 Well, Mr. Mahendra Swaroop is the founder and managing partner at Anukrith Capital. He spearheads the investment strategy of the fund and oversees investments made by Sigma. A prolific investor and an industry leader with over 40 years of work experience, he is also the founder of Venture Gurukul, a $20 million fund. He serves as the chairman of the Association of Independent Directors of India and as the President of Startup India Association. With over 40 years of work experience, he has served in various leadership roles such as Executive Director PepsiCo President and COO at Sanbury's Moscow along with 13 years with Nestle India Limited. He has also served as the managing director and CEO at Times Internet Limited, a Times of India Group Internet Mobile Convergence Company. As the hero brand capital of Times of India Group, he led private equity investments and structured finance across various businesses in growth and expansion phase. He spearheaded investments in over 150 ventures across multiple industry verticals. He will be speaking on the topic from Digital Advertising to Digital Economy. Please put your hands together, ladies and gentlemen, for Mahendra Swaroop, founder and managing partner, Anukrith Capital. Please, louder everyone from the back. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone and thanks Anurag for having me here and especially for organizing a physical meeting and as Anand has attended the first physical meeting I am doing post COVID. It's great to see so many people here without masks and so I don't know we've got used to even recognizing people with masks now so I think it's important. She just said that I have 40 years of experience so you can guess my age and it's quite ironic that I'm here to address the digital 40 under 40. I don't believe in this 40 and the 30s and under 30s and under 40s. So it's what you think and how you think determines your age and that's extremely important. Everyone talks about the Indian demographics of how young are going to determine the future of this country which is true I think they are the future consumers but not necessarily the people who will determine the future of this country. The future is going to be determined not by us but by technology. So that has to be very clear that we as humans the only difference between us and animals is that we have a brain which thinks and our thinking power is an overdrive. So one has to believe less and less in yourselves and more and more on the technology we are getting dependent upon. So all of us have to adapt to technology if we have to survive because whenever there's a security screen on your website or on your mobile one of the things they ask is we are still checking whether you're a robot or not. So the technology already believes that robots will take over from humans and it's not going to be robots but we will become robots because we will have implanted technology and we'll already be carrying and we already are carrying in everyone's hand there's a piece of device in your hands and no one lets go of it. Everyone in the front row I can see has it in his hand. So you're already there you are you actually feel deprived if you do not have your cell phone in your hand. So you're already connected with technology and it's going to be only maybe less than a decade that this will find itself inside our body somewhere whether it sits here or in our wrist or in our tummy or in our legs it's a matter of time. Payments or credit cards for example have already become wearable. So you have rings which you wear on your any of your fingers and that's your credit card. So you're coming closer technology is actually coming closer closer to you physically and it's going to get inside your bodies very very soon. So if you talk about the digital economy you can't talk about digital economy without talking about how we are going to behave or we are going to get overpowered by the digital phenomena which we are seeing. I have been associated with technology since year 2000 now it's 21 years since I was hired by Times of India Group to lead their initiative other than print. So we started out with Times Internet and we had IndiaTimes.com and several properties under it. We were struggling at that time because it was just the post the so-called internet bubble and we did well. And I believe I don't know the Times and our team is here but I believe that Times Internet is more valuable as a company than the Bennett Coleman print business. So if you look at how the digital businesses are growing they're growing very very fast. Anurag rattled out a lot of statistics so I don't want to repeat that statistics. But I think one thing which is very critical is that how do we monetize digital. I think if you see any of these valuable companies which are listed either in the New York Exchange or Nasdaq whether it's Facebook or it's Apple or it's Alphabet or whatever you may have almost 40 percent of their market cap is attributed to India. If you look at Facebook there are 400 odd million Indians on Facebook equal story with Twitter or Google or whatever you may call it. So what happens is that we are creating wealth for investors overseas. And when it comes to regulations some of our regulators are actually very very weak at regulating the digital economy. We have given our wealth away on a silver platter to these foreign platforms. So it's what I would urge people like aren't going going kind others who are still young and below 40 to really how do you get back this wealth which we as consumers are creating for overseas investors. So you have to realize that we have made Mark Zuckerberg what he is today. It's not the U.S. It's