 Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today for the Capital Insider series where we're going to take up how e-commerce startups are looking to growth or looking at growth amidst and post pandemic. Now certainly needless to say the pandemic has sort of given a large digital push to the Indian economy much needed also there was a lot of investment lot of new businesses that were getting started in the digital space but I think with the pandemic the right push the right customer adherence to these businesses is now taking place. So we are talking about a very interesting subject today which is how e-commerce is going to play out particularly post the pandemic given the fact that e-commerce has become such a big gainer out of this pandemic in one sense it's an industry which caught the required push but nevertheless there would be some winners and losers in this game and then there would of course be a completely new set of e-commerce players that are likely to emerge from here. So we joined today by Adirudh Namanee who's the managing partner at the Athar path of inches and sorry Athar venture fund and he is going to talk to today talk or tell us more about you know how what the e-commerce startup for India looks like in the coming years. So welcome Anirudh and you know we're delighted to have you here as we really sort of figure out and try to you know it's been the e-commerce has always been a topic of discussion a topic of debate for the longest years for the last 10 years for sure I can tell you I've done some countless number of you know on state and on-screen webinars on this but what is really interesting is that the market has completely changed and it's now looking at it's now looking very interesting as to how e-commerce is likely to play out in the coming times and you of course have a great portfolio of e-commerce companies yourself. So you know let me start with a question that given the pandemic is now looking on the receiving side I look at the numbers are going but still that's what the government is hoping that now they will grow and sort of come down. So how do you think the digital businesses are going to particularly mean e-commerce are going to pave out? Do you think you know that I mean when the pandemic started and we were all locked down there was a huge rush for webinars and huge use of moon while it's not still come down but it's probably come down and what it used to be. So do you think do you think that e-commerce might go through such trajectory or do you think it's only going to now increase? You know thank you Ritu so much for having me and you know thank you everyone for that that is joining in. Yeah I think we're obviously going through some unprecedented times and I think this is the most overused word of the last six months but what I would say is that see what us as investors we typically invest in VC for the next 10 years right and we say okay what's going to happen over 10 years and what I think has happened because of this pandemic and the lockdowns is that what we were expecting to happen in 2025 is probably happening in 2021 and the reason for that is that you know that this there's something known as a law of diffusion of innovation right and it takes time for penetration to happen where the vast majority of people start doing something. So what the law says is that you know you can divide 100 percent of market into 16 percent as early adopters 16 percent as your as your you know the center part of the market should be roughly about 64 percent right would be people that that your early majority and late majority and then the remaining are your stragglers right and those stragglers don't worry about them because those guys are not the market. So what happens in this is that typically we would have expected that the majority of people that would be using digital would have taken another four to five years to happen right but what's what we're seeing now is that that majority suddenly is adopting digital much faster than we had expected and so today the number of e-commerce users in India or e-commerce transactors in India is about 160 million in VC less than three years ago we were talking about 50 million now we're talking about 200 million right and as we go ahead I do I see this number probably going up to as high as maybe you know 300 or 400 million in the next three or four years now as that happens obviously the obviously the market is now growing up exponentially and all that money that these offline brands and you know the the guys that set up these distribution systems over the over so many years all of that that was spent suddenly they're saying that you know the new brands are saying we don't need their offline distribution we can go straight online build a brand and then when we get big enough we'll go offline when we need it right and and I think all of that has just happened so quickly and so fast right that that that's why I'm calling it unprecedented we're just seeing I think we're seeing the dreams of the VC's play out right now that's what I would that's what I would say yeah it's a good time for VCs in that sense you know because they're now getting to pick and choose and the the way they want to see e-commerce is now coming in life you know e-commerce itself is now taking precedence in different ways today in the market you know I've I've heard of the term social commerce I have done I mean I've been talking to brands in physical space who use extensively WhatsApp commerce during these times for selling out their merchandise and then of course you know we also talk about only channel commerce where you're doing stores as well as digital there's a whole lot of different kind of e-commerce branching branches that have started happening out so what is your take on you know what what is going to be the e-commerce of the future what kind of e-commerce is likely to grow in the coming times and where would you bet your money on it I mean you know there is a Misho which is almost looking as good as probably the early days of the start today see the key word is obviously commerce at the end of it right that that commerce means that transactions need to happen so in in in many ways you know Misho to the world and again they bring a very different flavor to the market but if you ask me where the real value is going to be it's probably direct to consumer right and and and and for that while there'll be it's important for people to have platforms right and people have created platforms like a purple where we're investors in that platform but eventually the value of that platform is now getting driven by its own private living right and and that's going to be the future like if I look if I look at Walmart for example the world's largest retailer as they call it most people don't may not know that that they also have their own private label brand called great value that drives almost 28 billion dollars a year in sales they're 18 brands that do a billion dollars a year in sales themselves right so when when there is such a the world's largest retailer has to also have its own private label besides selling other brands right it's it's a message to everyone trying to do e-commerce that eventually the valuation is going to come from selling your own stuff right because no matter how much you sell for other people there's only going to be a limited amount of margin you can get out of that right the real margin the real customer loyalty and and the real recall is not going to come by saying you know I bought off me show is going to be that me shows brand was sold on me show right and I think that's what if you look at everybody right even Flipkart amazon basics all of these guys are creating their own brands to sell on their own platform sure so I mean you mentioned the term need to see and I was going to come to it with this direct to consumer brands and we've seen a big upsurge particularly if I look at in fmcg in food in health and beauty and wellness category you you know they've been multiple brands which have come in and they they're like across categories you know there's azure veda is being played out in a very large way today which is of course a very Indian thing as well so do you think the D2C market is likely to see large growth