevelopment of India stack and a
public infrastructure with theaccount aggregator where
digitally signed information canbe made accessible, you know as
JSON, so they are machinereadable, and verify documents,
(20:33):
you know with a, you knowprivate, with a digitally signed
hash so you can even verify allthe information without going
back to the source.
I think the US has still stayedrelatively offline, focused and
certainly proprietary datafocused, right, and I think
(20:55):
interoperability and opennesshas sort of happened in many
areas, but in many of happenedin many areas.
But in many of these financialservices areas it still seems
like, you know, you havecompanies like Plaid and the
others that did a lot of theconnectivity, but it sort of
went the path of let's createmore large private companies
(21:16):
rather than interoperableutilities, right, and is that a
fair assessment and do you seeany of that changing or do you
see this is going to create moreopportunity that we could back
as a mindset?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, I think the India stack has been obviously
phenomenal.
But, like identity payments inparticular, I think in the
United States there's a lot ofinertia not to move in this
direction.
Some of it sort of surprises me, but I think the identity stuff
(21:52):
Americans think of themselvesas individualistic and for some
reason fight identity, fightnational identity in a big way,
so people don't want theirfingerprints or facial
recognition.
People fight this in a big way.
You know we have the socialsecurity number but there are no
(22:12):
biometrics.
So there's a lot of fraud andidentity theft.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
It would be much better to implement.
We've been reading about it.
It's just wrong.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
At least, that's what a lot of stuff has been claimed
of, and so we're still usingstate-by-state driver's licenses
for identity verification, andthe reason is this privacy
concern that people have,unfortunately, and so it holds
us back, for sure.
But it also allowsopportunities for a bunch of
(22:44):
these private companies to popup.
And so, on the identity side,you have a bunch of companies
that have built sizablebusinesses just managing
identity Persona and many, manyothers.
Identity persona and many, manyothers.
(23:06):
Um, but yeah, it of coursewould be much better if we had
an adhar type system.
And then, on the payment side,yeah, like freaking wish we had
real-time bank to bank payments.
Yeah, but look, it's, it's.
We don't have them because thebanks really don't want it.
They lose money.
They're making money on thosetwo days afloat and that's how
(23:30):
they make a lot of money.
We have this new paymentinfrastructure launched what was
it a year and a half ago calledFedNow launched.
What was it a year and a halfago called FedNow, which is a
new instant paymentinfrastructure for real-time
payments, but it's not mandated.
So if it's not mandated, thenthe banks aren't going to do it
(23:54):
because there's no impetus.
So the banks that are doing itare mostly like small banks, and
until and until you mandate it,it's not going to happen.
So then what do we have is ourach automated clearinghouse
system, which is slow, and thenwe have third parties.
So, like the, the businesses,like paypal, venmo cash app, why
(24:17):
do they exist?
How are they existing?
It's because we don't have asystem like UPI that lets you do
it fast and free, and so whatthese guys do is they primarily
make money.
If I pay you today, it doesn'tsettle for a few days, but if
you want to get paid instantly,then they'll charge you a few
(24:40):
percent and you can have themoney today, right now so that's
discounting, basically, yeahthat's right.
So that's how these privatecompanies paypal, venmo uh,
paypal venmo venmo is owned bypaypal, but you know they
operate independent apps andcash app all operate.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Wonderful, so maybe we'll switch gears.
Sorry, you were talking aboutaccount aggregation.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Briefly, yes, you know, yeah, you guys have a
great, was it DEPA?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
How do you yeah?
Depa D-E-P-A, DEPA yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, that allows individuals to control their own
.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
The law it's coming into.
I mean, it's becoming a law now, so it's become a law.
So I think the importance ofyou know enforcing it, making
sure you can prove that you havenot violated it, et cetera,
becomes very important for,certainly, the large financial
institutions.
And in India, as I said,everybody's regulated.
It might be a different levelof regulation or everybody's
(25:44):
getting regulated, so that'screating, I think, a lot of
opportunity.
And you combine that with someof the new AI stuff going on and
I think it's going to createone big opportunity here for
sure.
Yeah, makes sense.
Is the market large enough fora company to sustain itself
(26:04):
doing only India?
There are a few pockets wherethat's probably true and then,
if not, will this be a globalwave and then the Indian
startups can find a way to adaptthemselves to the international
opportunity?
That's really the big questionwe ask when we look at uh
technology, or fintechs, so tospeak, in the post financial
(26:27):
services players yeah, even so.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So question for you is like even with a india-based,
fintech-based portfolio, howmany of those companies do you
think about going global?
Is it super common, even inFinTech in India?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So I think global is, I think there's the United.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
States I mean US there's.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Europe, right, and then there's the rest of the
world, right.
So I think the rest of theworld probably is much more
practical to expand into overtime, is much more practical to
expand into over time andseveral of the early, I would
say because the Indian bankingsystem is very mature from a
technology adoption perspectiveand other countries are looking
at India as being a thoughtleader and saying, can we bring
(27:12):
some of this stuff?
Because they don't have theexpertise necessarily to
implement a lot of that.
In terms of targeting the USmarket, for example, I think
there is going to be a wave ofIndia-based startups that are
going to come after, perhapsunbundling some of the first
wave of fintechs that havebecome in the tens and hundreds
(27:33):
of billions of dollars.
So I think there'll be thatkind of an opportunity.
It will probably start withcross-border shield as the world
moves to China, plus onestrategy, and a lot of Indian
exporters start exporting to theUS and trade starts going
across multiple geographies alot more from India.
(27:54):
So I think there will becross-border opportunities.
We have a startup, for example,that takes its consumer
payments using PayPal right, andPayPal charges 7%, right, and
they look at the balance sheetand they say oh, you guys are
not really that solid, so we'regoing to withhold your payments
for 90 days, right, and thatstarts a domino effect of why
(28:17):
the company gets weaker, andthen they've got to figure out a
way to discount invoices.
So I think there'll be a lot ofthat opportunity.
As you said, a lot of SaaScompanies from India you know
SaaS, you know from India forthe world.
There will be fintechopportunities for them.
So I think they can startprobably playing, you know, a
similar game to some of thethings you were mentioning, but
(28:40):
launching services for northamerican businesses, that would
probably happen at some point,and coming to the american
consumer is probably a long shot.
I don't see that happeninganytime soon.
I mean, there will be certainlypeople who will attempt it and
maybe go after the indiandiaspora and their cross-border
dealings, because you need tohave some edge when they're
(29:01):
trying to go to the consumer,and I think it's a long shot.
Now I could see an Indianorigin founder or someone with
your background, perhaps withclose ties to India, setting up
a team in India and being aNorth American founder.
I'm discounting those as Indianstartups.
Yeah, yeah, yeah know Indianstartups yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Makes sense Cool.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
But but no, it's, I think, definitely from if I look
back 10 years ago.
The other big thing is, I thinkIndia is starting to emerge as
a market where you could build acompany that's doing several
tens and possibly hundreds ofmillions of dollars of revenue,
and the IPO markets in India aresuch that you could IPO as soon
(29:48):
as you're sort of north of, say, 60-70 million dollars of
revenue and are profitable yeahcertainly and certainly at, you
know, at 100 million right.
so if the markets stay this wayand I suspect that number will
move north over the next decade,but I think there will always
be opportunity for well-runprofitable companies growing 30%
year-on-year at that scale, togo public.
(30:12):
So I think this will remain avery attractive market and
unless founders feel that theyhave a real edge and a reason
why they can win in the US, it'sunlikely that they will target
them.
I'd love to see a founder comeand say we'll build something
very, very US focused, becausedefinitely the opportunity scale
(30:33):
is really big and I'll pick upthe phone and call you if I need
someone for sure.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah for sure.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I think, like the us equitymarkets have largely been closed
the last few years and I thinkto your point on what it takes
like here to attract anyattention, you need to be in the
400 million plus revenue rangeand like we have a couple
(31:01):
companies in the 200 plus rangethat in a previous generation
would have been public already.
But, now it's just.
It's also very expensive to gopublic here.
And it's not a one-time expense,it's an annual thing, so it's
tough and you know, you alsoalso see, I think we're seeing
(31:24):
in india right now.
It feels like the uh, thecompanies are trading at higher
multiples than they are in theunited states.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
So yeah, maybe the indian consumer is pretty
excited, but but in general, yes, okay, yeah yeah, but that's
the nature of the beast.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
anyway, I think what we look at I mean good for you
in liquidity.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I hope so.
We should be testing over thenext few years.
But generally, what ourthinking is can this company get
to, say, $50, $70 million ofrevenue, be at you know, 25%,
30% EBITDA, and do that with $20, $25 million of investment over
(32:08):
its journey and beyond that,will it go public?
Will it continue to grow at 40%, 30%, whatever these are?
The timing of the IPO is notnecessarily in our hands, but
that sort of seems like agoalpost that we can
consistently strive to achieve,right for companies and that
also moderates the type ofcompanies we can back.
(32:31):
Our stage is slightly afteryours.
We do mostly pre -Series A.
Yeah, Valuation-wise, the trendmay be similar from India and
the US market in terms of thevaluation zones, but I think we
have gravitated.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
What would that be for you?
What is the valuation zone?
Speaker 1 (32:49):
To say this on a public podcast would be
interesting, but it can beanywhere from 6 to 30, so that's
the zone and I would say ourmedian will probably be around
15.
We have gone higher dependingon how mature the company is,
right.
So I mean, the three factorsobviously are the team, the
opportunity size, the rate atwhich you know.
(33:13):
I mean I think I just look forcrazy customer love, right,
whoever your customers are,whether it's one or three, right
, they just have to absolutelysay the greatest things about
you guys, and hopefully thereare 3000 of them who are waiting
in line.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
And when companies go public 60, 70 million of
revenue, are we talkingsomewhere in the If they're
profitable 10X revenue?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
okay, yeah, so rule to.
So a rule of thumb istriangulating between 10x
revenue and 30x of EBITDA and ifyou're lucky it could be power
12 months revenue for both thosemetrics.
