#1: My Investment Thesis: Betting on Change
My investment philosophy that drives my startup investments
I started investing in seed-stage startups in January 2022. Since then, I have been fortunate to interact with incredible founders across India with exciting plans and a common vision to enhance the way we live and experience life.
As an individual angel investor, I have gained tremendous exposure to a multitude of industries, from education to logistics to healthcare, and given me the flexibility to broaden the scope of my limited investment appetite. On the flip side though, it’s become a whole lot easier for me to get swayed and spend time on each and every investment opportunity that comes knocking on my door.
This document is my personal direction guide in filtering investment opportunities and deciding where I can spend my limited time and energy.
I’ll start by detailing the key drivers of my investment thesis.
Firstly, working in the technology world (AI and IoT) for over 4 years now, I know the potential that comes with increasingly accessible technologies that can leverage cloud and automation to innovate experiences for other businesses and individuals. Founders today are re-building old ways of doing things and focusing on making lives easier and convenient.
Secondly, startups that empower other businesses and individuals through foundational technologies are ramping up in size and scale. The focus is not just on simplifying processes, but also on enabling other businesses to provide enhanced value to their customers. For example, I invested in an ed-tech startup that enables coaching centers to deliver a better educational experience simply by digitizing the content delivery mechanism to students.
Lastly, betting on founders rather than ideas has worked well for me so far. I know that ideas can be iterated every day, but the drive and mettle of founders are glued to the startup’s culture forever. This might seem a bit vague on paper, but the way founders pitch their companies reveals so much about how resourceful they are or how much fortitude they have.
The common theme that I have consistently harped on above is that there is potential to simplify everyday experiences, events that you can observe around you, that you know are pain points but just don’t think about alternatives.
This brings me to my startup investment thesis:
I back founders who leverage technology to empower businesses and humans to change the status quo and enhance lives.
(Can any startup simplify the thesis-writing experience for me?)
In all seriousness, my thesis means that I will look at startups that use foundational/enabling technologies in education, climate, logistics, health, and electric mobility. This is by no means a definitive list; it will evolve by next year as I get more exposure to founders who are set on breaking traditions and devising new avenues for impact.
I know that seed-stage investments involve great risk– there are no quantitative signals for how the startup will do in the future, and so the focus for me is largely on the team and people that define the company in that stage. (The reward - I just can't describe it in words).
That said, here is the screening checklist I look for in the beginning:
Do you have a full-time co-founding team? (at least 2 members)
Have you built your product/service? Have you done market testing to determine validity and feasibility?
Do you have 3-6 months of revenue? (At the very least)
Do you have clarity on the segment you want to cater to? - B2B/B2C/B2B2C?
Do you have other investors willing to chip in? (I prefer to co-invest with a group of 6-7 investors. My ticket size is $10,000 max)
I am an individual angel investor, which means I my ticket sizes are small and I take my sweet time in analyzing the opportunity before I decide to invest. In addition to investing in my personal capacity, I am also plugged into the startup funding ecosystem, and I can also direct founders to the right resources and funding community.
Either way, my DMs and e-mail are open for entrepreneurs (both aspiring and experienced) and investors to reach out and chat.
See you on the other side of change!