just the number of people on Facebook from India. It's a myth that you need to be making money because we don't actually they don't earn very much out of these 400 odd Indian Indians. If you project it over a period of the next 20 25 years they'll probably we'll be contributing almost 85 to 90 percent of these global platforms wealth and revenues. So my why did I get into investing is that yes I didn't make a lot of money or of investing in a early stage digital agencies we were the founder of an agency called Quasar which we sold to WPP one of the guys Sir Martin Soros way keen to understand what digital was they never understood what digital was. So one of the first acquisitions in this in India was Quasar which was a digital agency founded by me and then we recently sold where I was invested in a digital agency called Tairu to Denso right. So I think I started making my wealth much after 40 right. So this is you you can it says to people who are older than 40 here that you have you can continue to make money irrespective of how old or where you are and I think you just need to recognize what's coming. That's extremely important that what's coming is is very very important to understand. Most of us get lost in what is being or what is now and very few people actually live in the future. The technology enables to live in the future. So I would urge all of you who irrespective of how old or young you are that learn to live in the future. The first 30 minutes when you wake up don't think of what happened yesterday don't think of what's going to happen today but think of what's going to happen to you 10 years down the road. Just give 30 minutes to that and your mindset the way you approach life will dramatically change. That's extremely important because what will happen is that if you continue to live in the past and live in the present technology is going to overtake you and you'll find it that much more difficult to survive in the present because you haven't been keeping pace with the changes in technology. So I don't when people fiddle around with their cell phones and all I encourage them yes do it because that's what the future is. It's not a distraction for me at all. If you are on WhatsApp you are on Twitter or whatever it is while sitting and listening to me do it because you will get to know more about me through the device which you have in the rather 40 minutes I'll talk to you now. So I think it's important that this gadget which you have in your hands is put to use as much data as possible. The more data you use the cheaper it becomes. So I think when I say that you live in the future you genuinely need to practice how to live in the future and the only way you can live in the future is toy with as much technology as possible at least for 30 minutes. Not the technology which you are familiar with but the technology which you are not yet familiar with. So learn to download as many apps as possible. Play around with them. Learn and each time you download an app you will learn something new. I think what I call is how the everyday economy is getting digitized. The number of transactions which are happening and Anurag gave you some idea of the number of transactions happening on the e-commerce platforms but other than e-commerce all of us whether we realize or not transact at least about once every day. Whether you're sending money to someone or you're receiving money from someone you're logging into your account whether it's a credit card account or it's a bank account. So you're transacting every day and that's what I call the everyday transaction economy. I think that's where the digital is having the maximum impact. Now the topic of the day is that digital advertising and digital economy and I believe that advising and economy and digital economy are just part of the same thing. So there's no transition. So there is no digital economy and there is no legacy economy. So they're all one. So in the sense I really don't believe that any of these large corporations or the large brands that you hear of today will survive for the next 10 or 15 years. Already you see that how brands are losing their importance. So how many of you people really care for a brand like Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola or any of those. So no one really cares about brands any longer. So the brand creators are very different people. They're no longer advertising agencies or creative people in advertising agencies is influencers sitting in Lodihana, Jalandhar, Raipur and Almora's of this world who will determine the future of how we consume and what we consume. So where does the who can influence the consumer today and how will the consumer going to get influenced is going to be dramatically different from what it has been in the past 10 years and what it is today and what is going to be in the future. So all of us will believe in less and less in what other people tell us what we are going to believe in what more and more the technology tells us. So I'm not a firm believer that privacy is important or fake is dangerous. We are all fake by the way, right? So none of us are genuine. We are all fakes. So why are we scared of fake news? I'll be worried. I'm not worried about fake news because the shelf life of fake news is very limited when it comes to technology. You get to know whether it's fake or not within a couple of seconds on your device. So fakeness and all will be self-checked by technology itself, right? What I'm worried about is biased news. So all, including the Indian Express group, the Times of India group, whether it's Times Now or it's whatever you have, right? They're not fake but they're biased. So I