Okay, right, so if you're doing60 million and growing at 30%
(33:59):
and are at 30% or 25%, let's sayEBITDA, then that's about 100,
that's about 15 million EBITDA.
So 30 times that is about 450million, 30 to 40 times that.
So you kind of get back to moreor less the same number.
Sounds right, makes sense.
(34:21):
Yeah, more or less the same.
The same sounds right, or thesame number.
Yeah, so that should besomewhere between 500 to 700
million.
Again, depending on how man,how I wish.
Uh, come on, let's do stufftogether I guess yeah which
actually leads me to to thequestion about india.
Right, I mean, you have strongaffiliation here.
I won't say say rootsnecessarily, but I'm sure roots
(34:41):
as well, or certainly roots ofthe roots.
How have you looked at thismarket?
I know you've personally donesome angel from time to time,
but have you looked at itrecently?
Do you think it'll be a part ofyour story or just so laser
focused on the US that it justdoesn't matter as a fund?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
So you know, I would say it's not a like high
priority area for us, but I'mtotally open to it.
I think the challenges I havehad are you know, it feels like
the only ways to make money andtell me if I'm wrong feels like
(35:25):
the ways to make money are as alender or, you know, maybe
increasingly in wealthmanagement or AUM businesses.
And if I look at how ourcompanies make money, it's very
different.
It's like they charge thecustomer, that's the best
(35:46):
revenue, and then maybe thesecond best revenue is payments
revenue.
And then you kind of go downthe list and lending revenue we
think of as like the worst typeof revenue and we also think I
personally just feel like Idon't quite think it's the right
(36:08):
fit for a venture model,because in lending you're giving
out money and the venture modelis about growth and it's easy
to grow when you're giving outmoney.
So that's what I've struggledwith in India, but not to say
that we wouldn't invest oranything like that.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yep, yep.
So I'll tell you a couple ofthings to keep an eye on.
And that has changed a few ofour thought processes as well.
We actually stayed away fromthe NDFCs for the longest time
because we just felt that, youknow, as an early stage investor
, first institutional check inthe company, and you know we're
(36:50):
just going to get diluted overtime because these things are
going to need to raise a ton ofcapital.
And that used to be the model.
But over the last three yearsand we have two, three companies
now one at the infrastructurelevel, which is night fintech,
as well as a couple of mbfc,metafin and and also finite,
which is doing retail, um b2bfinancing.
(37:15):
In all of these cases there isthis new concept of co-lending
that is coming, which is a veryindia specific thing, as far as
I've understood.
And what co-lending does is itkind of requires earlier, uh, an
nbfc used to get wholesalecapital at a wholesale from a
bank or any other financialinstitution and they would lend
it out to at a higher price tothe uh, the customer, and they
(37:37):
had these verticals of customersthat they understood best,
whether it was a farmer infarming, whether it was a small
business in rural india, whetherit was a certain category of
consumers who would be, you know, forced to pay higher interest
because they didn't have a goodcredit score or a credit rating.
But the regulator sort ofstarted pushing the banks more
(37:57):
and more to saying, look, you'vegot to share in the
underwriting and in the upside,which means you've got to
co-lend right.
So at the infrastructure level,what that's done for Knights
and Tech is it's created anopportunity to provide a
co-lending platform where thebanks and all their NBFC
partners use the same platform,because, as a consumer, I don't
care that your billing date isthe 6th of the month and the
(38:20):
other guy's billing date is thefirst Friday of the month.
I'm just making one repayment.
The fact that the money camefrom two pockets please don't
make me sign two contracts,don't make me sign up with
privacy policies of two entitiesand so on.
So that whole piece has to bestreamlined.
And if you're a bank workingwith, say, 20 large NBFCs and
(38:41):
vice versa, those 20 NBFCs areworking with five banks, all of
a sudden you have this networkeffects that offer complexity
and point-to-point integrations,and stuff like that become an
issue.
So there's sort of a middlewareplay that they inserted
themselves very cleverly intothat they inserted themselves
very cleverly into, and sothat's one side of it.
But what it has also done forthe MDFC is that it's given them
(39:06):
a lot of leverage right.
And so what we have realized isyou probably could get to
critical mass, you know, withyou know 15, 25 million dollars
of your own raise, becauseyou're going to get a lot of
leverage and eventually theprofits will start, you know,
feeding the contribution thatyou have to make.
So it's made us rethink.
(39:26):
We made two, three bets now andso far they seem to be really
exciting companies.
But you know, I could see thatas being a model, because we had
a credit starved country andthere is no way the large banks
are going to be able to servethe customers without you know
sort of dedicated partners whoknow the customers very well.
You know it's it's stilllargely a lot of business is
(39:47):
done offline, despite upi beingat.
You know 15 billiontransactions a month and so on.
So I think this process inindia will create some sort of
unique opportunities.
Whether it's replicable inother parts of the world, I
don't know, but that's what hasgiven us some feel that there
are a lot of lendingopportunities to be tech
(40:07):
businesses or tech-firstbusinesses that will have
infinite scale, or at leastmeaningful enough scale.
But we'll see Switching gears.
A little bit Shil to.
You know.
You guys launched anaccelerator right and you did a
couple of batches in the BayArea and now you said you were
(40:31):
taking it to New York City.
So tell us a little bit abouthow that came about, what the
experience has been and why areyou taking the next batch to New
York.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah, so my first foray into venture was through
accelerators, right, so I I hadbeen angel investing, but then I
joined 500 startups and I ran afintech accelerator for a few
years, um, and it was verysuccessful.
So, um, gary Tan recentlytweeted that, of some particular
(41:05):
date, 4.5% of YC companies upto a certain date became
unicorns.
Our number actually over 7% ofours did so we actually it
worked really well and the fundhas been awesome as a result.
And so when we started BTV in2019, it was always part of the
(41:29):
plan we said let's justreplicate the success we had.
We would do a few thingsdifferently, but by and large,
we know how to do it, and so westarted.
And then, obviously, thepandemic happened and so we
didn't get to it for a while andthen we finally did it in 2023,
(41:50):
the first cohort it was sevencompanies here in San Francisco
and then we've had two morecohorts since then, so we've had
three cohorts and the idea andit was partially like we'd had
success with it before partially.
Our own founders who wentthrough it and ended up being
successful said hey, like myfriends are starting a company,
(42:12):
where can I send them to have anexperience that we had.
And what we offer is different,is very different than YC.
It's a very hands-on programwhere we are working closely
with the founders, so we're inthe same space every single day
and it's not like you have toprepare your questions for a
(42:35):
group session with us once aweek.
It's like tap me on theshoulder, let's jump on the
whiteboard and we bring in abunch of experts in go-to-market
design tech and others andalong with some great speakers,
and the companies have a lot ofcamaraderie amongst themselves.
(42:56):
In the past we had a companyacquire another company in the
cohort.
So that was the originalimpetus and it's gone well so
far, happy with the results.
Now I'll tell you, it's atremendous amount of time, it's
(43:21):
a big commitment from us, sowe're constantly evaluating.
You know we think that the theoutcomes so far have been quite
good.
It's constantly an evaluationof does it make sense from a
time perspective and how do we?
(43:43):
And the thing is like this is ycis a program that's built for
scale, like they have 200companies in a cohort or
whatever.
It is now um versus we have six, seven, eight companies in a
cohort and the nature of what wedo will never scale.
We don't want it to.
(44:04):
But then it's a question ofwe're constantly evaluating
every cohort, like did it makesense?
Was the outcome, was the juiceworth the squeeze?
And so far we felt like yes, itis.
I'm going to New York.
The next cohort starts in acouple of weeks in New York, and
(44:25):
the idea of New York wasactually in FinTech, united
States, san Francisco overallfor tech has been the place to
be, but New York over the lastfive or six years has really
become a formidable number two,and in FinTech it's actually
(44:45):
number one.
If you look at seed deals,there are more seed deals
happening in New York than inSan Francisco, and the same is
true in our portfolio.
We have more companies in NewYork than San Francisco, so for
us it just made a lot of sensethat we would try to do it there
(45:07):
.
We have two team members alsoin New York now and then I'll be
out there for a few months.
So, yeah, looking forward to it, it's just a really fun time.
I kind of miss the operatingdays, and each of us do.
Everybody on the team was atone point an operator, founder,
(45:31):
and you get closer to it.
It's not the same, but whenyou're in the same space, when
you're helping solve a problemthat might come up, it does feel
a lot more like operating thaninvesting, and that we love that
and do you?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I mean?
I was looking at the yc cohortthis time and it felt like there
were four companies solving thesame problem.
Um, yeah, there is.
Do you selectively make surethat they're not directly
competing with each other sothat there is a willingness or
desire to help?
Do you, I mean, do you justlook at every single company and
then not bother about that,because there could be helpful
(46:15):
or awkward situations, dependingon how things?
Speaker 2 (46:18):
are yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, we don't invest incompeting companies.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Even at the accelerator stage.
Yeah, even at the acceleratorstage.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah, even at the accelerator stage.
You know, what we're doing isso bespoken hands-on that it's
not like I think YC canincredibly say like you know,
we're not that involved in whatyou're doing anyway, so it's
fine that we invested insomething else, but for us it
just doesn't make sense.
It's not how we operate Forbetter or for worse, but overall
(46:52):
it hasn't really been an issue.
I can only think of one time inmy last several years where I
felt like I wanted to invest ina company but couldn't because
of a competitive deal in theportfolio.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, and in terms of just this, accelerators, we
keep debating this or somevariation of this from time to
time, because we're also earlystage Once something is in the
accelerator and at what point doyou say, look, this is a large
space and this company is notexecuting for whatever reason,
(47:30):
but there is somebody elseexecuting and we should perhaps
back then, or would we just?
You know, I can understand whenit's a main deal, right when
you've gone through the wholediligence, but an accelerator
opportunity, it's always atricky one.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
It is tricky.
