Practitioners’ Insights: Venture Capital Amid Huge Macro-Opportunity, Funding Slowdowns, and High-Profile Failures

In this webinar, Rutvik Doshi (General Partner, Athera Venture Partners), will discuss venture capital investments in India.

Over the past few years, the venture capital (VC) space in India has remained exciting because of significant macro-opportunities, as reflected in favourable demographics and above-par growth rate for domestic economy. It has also, however, undergone serious turmoil. The bad news on poor governance and inadequate control in high-profile cases, such as Byju’s and Paytm, along with serious profitability concerns because of a growth-at-any-cost philosophy, have led to generally negative sentiments. 

The excellent performance of public markets over this time frame has added another important dimension to the VC investment landscape. Other factors have emerged as well. For example, although generative artificial intelligence (AI) has become a buzzword, it is still not clear who will benefit from these developments and who will need to tweak to their operating business models. This means that the fast-paced environment for VC investments has become even more challenging for investors and VC firms. 

This webinar will discuss VC investment philosophy and will explain how VCs identify and evaluate opportunities, review the typical lifecycle of a VC funded start-up, and reveal what differentiates success from failure in this environment. The presenter will touch on issues like the investment landscape in the VC space in India, global scenario, and how India is placed today to meet the associated challenges related to these investments, as well as the broader macro-opportunity for this asset class relative to others.

Learning Outcomes: 

• Gain an understanding the investment landscape for VCs in India, focusing on the current state and the emerging trends across sectors.
• Discuss the evolution of VC, globally and domestically, with examples and case studies on how it has affected companies, investors, and end users.
• Examine challenges and opportunities for VC investments—what are the drivers of capital flows and how do investors manage risks?
• Review the current state of Indian entrepreneurship model and inspect why some geographies tend to do better than others along with key considerations and drivers.
• Consider that India is poised for 6–8% economic growth over the next decade with an explosion in discretionary spending, which reveals potential areas of concerns. 

Speaker & Moderator:

Rutvik Doshi 
General Partner, Athera Venture Partners

Rutvik Doshi has more than 23 years of professional experience, during which he successfully transitioned to early-stage venture investing about a decade ago following his 12 years of operating experience in the technology space. Doshi has participated in India’s fast-emerging internet ecosystem, first with Google where he launched and managed several products, including Voice Search, Google Mobile App, SMS channels, and Google News (globally), followed by an entrepreneurial stint as the CEO of an ecommerce start-up Taggle, in Bangalore. Before Google, he spent six years in the United States building an internet management software for CA Technologies and a start-up. He holds six patents in web application and infrastructure products. Doshi joined Athera (then Inventus India) in 2012 and has been a board director/observer at several investee companies, including Sensara (secondary sale), eDreams/Funtoot (acq. Reliance), Unbxd (acq. Netcore), Aasaanjobs (acq. OLX), Truebil (acq. Spinny), Healthifyme, Little Black Book (acq. Nykaa), Koinearth (share swap), Playshifu, Euler Motors, Allround Club (exited), Alippo, Crypso, Firecompass, One World Nation, and Terra. Doshi is well known in the technology ecosystem in India and is part of a council at Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association, an apex industry body promoting investing in India. Doshi holds a bachelor’s degree in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, and a master of business administration from INSEAD, France.

Pankaj Sharma 
Senior Manger, Capital Markets Policy, CFA Institute

Pankaj Sharma leads capital markets policy for CFA Institute in India. In his role, Pankaj is responsible for advocating policy positions on issues that affect Indian capital markets and stakeholders across a broad spectrum, including corporate governance issues, ESG and sustainability; use of technology in capital markets; opportunities and challenges on different asset classes; demographic influences and other important relevant issues for the markets.