think we need to worry more about biased news than fake news, right? So biased news is going to vanish. All the editorial influence which is there on news today, right, is going to vanish because news is becoming more and more democratized. All of us will generate our own news, right? And that's what's going to be important. And we will consume what we see, what our friends see, that we trust our friends more than we can trust a faceless editor of Indian Express or Times of India, right? So the news generated by our close group of people will be more important and genuine to us than anyone else's news we see every day. So if you see that how the economy is growing, you can't grow until your nation grows, your economy grows. So India is actually growing very, very fast. People don't even understand that how India is growing. It's growing at a pace which even the economists are not able to really figure out. Now, some traditional ways of measuring economy, like the GDP growth per capita income and others, are actually going to become redundant. When I say that India as an economy is growing very fast, India today, by far, has the highest digital literacy. Now, digital literacy is important. A rickshaw puller in Raipur may not be able to sign his signatures or put a signature which is the criteria for whether you are literate or not, but he's able to transfer money on Patreon. He's able to receive money on Patreon, and that is digital literacy. So if you know that India has the highest digital literacy in the world, you are even higher than the United States of America. There are more people transacting in India in the digital economy than the United States of America, and we have overtaken China a couple of months ago. So we are the largest digital economy in the world. So you can't beat that. And if you're missing this piece out, that we are the largest digital economy in the world, then you are actually missing the action of the future. So everyone is now talking about why is Nike, market cap is more than many of the established 100-year-old companies, why is Patreon valued so highly? Because investors like us realize that the digital economy is more important than the traditional economy. Traditional economy in India is a laggard. The digital economy is what is kicking in, the growth. So if you are part of the digital economy, then the assets today, believe me or not, are still cheap. So if you can get hold of a share of Patreon or a Nike or a Zomato, just grab it and keep it and forget about it. That's what we did 20 or 30 years ago when we bought Reliance. So it's not expensive. And there are hardly any players in the digital economy. If you see there are less than a dozen players in the digital economy and they're driving this economy crazy. And if more and more unicorns get created, more of them come for investors in the retail market, the more this digital economy grows. So all of you, right, what this is going to urge you, all of you, that think that you're part of the digital economy and you are not part of the legacy economy. So every rupee you spend today, 60% of that goes to the digital economy. Only 40% of that goes to the traditional legacy players. So where is the money going which we are spending? It's going to the digital economy. So it's important to realize that when you buy a bottle of shampoo, who's making the money? The logistics company, the warehousing companies, which are all driven by technology. So you, as long as you believe that you're part of the digital economy, you have a chance to become rich. If you continue to believe that you're contributing and you're part of the legacy economy, right, then you're going to lag behind. So start thinking differently, right, and that's how things will happen. Now, I'm a fan of Indian everyday economy. I invest behind digital assets which impact us on a day-to-day life. And that's what I call the digital economy. If you are transacting, if any venture or any founder who comes to me and he tells me that, yes, he's part of the digital economy and that everyone would transact on him, that's where the money goes. So if you are commuting in the metro, rather than commuting on your bike or in a car, right, I normally ask whenever a founder comes and sees me, I normally ask that, how has he traveled? If he says he traveled in the metro, he gets 100 out of 100. If he says he's traveled on his bike or on his car, right, then he gets a minus because he's not part of the future economy, right. So whether it's your environment or whatever it is, you have to think future, right, that in the sense that whether my kids, I'm allowing them to breathe pure oxygen 30 years down the road or not, whether I'm contributing it for it today or not. And if I believe that I'm not going to contribute, then I don't have a right to live. We have to live for the future. As I said, we have to live in the future. We have to think in the future. And all our actions today have to be geared towards the next generation which we are going to be actually responsible for. So I think if you believe in the future, then it's not only just making money, it's just believing in the future in all respects impossible. I'm just told the times above because I have lots of things to show you, but we can do it some other time. But I can take some questions. Now, if you see that the mobile first, right, how large we are, we have overtaken China in terms of the economy. Now, if everyone says that we are at least about in terms of economy, we are the fourth or fifth largest economy, but as I say, we are the largest digital economy in the world. And that's what we should be actually believing in. The Indian internet