I think we would be open to it.
We just haven't, uh, we haven'thad to yet fortunately no good.
It totally can be a stickysituation.
I think it's hard to have ablanket rule.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
It's like you always want to do good by your founders
and sometimes you have to giveup some opportunities also
sometimes you have to give upsome opportunities, yeah, um.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Now what I'll say is the one time that came to mind
where we didn't do a dealbecause a founder in our
portfolio blocked it.
In hindsight that was a greatcompany.
It's um valued at a significantmultiple over the round that we
would have done, and so that isin some ways a miss, but
(48:36):
fortunately we can sleep okaybecause the company that blocked
it also is doing very well.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Also is doing very well.
That's good.
That blocked it also is doingvery well.
Also is doing very well.
That's good.
Cool, hey, maybe a little bitof rapid fire and then we'll.
I don't have too many questions.
Yeah, but related to startupsas well.
What's the one thing a foundercan tell you in the first
meeting or at any point whereit's a turnoff for you?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
So many things.
There's lies, there's bullshit,metrics, what I'll say.
They talk about something thatlike a proxy for a proxy for a
proxy for a proxy for revenue,just like, tell me the damn
thing Arrogance, proxy for aproxy for revenue?
(49:30):
Just like, tell me the damnthing um arrogance.
Um, all those things I thinkare are turnoffs for me.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah, to me I feel it's it's the one
thing you said right when youdon, you don't.
When, when it feels likethey're, they don't really
believe what they're saying,yeah and and, and that
translates to a lot of the otherthings that you just said right
, where we try to cover thingsup.
I personally, I maybe Ishouldn't give this out here,
(49:58):
but I, I I read eyes a lot and Ialways feel that you know, the
mouth can tell all the lies, butthe eyes cannot.
So, yeah, look at me.
I do stare people down andmaybe make them a bit
uncomfortable, but to me itfeels like, look, I just want to
know that you believe whatyou're saying.
Right, who knows what the futureis going to hold, but at least
(50:20):
if you seem to have convictionof what you're trying to build,
that's a start, and that's agreat start because at the early
stage, I mean, if the foundersthemselves are sort of shifty or
uncertain about their I mean ofthe clarity of their beliefs,
right, forget about.
You know, they may pivot oneday later, but that's fine.
(50:41):
But at any point in time,you've got to believe that this
is the best thing you're workingon and what gets you super
excited about a startup.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
You know, it's just like a founder makes me believe,
believe in them, believe in theopportunity, and is just
executing so fast and hard at it.
So I think you things that Ithink about, as all great
founders we've backed have, andthat's number one, is speed of
(51:15):
execution.
That's something we cangenerally see in between our
first and second meeting.
I try to understand, hey, whathave you done?
And it's a good indicator.
And then tenacity, like arethey breaking through walls?
Like what's a challenge you'vehad that you had to overcome.
Those are things I think.
If I see some combination ofthose two things and intellect
(51:38):
and a bigger market opportunity,I get really excited.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
And for deals that you do go through.
What is the typical elapsedtime and how many meetings do
they have with you guys duringthat period of time?
Speaker 2 (51:51):
You know it varies widely.
It's really like we don't havea set process, which can be
frustrating when founders ask us.
But it's really like, how longdoes it take for me to earn to
get to conviction?
Really like, how long does ittake for me to earn to get to
conviction?
And in some cases I'vebasically gotten there in one
(52:11):
meeting.
But you still, of course, wantto have have a couple more
meetings, but in some cases it'staken me weeks, months in fact.
In one case I invested in acompany that I met after a year
and a half um.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
We've done that too.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
In fact, we're right now looking at a company that
went to IC and we passed.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
They've done clearly very, very well we're revisiting
it the two, three things thatwe were concerned about.
They've obviously proven thatthey should not have been
concerned so far.
This is a business that humblesyou so fast.
It's not funny.
You know, and you know everytime you think you have figured
it out, something new willhappen.
In fact, the other day I wastelling somebody you know, with
(52:56):
40 odd companies in theportfolio every day somebody's
having a good day, somebody'shaving, uh, an average day.
Some probably several arehaving a crappy day, right.
And so when I wake up in themorning, I look at my WhatsApp
messages.
If somebody's giving me goodnews, I'm actually shuddering
for the rest of the day, but ifsomebody's giving me bad news, I
(53:16):
say now I've got something tolook forward to today.
Somebody is going to hopefullysave the day, right, so, and
make me feel better.
We're going to hopefully savethe day, right, so, and make me
feel better.
So if I get good news in themorning, I just go back to sleep
, don't look at the phoneanymore, but it's sort of the
opposite of how one would think,right?
Normally, you'd say, oh, this isprobably a good news day.
There is no such thing, look,sheila.
(53:39):
I can keep on going on and on,but I'd love for you to maybe
leave a couple of nuggets forfounders in terms of the markets
today, the funding climate,what you're seeing as global
trends, and if you were afounder, what would you be
focusing on?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Yeah, so what I'll say is FinTech is hot again.
It was pretty rough for a while, I think you know 21,.
Everything was sky's the limit.
22 and 23 were overcorrected,and then 24, 22 and 23 were
(54:23):
overcorrected, and then 24,things are looking good.
And in 25, actually we had sofar already in 25, actually in
the first six weeks of 2025, wehad 10 companies in our
portfolio raise up rounds Wow,which is just like a crazy
number.
Usually you would have like oneor two or three in a month.
(54:50):
So it's been busy.
So the outlook for fintech, Ithink, is improving quite a bit.
We're seeing a lot of thegeneralist funds who were out on
fintech a year ago.
They were saying, oh, now we'reinvesting in AI, enterprise,
vertical, SaaS, whatever thetopic was.
They're back, and a year ago,when I would send them a deal,
(55:11):
they would say, sorry, we're notlooking at that.
And then now they're saying,hey, what's in your portfolio?
What can we invest in?
So I'll say FinTech is exciting.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
That's great to hear.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Yeah, what were the other questions?
Speaker 1 (55:27):
No, I think it's generally advice to founders,
right?
The last few years have beenaround focus on growing into
your valuation, focus on gettingto break even, focus on stuff
like that.
So where do you see, is it backto thinking about growth, about
(55:48):
growth, back to thinking aboutaggressive growth?
Um, what is the advice you givefounders?
Speaker 2 (55:54):
Yeah, so, um, so yeah , we, we've totally moved from
growth only mindset in 2021 toprofit only mindset in 2022.
And that was an overcorrection.
I think now we're probablysomewhere in the middle where
you do need to look.
(56:15):
As venture capitalists, we'reinvesting in growth, like we're.
We're investing in a company,we're investing in the five what
what's happening five yearsfrom now, and we want to be able
to see that you've grown, andso it's simply not exciting if
you're not growing fast.
But what's new is I'mincreasingly worried about these
(56:36):
companies that are growingreally fast.
You have a bunch of companiesthat grew from zero to 100
million in less than two years.
But I'm worried about howsticky is this revenue, and
that's something I probablynever used to worry about before
, but I think a lot of this AIrevenue is not that sticky.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
I would say in terms of, like other advice, it's
really you know, solve realproblems and spend time with
your customers, understandingthat it's a clean, it's a clear,
painful process, a painful, uh,challenge that they're facing.
Um, you know, think throughdistribution very early.
(57:24):
You know, think throughdistribution very early.
How are you going to get tothese people?
Make sure that you'll be ableto get great unit economics at
scale.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
And, you know, don't overlook both risk and the
regulatory environment thatyou're in Cool.
Well, that's really good andserious advice.
Maybe we'll close with a littlebit of some of your
extraordinary fun experiences inlife.
I read about the Taco Bellwedding We've heard about the
Justin.
Bieber video.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
We've heard about.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
You know, you talked about clubhouse.
I had to scratch my head saying, yeah, that did exist during
the pandemic.
Yeah, it was a big deal backthen it would be great to hear
from you first hand.
I really appreciate the timeyou spent with us, but maybe we
can close with something fun forour audience here I can link it
(58:23):
all together, actuallyClubhouse was an audio based for
our audience here.
Sure, I can link it alltogether actually Okay, even
better.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
So Clubhouse was a audio-based, or I should say is,
I believe.
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Clubhouse is an audio-based social network.
I think it's okay to say morewith this particular case.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah, yeah yeah, had its heyday in 2020 and 2021, and
I was a very avid early user,so I joined when I think it was
in the first few hundred peopleand you know just the pandemic.
I was super bored.
I'm an extrovert, so I lovetalking to people and was just
(59:00):
enjoying talking to people onthere ended up becoming, um, you
know, as as that platform grew,uh, so did my following.
I think I think I had, or maybehave, over three million
followers on that app, which isnot not worth a damn today, but,
(59:20):
um, it's funny, there werelists of, like, the most
followed people and I was likein between oprah winfrey and
some I don't know some famousmusician, that is something
crazy, but um, but, but uh, how,at least the other stuff is um.
So during the pandemic I was ina zoom dating show called the
(59:42):
zoom bachelor and uh, inclubhouse they were we.
I went on clubhouse to discussit after the show and this guy
was in there who had watched ituh, scooter braun.
He was justin beaver's managerand it was like, oh, what are
you working on?
And he said he enjoyed the show.
Whatever he said oh, why don't,why don't't you come on this
(01:00:04):
music video?
And so I ended up sending himsomething and getting him this
Justin Bieber music video.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
We got to get the clip and put it to the promos
here.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
And how did the Taco Bell wedding happen?
So we got engaged and I hadposted on Twitter or whatever.
And then taco bell had thiscontest we'd love to host a one
lucky couple's wedding in themetaverse.
And this was kind of, at thispoint, like I was never bought
into the metaverse to begin with, but at this point it was kind
of on the waning end.
It was, uh, august of 2022 andum, but I love taco bell.
(01:00:49):
So, um, I, you know, I was on aroad trip with my wife and I
said, hey, you know, there'sthis contest, I think we should
do it.
They'll pay for our wedding.