economy grows at 3X, right? If you look at the traditional economy, how it is growing, we always say, okay, Indian GDP will grow at a pace of, say, 6%, 7%, 8%, and if it grows in double digits at 11%, you know, the economy is doing great. But everyone forget that the digital economy is growing 3X almost every year, right? And that's the real economy. So India is going to be a digital powerhouse, I call it the juggernaut, right? And that's what it is. Now, we have moved up, we are moving up the ladder from adoption, right? Going up to actually, you make it that it becomes part of our life, right? So I think, as I said, invest in emerging opportunities that are transforming the everyday economy. So it's extremely important, and when I'm saying this to Mr. Anand Goyankar that he said that he's still got some 200 million people on his digital platform, right? I can tell him that if he learns how to monetize those 200 million people under different products, he'll be happier, right? And if he's going to continue to invest behind his legacy brands and go from Indian Express English to Bangla to Tamil and others, right? Good luck to him, but if you want to be rich, be part of the digital economy. That's all I have to say. Although I have something more to say, but any questions I'll take now, but just Prankar, can I take questions if there are any questions? And he'd already invested, engine invested. He's a guy who gets two, three lakh rupees, but he's a digital marketer, so he's able to help us. And he'd invested in 11 companies and he just had two exits. He doesn't have to work for the rest of his life. So what is your advice to professionals in this room in terms of engine investing, which is non-conflict? Not investing in companies that are competing with your own business or your day job, but... Yeah, I think it's good to talk about engine investing and you do hear stories where people have become billionaires at a relatively young age, right? But very few people hear about the number of people who lose money and don't do well, right? So I think you have larger number of failures than you have successes, right? But my advice to the young people here is that if you have money to spare, then pool your money and then look and invest in ventures which you know of, right? Which you believe in, all right? As I said that if you believe in the future, then think future. You're young, you're 25, 30 or 40, right? You have another, almost by the time you grow old, probably the mortality will go up to 100 plus years, right? So you have so many years to live, right? So go and take the risk, invest in startups. I started my investing with investing in startups and I've been fortunate and lucky, right? And my only thing was that one thing you have to be careful that you will get your exits and you'll get your money not overnight. It's not a stock exchange, right? You have to have patience. It takes five to seven to 10 years to make money, right? And when I invest money and I know that my horizon of exit is going to be seven to 10 years, then I think that how old would the founder be when I'm looking at the exit? If the founder is going to be still below 40, then I'll not invest behind him, right? But if I believe that the founder is going to be 40 plus by the time I'm going to get in my exit, I'm going to invest behind him. The reason is that the future investor in his company is going to be a person with gray hair, right? He wants maturity, right? In the investment in the founding team. He wants a mature management team which he's acquiring. So your founders in which you are investing should be actually 40 plus in seven to 10 years. So you're investing behind not an 18 year or 20 year old founder, but you're investing behind a 28 to about 30, 32 year old founder. So that by the time he can offer you an exit, he's 40 plus. So his credibility is much more with investors, right? Who are actually going to give you the exit. So you can be rich and if you are still starting your career, I have an interesting, I don't know whether you can show it, the jobs I know the time is over, but is about some jobs, right? So how we scan the future, I'll tell you that what are the emerging jobs? Very few people realize that I don't know whether it's there or not. Not this one, there is one more. Yeah. Now the 20 fastest growing plus declining jobs. I don't know how many have you seen this, right? Now this is the biggest guide for investors like us, right? All of you in this room, I can challenge you will have no jobs in the next five to seven years. All of you are going to be out of jobs. Now if you see who's gaining jobs, animal trainer, right? Is this the fastest growing job category is animal trainers? Your pet trainer, your dog trainer is the fastest growing job category in this country. Now just look at the jobs which are growing, right? Home health and personal care aids, right? Now, and just see the declining jobs, right? The traditional jobs are nowhere to be seen. So this is the impact of the digital economy. When you are part of the digital economy, you have so much time on you, right? You can afford a pet. You have the time to look after your pet, right? You want to spend money on your pet, right? Who would train your pet? And that's why there's so much of investment going behind pet startups. So when you are becoming an investor, right? You think far, far ahead. And these are the cues which you get, right? Where the future is moving, right? It's extremely important, right? So I think this slide, if you can assimilate, right? We'll tell you that what you should look for in the future. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you.