Of course, it was one of manyweddings.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
It wasn't our, you know main wedding, but, um, that
we I followed a few of themaround the world on social media
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
So we submitted a two-minute video.
I just thought it would befunny to submit a video.
We submitted a video and thenwe thought, okay, we'll submit
it because it's fun to make thevideo, but if they choose us
we'll say no.
And then, once they chose us,they convinced us.
They said you know, it'll beyour wedding, It'll be an Indian
wedding.
You can bring on whoever youwant and you'll be part of the
(01:01:30):
Taco Bell family for life.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
So I said you know how can I say no to being part
of the Taco?
Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Bell family for life and you know they've been great.
They've taken us to concerts,the Super Bowl, a lot of other
stuff, wow.
So it's been fun and actuallyone.
One cool thing as it relates tobusiness is actually I was able
to introduce them to a companyrecently, fintech company that
(01:01:56):
uh has a has uh actually I don'twant to say what the product is
, but but uh could be veryrelevant for them, which which
is kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Very nice, Amazing.
I have a funny Taco Bell storyas well.
I just got married as a student, had no money and there was a
Taco Bell just around the cornerthat my wife and I used to
patronize.
But we went and said let's goout for a long romantic drive.
So we drove 125 miles aroundbig Washington, went all the way
around and came back to thesame.
(01:02:24):
Taco Bell and then had a $5dinner.
So we keep remembering.
But you know those are the fundays too and I think sometimes,
yeah, these experiences, youknow, as unique as they are, of
course yours are likeextraordinary.
I'm going to set a very highbar for your entrepreneurs, I'm
(01:02:45):
sure.
Still always a pleasurechatting.
I think you know we could go onforever, but really appreciate
you making the time.
I know it's in the evening,your time on the Sunday, but
look forward to, you know,continuing to stay in touch.
You know, following you onTwitter, for you know our
audience, of course you knowfollowing you on Twitter, for
you know our audience, of courseyou know we'll, we'll, we'll
(01:03:07):
tag bad pit, they see, andcertainly, you know, require.
I recommend everybody who isjust out to have some fun doing
it to follow shield on onTwitter, for sure.
I don't know if his LinkedInposts are the same, sometimes a
little more professional, whichis not really what he is the
(01:03:28):
most famous for on social media.
I think it's it's it's thewacky humor that that keeps all
of us going, really appreciateit and look forward to catching
up soon in person.
Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Dear listeners, thank you for listening to this
episode of the podcast.
Subscribe now on your favoritepodcast app for free and you'll
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You get your podcasts, then hitsubscribe and if you have
(01:04:04):
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a review on Apple Podcast.
To read the full transcript,find the link in the show notes.
We've read about the Taco Bell wedding.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We've heard about the Justin.
Bieber video.
I had, or maybe have, over 3million followers in between
Oprah.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Winfrey, it took me a long time to understand what
Fit Daisy stood for.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Fund 1 was 75 million .
We're currently investing outof Fund 2, which is 150.
Fintech is hot again.
You know, if you're not a bank,it's actually in some ways
better than being a bank.
There are more seed dealshappening in New York than in
San Francisco Bullshit metrics.
What I'll say?
Like they talk about somethingthat like a proxy for a proxy
(00:34):
for a proxy for a proxy forrevenue, just like, tell me the
damn thing.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hi everybody.
Sanjay Swamy here again withthe Prime Venture Partners
podcast, and I have a reallygood internet friend of mine and
probably of several of you whofollow our podcast the one and
only czar of social media in thefintech world.
That's the new word these days.
I think I'm one of the few whohas not asked him how to
(01:07):
pronounce his last name.
I hopefully got it right.
Yeah, but welcome Sheen to theshow.
I was listening to theTechCrunch podcast the other day
and the lady was saying oh, Iwish I'd asked you before the
show, but yeah, great to be onExcited to chat.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's been a while, so just good to catch up too.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Before we get started , I think it'd be great for
people to know a bit about you,and it took me a long time to
understand what at Pit Daisystood for.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I understood the Daisy part then later realized
you're from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And so that's what that probably stands for.
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I understood that they see Padre and they can
realize you're from Pittsburgh,and so that's what that probably
means.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, that's right.
So great to have you here,sheel, and, of course, big fans
of the core key posts that youkeep putting out on Twitter, but
most of them, if you readbetween the lines, there's some
really high quality content aswell, and sometimes, of course,
very directly.
So let's get started.
A little bit about your journeyand how we got to where we are
(02:07):
today.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And then we'll talk about your views on the market
today.
Yeah, sounds good.
So backstory I grew up inPittsburgh, so I'm a Pittsburgh
Desi.
I've had that screen name.
It originates from 1995, soit's an old one 1995.
So it's an old one.
And you know, I grew up in ahousehold with my parents both
(02:36):
grew up in India, but I grew upin Pittsburgh.
I was going back to India everyyou could say year or two years
throughout my childhood andthen, you know, as an adult, I
went to Carnegie MellonUniversity, also in Pittsburgh,
and ultimately went intosoftware.
I made software for hospitalsat a company called Cerner.
(02:59):
Then I got into managementconsulting, ended up spending
some time in uh, in india.
Actually, as an adult, I, uh, Iwent to india.
I was there 2006 and 2007 and Iwas working in microfinance,
living like my borrowers, uh on.
(03:20):
I think it was 2 000 rupees amonth is what I was.
Which year was this?
All my expenses 2006 and 2007.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And which part of India?
I?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
was in Ahmedabad.
I see Wow, and so it was a cool, it was a great experience.
You know, something I nevercould do today, but in my young
age I was uh, I was more capable, such things, yeah it's all
relative.
Yeah, it's all relative, but um,and then, uh, you know, went
(03:57):
back to consulting.
I worked at bcg servingfinancial institutions.
Um, a friend of mine had anidea for a company.
We we ended up starting apayments company.
That company got acquired in2012.
I started doing some angelinvesting, found I really liked
it.
Another friend of mine had anidea for a company, said why
don't we do this together?
(04:17):
It was an auction company.
So I ended up starting thatcompany about a year after the
exit of the first company, andthat company, too, ended up
having some modest success in2015.
And from that point onward I'vebeen investing and started out
(04:38):
investing my own capital.
I had joined 500 Startups, rana fintech focused fund there
called 500 FinTech, and then westarted BTV about five and a
half years ago now, and BTVstands for Better Tomorrow
Ventures.
We started fund one was 75million.
(04:59):
Then we're currently investingout of fund two, which is 150.
And shortly we'll be investingout of fund two, which is 150.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And, uh, shortly we'll be investing out of fund
three very cool and, uh, broadly, uh, your funds focus on on
what areas, what geography, whatverticals?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
yeah, so we we lead pre-seed and seed rounds in and
around fintech.
And when I say around fintechor fintech adjacent, what I mean
is, you know, there are a lotof businesses which today may
not look like fintech companiesbut in the future will.
(05:39):
As an example, vertical SaaS.
As an example, vertical SaaS soin the United States there's a
large, now public company calledToast that builds restaurant
point of sale software and whenit started out it was a point of
(06:00):
sale company charging $100 perrestaurant and now 83% of their
revenue comes from financialservices.
And we think that there are alot more opportunities to build
businesses like this, and everyfuture vertical SaaS company
will have a large component offintech.
And so maybe you charge $100 amonth for your SaaS product, but
(06:22):
then you make another $200 onpayments, you make money on
lending, you make money onbanking, accounting, payroll, et
cetera, and ultimately, 80% to90% of your business is a
fintech business.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
And do you think all of these companies?
I mean?
I shared a very similar pointof view in India, in fact my
partner any company that's notdoing well, they say, can I just
hand it over to Sanjay andhe'll turn it into a FinTech as
a joke.
But you know, I think that'scertainly the one big profit
pool and I think that benefits alot from digitization of what
(06:56):
used to be traditionally offlineprocesses.
Right, the question I had foryou is these are all regulated
spaces and traditionally notsomething that such founders
would have a background in,right, and in India it's
becoming certainly more and moreclear that you just need to
become a regulated entity by theRBI and get an MDFC license and
(07:19):
so on.
How is the landscape in the USand do you see it going more in
that direction?
Or do you think there'll bespecialized companies with sort
of an embedded finance type ofmodule that they will be
licensing, and is theopportunity there?
Or is the opportunity in thesoftware company that is
targeting the customer, or both?
(07:41):
How do you think about it?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, it's interesting In the United States
.
So, first of all, as you arevery well aware, we had a change
in leadership here a couplemonths ago no really, and I
think it has some implicationswhich we can cover.
But what I'd say overall isit's different than India.
(08:05):
So let's just use banking as anexample.
There are pretty greatadvantages to not being a bank.
So we can use the neobanks asan example.
Chime is the largest of them onthe consumer side, the largest
(08:25):
of them on the consumer side.
So Chime as a neobank, theyserve a population that does not
have a ton of money likeunderbank population, and
they're able to actually make alot more money on this customer
than they could if they were anactual bank.
And the reason for that is theway that you make money off this
(08:49):
customer is interchange whenthey swipe their debit card.
And the United States.
About 15 years ago, there was aregulation called the Durbin
Amendment, the Dodd-Frank DurbinAmendment.
Yep, Exactly, Exactly, yes.
That regulated how much bankscould charge on interchange, and
(09:10):
banks with some $10 billion indeposits were able to charge
more on debit interchange thanlarger banks.
And so it actually.
You know as you scale, you knowif you're not a bank.
It's actually in some waysbetter than being a bank and
(09:35):
getting a banking license inthis country is a real pain,
it's tough?
Yeah, it's tough.
And we don't exactly have aNBFC equivalent in the United
States yeah, exactly.
And then the same is true in abunch of other industries.
I think there are some areaswhere you do want to get
(10:00):
regulated and, for example, wehave this concept of a money
transmitter, and it's kind ofstrangely still done state by
state, and we do encourage ourcompanies to get the money
transmitter licenses.
So in some cases we doencourage them to be licensed.
But for the most part theregulatory environment isn't
(10:25):
necessarily set up only forregulated entities to succeed.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Cool.
So you expect that fintechswill partner with regulated
entities that build a muscle forpartnering with the fintechs
and plow along much faster and,in some ways, stay unregulated.
What about some of the largerplayers?
Like you know, all these thingswork very well when you're
(10:53):
small, but when you get to thescale of someone like a Stripe
or a Chime as well, isn't therean expectation that they will
eventually need to get regulated?
So is it a zero to one and oneto 10 phase where they can get
away or, you know, can they stayunregulated forever?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
You know it.
I think it depends on what youmean by regulated.
Like you know, when I say there, there's no such thing as an
nbfc in the united states, likethere's sort of.
That's mostly true and that,like you know, we have a
(11:34):
regulatory.
We don't have like an rbiregulated nbfc type of thing,
but but they're all there's likepatchwork framework throughout
the united states, so, um.
So I mentioned state levelregulation for money
transmission, so these guys allhave that.
Then they also have lendinglicenses in each state in which
(11:55):
they're in business and so theyare regulated in some ways, but
not via a centralized regulatorlike in India.
It's basically a bunch ofdifferent layers and fragmented,
and then you know it can befrustrating.
Also, united States, like you,might be regulated by the FTC.
(12:17):
We talked about the Dodd-FrankAct.
There's the Fair CreditReporting Act, equal Credit
Opportunity Act, the ConsumerFinancial Protection Bureau,
which Trump is eliminating, allthese different and the OCC,
which is the Office of theComptroller of the Currency
which controls banks, fdic.
(12:37):
All these are differentregulations but in some ways,
like we don't have a centralizedregulator, like I think is the
case in India, more so than theUnited States but these are all
regulated in some way.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Right, well, so let's move on to some of the areas
that are exciting you a lot.
I think you tweeted recentlyabout SaaS.
Is there or not there?
It depends on which side of thevenue you've been from and we're
(13:15):
all going through that.
You know this extraordinaryexcitement around, obviously,
the foundational layers of AI,but I think some of the
applications you know we'relooking at it.
In fact, I finally went andhired engineers to actually
build out some tools for us inour own operations.
Initially the finance team justgrabbed him and said, oh, we
need to do all of the MISreporting and stuff like that.
(13:35):
But eventually, of course, Ithink a lot will get into our
own research and underwriting ofareas and startups and founders
and so on.
But you know, in terms ofbuilding large companies here
around financial services,fintech and with this whole AI
boom that's happening, thiswhole dynamic of companies
(13:58):
moving to a thought processwhere they could build their own
software themselves andprobably, you know, build much
more targeted offerings how areyou dissecting this whole space
and what scares you?
What excites you?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah, so a lot of folks are saying, okay, saas is
dead.
I don't think it's dead.
I don't think that's the rightway to think about it.
I do think in our own work,what I tweeted about was we were
looking or we are, I should say, still looking at a software to
help us manage our own business, to manage information we get
(14:36):
from our portfolio companies.
There are a few providers thatoffer this solution.
They're charging like 25 or 30kUSD per year, and so we've been
thinking, okay, that's a lot ofmoney to spend for software.
Like, could we just build itourselves?
So we're starting to prototypeand while I have some technical
(14:57):
background, I haven't reallybuilt anything in a very long
time 15 plus years.
So I started playing with allof these new AI products and
it's pretty impressive what youcan do pretty quickly, and so it
feels like if I'm rethinking,if I'm already rethinking the
(15:21):
25K per year contract withsomebody, then you know, know, I
might be ahead of the curve alittle bit, but there's a lot of
that coming.
So I I do think there's a worldin which the the you know, the
future looks a little bitdifferent and more, more
(15:44):
customized.
I think there are a few thingswe still think are important to
get right.
So like, if you, if you doinvest in SaaS, I think and
we're still trying to figurethis out but what we're looking
(16:04):
for is some sort of complexitybarrier, so like, is it hard to
solve technically or is itsomething fairly easy?
You know, we have businessesthat are, I don't know like.
The first thing that came tomind is like there's a business
that when you enter into anoffice like you, you, you enter
(16:26):
your name to check in and likethat's.
Envoy Right and like.
I'm sure they have many moreproducts now, but it seems like,
okay, could I build that myselfin a relatively short period of
time.
Yes, what's their right to win?
It's not that hard technically,but they might have some other
thing, and so the second thingthat they probably do have that
(16:49):
I'm missing is they have somenetwork effects Like they're
able to have.
They have information aboutpeople across, across buildings
and all sorts of stuff like that, so maybe there's an advantage
He'll always take that third cupof stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So maybe there's an advantage there He'll always
take that third cup of coffee.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, exactly, do they have some sort of
integration or workflowstickiness?
So this is the thing in mybusiness, I think we think about
a lot.
It's like, if we're investinginto a company, what's their
right to continue existing?
And I think it's really wherewe have landed on is, are they
(17:26):
embedded into the workflow?
So we have invested a bunch inthese you know what we call
services as software businessesand we're finding that there's a
large demand from theseenterprises to adopt AI.
And where they want to adopt iswhere there's a hair on fire
(17:51):
problem.
If we can't hire enough peopleto do a particular task or it's
too expensive to do a task andso we don't do it, that's a big
opportunity.
I can give you a couple ofexamples.
So we're investors in a companycalled Basis it's an AI for
accounting product and theyultimately will be doing the
(18:13):
work of a junior accountant.
And in the United States there'sa huge accountant shortage.
And the United States there's ahuge accountant shortage
Basically, people.
It became very uncool to becomean accountant and so people
stopped doing it.
Like, even from the time when Igraduated college till now, the
(18:34):
number of new college graduatesin accounting have dropped 50%,
but actually the demand isstill there, more than ever, so
there's a strong demand foraccountants.
We're actually importing them.
There's a lot of decent numberof H1Bs that are accountants,
but even then there's a shortage, and so these guys are
automating the work of alow-level accountant, and all of
(18:57):
the accounting firms want theproduct.
It's like a no-brainer for them, and so that's.
One Another is we have acompany in the loan underwriting
space called Kaj.
They do a bunch of work toautomate SMB loans, do a bunch
(19:21):
of work to automate SMB loans,and so what that enables is a
lender who previously was takingso much work to do the
underwriting it didn't makesense to do a loan under $50,000
.
Now, that lender is able to do aloan that's like $20,000.
So it is furthering thebusiness.
Then we have a bunch of othersin this sort of broad theme
(19:41):
that's like truly20,000.
So it is furthering thebusiness.
Then we have a bunch of othersin this sort of broad theme
that's like truly automatingwork.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
So it's kind of interesting some of these
opportunities, at least in India.
I mean, obviously, basis is thecore thing, right.
I think it's going to be aproblem everywhere in the world,
especially if a lot of the H1Bsstart taking all the
accountants from India to the US.
Then we're going to have ashortage on this side of the
world.
But I think the one thing thathappened in India over the last
(20:12):
decade and I had a small role toplay in it in the early days
especially was this wholedevelopment of India stack and a
public infrastructure with theaccount aggregator where
digitally signed information canbe made accessible, you know as
JSON, so they are machinereadable, and verify documents,
(20:33):
you know with a, you knowprivate, with a digitally signed
hash so you can even verify allthe information without going
back to the source.
I think the US has still stayedrelatively offline, focused and
certainly proprietary datafocused, right, and I think
(20:55):
interoperability and opennesshas sort of happened in many
areas, but in many of happenedin many areas.
But in many of these financialservices areas it still seems
like, you know, you havecompanies like Plaid and the
others that did a lot of theconnectivity, but it sort of
went the path of let's createmore large private companies
(21:16):
rather than interoperableutilities, right, and is that a
fair assessment and do you seeany of that changing or do you
see this is going to create moreopportunity that we could back
as a mindset?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, I think the India stack has been obviously
phenomenal.
But, like identity payments inparticular, I think in the
United States there's a lot ofinertia not to move in this
direction.
Some of it sort of surprises me, but I think the identity stuff
(21:52):
Americans think of themselvesas individualistic and for some
reason fight identity, fightnational identity in a big way,
so people don't want theirfingerprints or facial
recognition.
People fight this in a big way.
You know we have the socialsecurity number but there are no
(22:12):
biometrics.
So there's a lot of fraud andidentity theft.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
It would be much better to implement.
We've been reading about it.
It's just wrong.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
At least, that's what a lot of stuff has been claimed
of, and so we're still usingstate-by-state driver's licenses
for identity verification, andthe reason is this privacy
concern that people have,unfortunately, and so it holds
us back, for sure.
But it also allowsopportunities for a bunch of
(22:44):
these private companies to popup.
And so, on the identity side,you have a bunch of companies
that have built sizablebusinesses just managing
identity Persona and many, manyothers.
Identity persona and many, manyothers.
(23:06):
Um, but yeah, it of coursewould be much better if we had
an adhar type system.
And then, on the payment side,yeah, like freaking wish we had
real-time bank to bank payments.
Yeah, but look, it's, it's.
We don't have them because thebanks really don't want it.
They lose money.
They're making money on thosetwo days afloat and that's how
(23:30):
they make a lot of money.
We have this new paymentinfrastructure launched what was
it a year and a half ago calledFedNow launched.
What was it a year and a halfago called FedNow, which is a
new instant paymentinfrastructure for real-time
payments, but it's not mandated.
So if it's not mandated, thenthe banks aren't going to do it
(23:54):
because there's no impetus.
So the banks that are doing itare mostly like small banks, and
until and until you mandate it,it's not going to happen.
So then what do we have is ourach automated clearinghouse
system, which is slow, and thenwe have third parties.
So, like the, the businesses,like paypal, venmo cash app, why
(24:17):
do they exist?
How are they existing?
It's because we don't have asystem like UPI that lets you do
it fast and free, and so whatthese guys do is they primarily
make money.
If I pay you today, it doesn'tsettle for a few days, but if
you want to get paid instantly,then they'll charge you a few
(24:40):
percent and you can have themoney today, right now so that's
discounting, basically, yeahthat's right.
So that's how these privatecompanies paypal, venmo uh,
paypal venmo venmo is owned bypaypal, but you know they
operate independent apps andcash app all operate.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Wonderful, so maybe we'll switch gears.
Sorry, you were talking aboutaccount aggregation.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Briefly, yes, you know, yeah, you guys have a
great, was it DEPA?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
How do you yeah?
Depa D-E-P-A, DEPA yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, that allows individuals to control their own
.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
The law it's coming into.
I mean, it's becoming a law now, so it's become a law.
So I think the importance ofyou know enforcing it, making
sure you can prove that you havenot violated it, et cetera,
becomes very important for,certainly, the large financial
institutions.
And in India, as I said,everybody's regulated.
It might be a different levelof regulation or everybody's
(25:44):
getting regulated, so that'screating, I think, a lot of
opportunity.
And you combine that with someof the new AI stuff going on and
I think it's going to createone big opportunity here for
sure.
Yeah, makes sense.
Is the market large enough fora company to sustain itself
(26:04):
doing only India?
There are a few pockets wherethat's probably true and then,
if not, will this be a globalwave and then the Indian
startups can find a way to adaptthemselves to the international
opportunity?
That's really the big questionwe ask when we look at uh
technology, or fintechs, so tospeak, in the post financial
(26:27):
services players yeah, even so.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So question for you is like even with a india-based,
fintech-based portfolio, howmany of those companies do you
think about going global?
Is it super common, even inFinTech in India?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So I think global is, I think there's the United.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
States I mean US there's.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Europe, right, and then there's the rest of the
world, right.
So I think the rest of theworld probably is much more
practical to expand into overtime, is much more practical to
expand into over time andseveral of the early, I would
say because the Indian bankingsystem is very mature from a
technology adoption perspectiveand other countries are looking
at India as being a thoughtleader and saying, can we bring
(27:12):
some of this stuff?
Because they don't have theexpertise necessarily to
implement a lot of that.
In terms of targeting the USmarket, for example, I think
there is going to be a wave ofIndia-based startups that are
going to come after, perhapsunbundling some of the first
wave of fintechs that havebecome in the tens and hundreds
(27:33):
of billions of dollars.
So I think there'll be thatkind of an opportunity.
It will probably start withcross-border shield as the world
moves to China, plus onestrategy, and a lot of Indian
exporters start exporting to theUS and trade starts going
across multiple geographies alot more from India.
(27:54):
So I think there will becross-border opportunities.
We have a startup, for example,that takes its consumer
payments using PayPal right, andPayPal charges 7%, right, and
they look at the balance sheetand they say oh, you guys are
not really that solid, so we'regoing to withhold your payments
for 90 days, right, and thatstarts a domino effect of why
(28:17):
the company gets weaker, andthen they've got to figure out a
way to discount invoices.
So I think there'll be a lot ofthat opportunity.
As you said, a lot of SaaScompanies from India you know
SaaS, you know from India forthe world.
There will be fintechopportunities for them.
So I think they can startprobably playing, you know, a
similar game to some of thethings you were mentioning, but
(28:40):
launching services for northamerican businesses, that would
probably happen at some point,and coming to the american
consumer is probably a long shot.
I don't see that happeninganytime soon.
I mean, there will be certainlypeople who will attempt it and
maybe go after the indiandiaspora and their cross-border
dealings, because you need tohave some edge when they're
(29:01):
trying to go to the consumer,and I think it's a long shot.
Now I could see an Indianorigin founder or someone with
your background, perhaps withclose ties to India, setting up
a team in India and being aNorth American founder.
I'm discounting those as Indianstartups.
Yeah, yeah, yeah know Indianstartups yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Makes sense Cool.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
But but no, it's, I think, definitely from if I look
back 10 years ago.
The other big thing is, I thinkIndia is starting to emerge as
a market where you could build acompany that's doing several
tens and possibly hundreds ofmillions of dollars of revenue,
and the IPO markets in India aresuch that you could IPO as soon
(29:48):
as you're sort of north of, say, 60-70 million dollars of
revenue and are profitable yeahcertainly and certainly at, you
know, at 100 million right.
so if the markets stay this wayand I suspect that number will
move north over the next decade,but I think there will always
be opportunity for well-runprofitable companies growing 30%
year-on-year at that scale, togo public.
(30:12):
So I think this will remain avery attractive market and
unless founders feel that theyhave a real edge and a reason
why they can win in the US, it'sunlikely that they will target
them.
I'd love to see a founder comeand say we'll build something
very, very US focused, becausedefinitely the opportunity scale
(30:33):
is really big and I'll pick upthe phone and call you if I need
someone for sure.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah for sure.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I think, like the us equitymarkets have largely been closed
the last few years and I thinkto your point on what it takes
like here to attract anyattention, you need to be in the
400 million plus revenue rangeand like we have a couple
(31:01):
companies in the 200 plus rangethat in a previous generation
would have been public already.
But, now it's just.
It's also very expensive to gopublic here.
And it's not a one-time expense,it's an annual thing, so it's
tough and you know, you alsoalso see, I think we're seeing
(31:24):
in india right now.
It feels like the uh, thecompanies are trading at higher
multiples than they are in theunited states.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
So yeah, maybe the indian consumer is pretty
excited, but but in general, yes, okay, yeah yeah, but that's
the nature of the beast.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
anyway, I think what we look at I mean good for you
in liquidity.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I hope so.
We should be testing over thenext few years.
But generally, what ourthinking is can this company get
to, say, $50, $70 million ofrevenue, be at you know, 25%,
30% EBITDA, and do that with $20, $25 million of investment over
(32:08):
its journey and beyond that,will it go public?
Will it continue to grow at 40%, 30%, whatever these are?
The timing of the IPO is notnecessarily in our hands, but
that sort of seems like agoalpost that we can
consistently strive to achieve,right for companies and that
also moderates the type ofcompanies we can back.
(32:31):
Our stage is slightly afteryours.
We do mostly pre -Series A.
Yeah, Valuation-wise, the trendmay be similar from India and
the US market in terms of thevaluation zones, but I think we
have gravitated.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
What would that be for you?
What is the valuation zone?
Speaker 1 (32:49):
To say this on a public podcast would be
interesting, but it can beanywhere from 6 to 30, so that's
the zone and I would say ourmedian will probably be around
15.
We have gone higher dependingon how mature the company is,
right.
So I mean, the three factorsobviously are the team, the
opportunity size, the rate atwhich you know.
(33:13):
I mean I think I just look forcrazy customer love, right,
whoever your customers are,whether it's one or three, right
, they just have to absolutelysay the greatest things about
you guys, and hopefully thereare 3000 of them who are waiting
in line.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
And when companies go public 60, 70 million of
revenue, are we talkingsomewhere in the If they're
profitable 10X revenue?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
okay, yeah, so rule to.
So a rule of thumb istriangulating between 10x
revenue and 30x of EBITDA and ifyou're lucky it could be power
12 months revenue for both thosemetrics.
Okay, right, so if you're doing60 million and growing at 30%
(33:59):
and are at 30% or 25%, let's sayEBITDA, then that's about 100,
that's about 15 million EBITDA.
So 30 times that is about 450million, 30 to 40 times that.
So you kind of get back to moreor less the same number.
Sounds right, makes sense.
(34:21):
Yeah, more or less the same.
The same sounds right, or thesame number.
Yeah, so that should besomewhere between 500 to 700
million.
Again, depending on how man,how I wish.
Uh, come on, let's do stufftogether I guess yeah which
actually leads me to to thequestion about india.
Right, I mean, you have strongaffiliation here.
I won't say say rootsnecessarily, but I'm sure roots
(34:41):
as well, or certainly roots ofthe roots.
How have you looked at thismarket?
I know you've personally donesome angel from time to time,
but have you looked at itrecently?
Do you think it'll be a part ofyour story or just so laser
focused on the US that it justdoesn't matter as a fund?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
So you know, I would say it's not a like high
priority area for us, but I'mtotally open to it.
I think the challenges I havehad are you know, it feels like
the only ways to make money andtell me if I'm wrong feels like
(35:25):
the ways to make money are as alender or, you know, maybe
increasingly in wealthmanagement or AUM businesses.
And if I look at how ourcompanies make money, it's very
different.
It's like they charge thecustomer, that's the best
(35:46):
revenue, and then maybe thesecond best revenue is payments
revenue.
And then you kind of go downthe list and lending revenue we
think of as like the worst typeof revenue and we also think I
personally just feel like Idon't quite think it's the right
(36:08):
fit for a venture model,because in lending you're giving
out money and the venture modelis about growth and it's easy
to grow when you're giving outmoney.
So that's what I've struggledwith in India, but not to say
that we wouldn't invest oranything like that.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yep, yep.
So I'll tell you a couple ofthings to keep an eye on.
And that has changed a few ofour thought processes as well.
We actually stayed away fromthe NDFCs for the longest time
because we just felt that, youknow, as an early stage investor
, first institutional check inthe company, and you know we're
(36:50):
just going to get diluted overtime because these things are
going to need to raise a ton ofcapital.
And that used to be the model.
But over the last three yearsand we have two, three companies
now one at the infrastructurelevel, which is night fintech,
as well as a couple of mbfc,metafin and and also finite,
which is doing retail, um b2bfinancing.
(37:15):
In all of these cases there isthis new concept of co-lending
that is coming, which is a veryindia specific thing, as far as
I've understood.
And what co-lending does is itkind of requires earlier, uh, an
nbfc used to get wholesalecapital at a wholesale from a
bank or any other financialinstitution and they would lend
it out to at a higher price tothe uh, the customer, and they
(37:37):
had these verticals of customersthat they understood best,
whether it was a farmer infarming, whether it was a small
business in rural india, whetherit was a certain category of
consumers who would be, you know, forced to pay higher interest
because they didn't have a goodcredit score or a credit rating.
But the regulator sort ofstarted pushing the banks more
(37:57):
and more to saying, look, you'vegot to share in the
underwriting and in the upside,which means you've got to
co-lend right.
So at the infrastructure level,what that's done for Knights
and Tech is it's created anopportunity to provide a
co-lending platform where thebanks and all their NBFC
partners use the same platform,because, as a consumer, I don't
care that your billing date isthe 6th of the month and the
(38:20):
other guy's billing date is thefirst Friday of the month.
I'm just making one repayment.
The fact that the money camefrom two pockets please don't
make me sign two contracts,don't make me sign up with
privacy policies of two entitiesand so on.
So that whole piece has to bestreamlined.
And if you're a bank workingwith, say, 20 large NBFCs and
(38:41):
vice versa, those 20 NBFCs areworking with five banks, all of
a sudden you have this networkeffects that offer complexity
and point-to-point integrations,and stuff like that become an
issue.
So there's sort of a middlewareplay that they inserted
themselves very cleverly intothat they inserted themselves
very cleverly into, and sothat's one side of it.
But what it has also done forthe MDFC is that it's given them
(39:06):
a lot of leverage right.
And so what we have realized isyou probably could get to
critical mass, you know, withyou know 15, 25 million dollars
of your own raise, becauseyou're going to get a lot of
leverage and eventually theprofits will start, you know,
feeding the contribution thatyou have to make.
So it's made us rethink.
(39:26):
We made two, three bets now andso far they seem to be really
exciting companies.
But you know, I could see thatas being a model, because we had
a credit starved country andthere is no way the large banks
are going to be able to servethe customers without you know
sort of dedicated partners whoknow the customers very well.
You know it's it's stilllargely a lot of business is
(39:47):
done offline, despite upi beingat.
You know 15 billiontransactions a month and so on.
So I think this process inindia will create some sort of
unique opportunities.
Whether it's replicable inother parts of the world, I
don't know, but that's what hasgiven us some feel that there
are a lot of lendingopportunities to be tech
(40:07):
businesses or tech-firstbusinesses that will have
infinite scale, or at leastmeaningful enough scale.
But we'll see Switching gears.
A little bit Shil to.
You know.
You guys launched anaccelerator right and you did a
couple of batches in the BayArea and now you said you were
(40:31):
taking it to New York City.
So tell us a little bit abouthow that came about, what the
experience has been and why areyou taking the next batch to New
York.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah, so my first foray into venture was through
accelerators, right, so I I hadbeen angel investing, but then I
joined 500 startups and I ran afintech accelerator for a few
years, um, and it was verysuccessful.
So, um, gary Tan recentlytweeted that, of some particular
(41:05):
date, 4.5% of YC companies upto a certain date became
unicorns.
Our number actually over 7% ofours did so we actually it
worked really well and the fundhas been awesome as a result.
And so when we started BTV in2019, it was always part of the
(41:29):
plan we said let's justreplicate the success we had.
We would do a few thingsdifferently, but by and large,
we know how to do it, and so westarted.
And then, obviously, thepandemic happened and so we
didn't get to it for a while andthen we finally did it in 2023,
(41:50):
the first cohort it was sevencompanies here in San Francisco
and then we've had two morecohorts since then, so we've had
three cohorts and the idea andit was partially like we'd had
success with it before partially.
Our own founders who wentthrough it and ended up being
successful said hey, like myfriends are starting a company,
(42:12):
where can I send them to have anexperience that we had.
And what we offer is different,is very different than YC.
It's a very hands-on programwhere we are working closely
with the founders, so we're inthe same space every single day
and it's not like you have toprepare your questions for a
(42:35):
group session with us once aweek.
It's like tap me on theshoulder, let's jump on the
whiteboard and we bring in abunch of experts in go-to-market
design tech and others andalong with some great speakers,
and the companies have a lot ofcamaraderie amongst themselves.
(42:56):
In the past we had a companyacquire another company in the
cohort.
So that was the originalimpetus and it's gone well so
far, happy with the results.
Now I'll tell you, it's atremendous amount of time, it's
(43:21):
a big commitment from us, sowe're constantly evaluating.
You know we think that the theoutcomes so far have been quite
good.
It's constantly an evaluationof does it make sense from a
time perspective and how do we?
(43:43):
And the thing is like this is ycis a program that's built for
scale, like they have 200companies in a cohort or
whatever.
It is now um versus we have six, seven, eight companies in a
cohort and the nature of what wedo will never scale.
We don't want it to.
(44:04):
But then it's a question ofwe're constantly evaluating
every cohort, like did it makesense?
Was the outcome, was the juiceworth the squeeze?
And so far we felt like yes, itis.
I'm going to New York.
The next cohort starts in acouple of weeks in New York, and
(44:25):
the idea of New York wasactually in FinTech, united
States, san Francisco overallfor tech has been the place to
be, but New York over the lastfive or six years has really
become a formidable number two,and in FinTech it's actually
(44:45):
number one.
If you look at seed deals,there are more seed deals
happening in New York than inSan Francisco, and the same is
true in our portfolio.
We have more companies in NewYork than San Francisco, so for
us it just made a lot of sensethat we would try to do it there
(45:07):
.
We have two team members alsoin New York now and then I'll be
out there for a few months.
So, yeah, looking forward to it, it's just a really fun time.
I kind of miss the operatingdays, and each of us do.
Everybody on the team was atone point an operator, founder,
(45:31):
and you get closer to it.
It's not the same, but whenyou're in the same space, when
you're helping solve a problemthat might come up, it does feel
a lot more like operating thaninvesting, and that we love that
and do you?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I mean?
I was looking at the yc cohortthis time and it felt like there
were four companies solving thesame problem.
Um, yeah, there is.
Do you selectively make surethat they're not directly
competing with each other sothat there is a willingness or
desire to help?
Do you, I mean, do you justlook at every single company and
then not bother about that,because there could be helpful
(46:15):
or awkward situations, dependingon how things?
Speaker 2 (46:18):
are yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, we don't invest incompeting companies.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Even at the accelerator stage.
Yeah, even at the acceleratorstage.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah, even at the accelerator stage.
You know, what we're doing isso bespoken hands-on that it's
not like I think YC canincredibly say like you know,
we're not that involved in whatyou're doing anyway, so it's
fine that we invested insomething else, but for us it
just doesn't make sense.
It's not how we operate Forbetter or for worse, but overall
(46:52):
it hasn't really been an issue.
I can only think of one time inmy last several years where I
felt like I wanted to invest ina company but couldn't because
of a competitive deal in theportfolio.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, and in terms of just this, accelerators, we
keep debating this or somevariation of this from time to
time, because we're also earlystage Once something is in the
accelerator and at what point doyou say, look, this is a large
space and this company is notexecuting for whatever reason,
(47:30):
but there is somebody elseexecuting and we should perhaps
back then, or would we just?
You know, I can understand whenit's a main deal, right when
you've gone through the wholediligence, but an accelerator
opportunity, it's always atricky one.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
It is tricky.
I think we would be open to it.
We just haven't, uh, we haven'thad to yet fortunately no good.
It totally can be a stickysituation.
I think it's hard to have ablanket rule.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
It's like you always want to do good by your founders
and sometimes you have to giveup some opportunities also
sometimes you have to give upsome opportunities, yeah, um.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Now what I'll say is the one time that came to mind
where we didn't do a dealbecause a founder in our
portfolio blocked it.
In hindsight that was a greatcompany.
It's um valued at a significantmultiple over the round that we
would have done, and so that isin some ways a miss, but
(48:36):
fortunately we can sleep okaybecause the company that blocked
it also is doing very well.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Also is doing very well.
That's good.
That blocked it also is doingvery well.
Also is doing very well.
That's good.
Cool, hey, maybe a little bitof rapid fire and then we'll.
I don't have too many questions.
Yeah, but related to startupsas well.
What's the one thing a foundercan tell you in the first
meeting or at any point whereit's a turnoff for you?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
So many things.
There's lies, there's bullshit,metrics, what I'll say.
They talk about something thatlike a proxy for a proxy for a
proxy for a proxy for revenue,just like, tell me the damn
thing Arrogance, proxy for aproxy for revenue?
(49:30):
Just like, tell me the damnthing um arrogance.
Um, all those things I thinkare are turnoffs for me.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah, to me I feel it's it's the one
thing you said right when youdon, you don't.
When, when it feels likethey're, they don't really
believe what they're saying,yeah and and, and that
translates to a lot of the otherthings that you just said right
, where we try to cover thingsup.
I personally, I maybe Ishouldn't give this out here,
(49:58):
but I, I I read eyes a lot and Ialways feel that you know, the
mouth can tell all the lies, butthe eyes cannot.
So, yeah, look at me.
I do stare people down andmaybe make them a bit
uncomfortable, but to me itfeels like, look, I just want to
know that you believe whatyou're saying.
Right, who knows what the futureis going to hold, but at least
(50:20):
if you seem to have convictionof what you're trying to build,
that's a start, and that's agreat start because at the early
stage, I mean, if the foundersthemselves are sort of shifty or
uncertain about their I mean ofthe clarity of their beliefs,
right, forget about.
You know, they may pivot oneday later, but that's fine.
(50:41):
But at any point in time,you've got to believe that this
is the best thing you're workingon and what gets you super
excited about a startup.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
You know, it's just like a founder makes me believe,
believe in them, believe in theopportunity, and is just
executing so fast and hard at it.
So I think you things that Ithink about, as all great
founders we've backed have, andthat's number one, is speed of
(51:15):
execution.
That's something we cangenerally see in between our
first and second meeting.
I try to understand, hey, whathave you done?
And it's a good indicator.
And then tenacity, like arethey breaking through walls?
Like what's a challenge you'vehad that you had to overcome.
Those are things I think.
If I see some combination ofthose two things and intellect
(51:38):
and a bigger market opportunity,I get really excited.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
And for deals that you do go through.
What is the typical elapsedtime and how many meetings do
they have with you guys duringthat period of time?
Speaker 2 (51:51):
You know it varies widely.
It's really like we don't havea set process, which can be
frustrating when founders ask us.
But it's really like, how longdoes it take for me to earn to
get to conviction?
Really like, how long does ittake for me to earn to get to
conviction?
And in some cases I'vebasically gotten there in one
(52:11):
meeting.
But you still, of course, wantto have have a couple more
meetings, but in some cases it'staken me weeks, months in fact.
In one case I invested in acompany that I met after a year
and a half um.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
We've done that too.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
In fact, we're right now looking at a company that
went to IC and we passed.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
They've done clearly very, very well we're revisiting
it the two, three things thatwe were concerned about.
They've obviously proven thatthey should not have been
concerned so far.
This is a business that humblesyou so fast.
It's not funny.
You know, and you know everytime you think you have figured
it out, something new willhappen.
In fact, the other day I wastelling somebody you know, with
(52:56):
40 odd companies in theportfolio every day somebody's
having a good day, somebody'shaving, uh, an average day.
Some probably several arehaving a crappy day, right.
And so when I wake up in themorning, I look at my WhatsApp
messages.
If somebody's giving me goodnews, I'm actually shuddering
for the rest of the day, but ifsomebody's giving me bad news, I
(53:16):
say now I've got something tolook forward to today.
Somebody is going to hopefullysave the day, right, so, and
make me feel better.
We're going to hopefully savethe day, right, so, and make me
feel better.
So if I get good news in themorning, I just go back to sleep
, don't look at the phoneanymore, but it's sort of the
opposite of how one would think,right?
Normally, you'd say, oh, this isprobably a good news day.
There is no such thing, look,sheila.
(53:39):
I can keep on going on and on,but I'd love for you to maybe
leave a couple of nuggets forfounders in terms of the markets
today, the funding climate,what you're seeing as global
trends, and if you were afounder, what would you be
focusing on?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Yeah, so what I'll say is FinTech is hot again.
It was pretty rough for a while, I think you know 21,.
Everything was sky's the limit.
22 and 23 were overcorrected,and then 24, 22 and 23 were
(54:23):
overcorrected, and then 24,things are looking good.
And in 25, actually we had sofar already in 25, actually in
the first six weeks of 2025, wehad 10 companies in our
portfolio raise up rounds Wow,which is just like a crazy
number.
Usually you would have like oneor two or three in a month.
(54:50):
So it's been busy.
So the outlook for fintech, Ithink, is improving quite a bit.
We're seeing a lot of thegeneralist funds who were out on
fintech a year ago.
They were saying, oh, now we'reinvesting in AI, enterprise,
vertical, SaaS, whatever thetopic was.
They're back, and a year ago,when I would send them a deal,
(55:11):
they would say, sorry, we're notlooking at that.
And then now they're saying,hey, what's in your portfolio?
What can we invest in?
So I'll say FinTech is exciting.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
That's great to hear.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Yeah, what were the other questions?
Speaker 1 (55:27):
No, I think it's generally advice to founders,
right?
The last few years have beenaround focus on growing into
your valuation, focus on gettingto break even, focus on stuff
like that.
So where do you see, is it backto thinking about growth, about
(55:48):
growth, back to thinking aboutaggressive growth?
Um, what is the advice you givefounders?
Speaker 2 (55:54):
Yeah, so, um, so yeah , we, we've totally moved from
growth only mindset in 2021 toprofit only mindset in 2022.
And that was an overcorrection.
I think now we're probablysomewhere in the middle where
you do need to look.
(56:15):
As venture capitalists, we'reinvesting in growth, like we're.
We're investing in a company,we're investing in the five what
what's happening five yearsfrom now, and we want to be able
to see that you've grown, andso it's simply not exciting if
you're not growing fast.
But what's new is I'mincreasingly worried about these
(56:36):
companies that are growingreally fast.
You have a bunch of companiesthat grew from zero to 100
million in less than two years.
But I'm worried about howsticky is this revenue, and
that's something I probablynever used to worry about before
, but I think a lot of this AIrevenue is not that sticky.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
I would say in terms of, like other advice, it's
really you know, solve realproblems and spend time with
your customers, understandingthat it's a clean, it's a clear,
painful process, a painful, uh,challenge that they're facing.
Um, you know, think throughdistribution very early.
(57:24):
You know, think throughdistribution very early.
How are you going to get tothese people?
Make sure that you'll be ableto get great unit economics at
scale.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
And, you know, don't overlook both risk and the
regulatory environment thatyou're in Cool.
Well, that's really good andserious advice.
Maybe we'll close with a littlebit of some of your
extraordinary fun experiences inlife.
I read about the Taco Bellwedding We've heard about the
Justin.
Bieber video.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
We've heard about.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
You know, you talked about clubhouse.
I had to scratch my head saying, yeah, that did exist during
the pandemic.
Yeah, it was a big deal backthen it would be great to hear
from you first hand.
I really appreciate the timeyou spent with us, but maybe we
can close with something fun forour audience here I can link it
(58:23):
all together, actuallyClubhouse was an audio based for
our audience here.
Sure, I can link it alltogether actually Okay, even
better.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
So Clubhouse was a audio-based, or I should say is,
I believe.
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Clubhouse is an audio-based social network.
I think it's okay to say morewith this particular case.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah, yeah yeah, had its heyday in 2020 and 2021, and
I was a very avid early user,so I joined when I think it was
in the first few hundred peopleand you know just the pandemic.
I was super bored.
I'm an extrovert, so I lovetalking to people and was just
(59:00):
enjoying talking to people onthere ended up becoming, um, you
know, as as that platform grew,uh, so did my following.
I think I think I had, or maybehave, over three million
followers on that app, which isnot not worth a damn today, but,
(59:20):
um, it's funny, there werelists of, like, the most
followed people and I was likein between oprah winfrey and
some I don't know some famousmusician, that is something
crazy, but um, but, but uh, how,at least the other stuff is um.
So during the pandemic I was ina zoom dating show called the
(59:42):
zoom bachelor and uh, inclubhouse they were we.
I went on clubhouse to discussit after the show and this guy
was in there who had watched ituh, scooter braun.
He was justin beaver's managerand it was like, oh, what are
you working on?
And he said he enjoyed the show.
Whatever he said oh, why don't,why don't't you come on this
(01:00:04):
music video?
And so I ended up sending himsomething and getting him this
Justin Bieber music video.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
We got to get the clip and put it to the promos
here.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
And how did the Taco Bell wedding happen?
So we got engaged and I hadposted on Twitter or whatever.
And then taco bell had thiscontest we'd love to host a one
lucky couple's wedding in themetaverse.
And this was kind of, at thispoint, like I was never bought
into the metaverse to begin with, but at this point it was kind
of on the waning end.
It was, uh, august of 2022 andum, but I love taco bell.
(01:00:49):
So, um, I, you know, I was on aroad trip with my wife and I
said, hey, you know, there'sthis contest, I think we should
do it.
They'll pay for our wedding.
Of course, it was one of manyweddings.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
It wasn't our, you know main wedding, but, um, that
we I followed a few of themaround the world on social media
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
So we submitted a two-minute video.
I just thought it would befunny to submit a video.
We submitted a video and thenwe thought, okay, we'll submit
it because it's fun to make thevideo, but if they choose us
we'll say no.
And then, once they chose us,they convinced us.
They said you know, it'll beyour wedding, It'll be an Indian
wedding.
You can bring on whoever youwant and you'll be part of the
(01:01:30):
Taco Bell family for life.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
So I said you know how can I say no to being part
of the Taco?
Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Bell family for life and you know they've been great.
They've taken us to concerts,the Super Bowl, a lot of other
stuff, wow.
So it's been fun and actuallyone.
One cool thing as it relates tobusiness is actually I was able
to introduce them to a companyrecently, fintech company that
(01:01:56):
uh has a has uh actually I don'twant to say what the product is
, but but uh could be veryrelevant for them, which which
is kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Very nice, Amazing.
I have a funny Taco Bell storyas well.
I just got married as a student, had no money and there was a
Taco Bell just around the cornerthat my wife and I used to
patronize.
But we went and said let's goout for a long romantic drive.
So we drove 125 miles aroundbig Washington, went all the way
around and came back to thesame.
(01:02:24):
Taco Bell and then had a $5dinner.
So we keep remembering.
But you know those are the fundays too and I think sometimes,
yeah, these experiences, youknow, as unique as they are, of
course yours are likeextraordinary.
I'm going to set a very highbar for your entrepreneurs, I'm
(01:02:45):
sure.
Still always a pleasurechatting.
I think you know we could go onforever, but really appreciate
you making the time.
I know it's in the evening,your time on the Sunday, but
look forward to, you know,continuing to stay in touch.
You know, following you onTwitter, for you know our
audience, of course you knowfollowing you on Twitter, for
you know our audience, of courseyou know we'll, we'll, we'll
(01:03:07):
tag bad pit, they see, andcertainly, you know, require.
I recommend everybody who isjust out to have some fun doing
it to follow shield on onTwitter, for sure.
I don't know if his LinkedInposts are the same, sometimes a
little more professional, whichis not really what he is the
(01:03:28):
most famous for on social media.
I think it's it's it's thewacky humor that that keeps all
of us going, really appreciateit and look forward to catching
up soon in person.
Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Dear listeners, thank you for listening to this
episode of the podcast.
Subscribe now on your favoritepodcast app for free and you'll
be the first one to know whennew episodes are available.
Just search for Prime VenturePartners Podcast in Apple
Podcast, spotify, castbox orhowever.
You get your podcasts, then hitsubscribe and if you have
(01:04:04):
enjoyed the show, we would bereally grateful.
If you leave us podcasts, thenhit subscribe and if you have
enjoyed the show, we would bereally grateful if you leave us
a review on Apple Podcast.
To read the full transcript,find the link in the show notes.
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