they are going to be brands which are going to be really big is there a unicorn story somewhere in D2C or do you think it's more the product can only sort of do a limited size of business and also you know I would love for you to tell us that is it a product story D2C or is it a product or service story somewhere what what could largely measure the D2C market bigger so I will first of all say that I'd never look at a company whether it's going to be unicorn or not right what I'm really interested in in any company is that how much money can the company generate for itself and what multiple investment is it going to give me right if you become a unicorn and I only made 10x on the investment I'll not be very happy versus if you became 100 billion and I made 100x on the investment right for me it doesn't really matter whether you're unicorn or not but to the other question you know as for where D2C is headed and what is going to play out so I think we need to also think that D2C is going to be a suite of products rather than just one product right and I think the winner there are going to be many winners in this and there is a massive market out there so what see what essentially has happened is first geo you know geo reduce the access to internet rates we have the lowest internet rates in the world right we are sitting at 0.25 dollars per gigabyte in India right versus the world pays about five dollars or higher and then we've got GST which means now we can transport goods from any state to any state right and it is it is easier to now transact for an Indian within India versus Pelle it was there used to be a market where it was cheaper for you to export something to Dubai and then imported back to Mumbai right rather than sending something from Trivandrum to Mumbai directly right so so I think these things and then what's happening with D2C today and the and the whole pandemic is is just made it much easier for somebody with with an amazon seller account and the GST number to now start transacting online right this was not there earlier and I think this this is the story that is going to play out like if you're looking at D2C and you're talking about what's going to get big the biggest part is going to be can you first get the sales and if you want to drive valuation for your company can you get those sales back on your website so you can use amazon you can utilize a trip card you can utilize purple you can utilize nika all these platforms to get your initial customers on board because the customers are coming there any which ways for products but eventually how many of them are going to come back to your own website and transact through your own website that is what is going to drive valuation if in that sense right and and I would say that any self-respecting brand thinking that we're going to make it big should should be targeting at least 50% of their of the sales coming from their own platform right which is their own website and and the remaining 50% could be through you know these distributors whether it is online or offline so is it I mean see you you would say that within the product versus platform sorry it's the platform that is going to win and product is something you need to keep on adding absolutely at the end of the day the platform is going to win because people are going to come there for more than one thing right and it's the same thing with the app story right we had so many apps now somebody wants you to want you to download another app you're going to groan about it I can't take one more app right today my phone has over 150 apps right how many apps can I really open and if I really go back and look at it there's probably just 15 or 20 apps that I really use everything else like yeah you know yesterday I was just going through like I think I still have this app I don't use it right and that's the thing how many web how many different websites are you going to have to discover products right but once I think like let's say if you get used to a certain brand of nutraceuticals right so you might buy it a few times on Amazon right but then you might you know can you can the nutraceutical brand actually bring you back with their own website through a discount or through some scheme and say I can provide you better service at a cheaper price through my website and if you can do that I think that's where the valuation drive will happen for you within the direct to consumer space what would be what would you bet on today I mean I know you've invested in purple which is largely into beauty space but I mean if you were to look into other categories where would you want to put a dollar I think the cosmetics place is still open it there's a lot of money to be made over there I think you know especially like we were investors in Beardo for example we're investors in coolberg which is you know creating non-alcoholic beer and I even think there is a good space even in alcohol right we're still used to the certain brands that are out there and Vera was the only other recognizable brand I mean there are a few here and there but Vera is really probably the craft beer brand that we've talked about but there is such a huge space you know India consumes 40% of the world's whiskey right so there's a huge potential over there to create a really amazing whiskey brand and we take it to the world quite honestly and I think that that if you ask me is going to be you know places where we are looking for for investment opportunities right in all these offbeat places and I'm just using alcohol as an example but there are so many other categories out there which are right for disruption because no innovation has taken place there for a very long time you mean beverages you feel is certainly a category to look at you said knowledge where I think I only started seeing it in the last one to two years I've now seen a lot of Indian wine on Indian retail shelves which were not there earlier so you think beverages themselves a big story waiting to happen absolutely and and and also because earlier as a beverage right you were concerned about let's say even like a raw press reason my anti-portfolio right and the reason was that when they came out GST was not there that could take days maybe even weeks right because by the time it was with the octroy and the border checks right it would the juice would probably be invalid right for consumption that has completely changed right and and now because people are transacting online you've got 16 to 18 crore people today that want to buy online that means you don't have to create the offline distributions anymore that which was the early requirement right if I want to beverage is how am I going to like if I take a 12 bottle create it's pretty heavy to send by uh by courier right but today that's no longer a problem that's no longer an issue today but it was an issue maybe eight years ago so I think that space is right I think that the incumbents have been you know peddling the same stuff for a very long time right and that there is a massive space for creating something new right like a swami tonics right it's just come in doing something very unique with tonic which is you know we only had a couple of options for so many years you know now another area which I want to touch upon today is that you know overall whether it's in direct to consumer brands e-commerce businesses or even retail businesses which is physical retail it's the gestation period is really long I mean you know seven to nine ten years is something one has to take into being now on the other hand when you have particularly from an investor's lens when you look at a AI company or you look at a you know a virtual VR company you see that the business turn around time it's about two years and you know almost a company which started towards three years back has almost become a unicorn or a mere unicorn today so given the fact that you know it takes such a long time to build and not that I'm saying that it it doesn't get built it does get built but it's just that you know the time so far I mean that's what the thesis says that so far the time taken in building a company in this category is very very large so as an investor how do you weigh these two things together I mean how do you sort of see that okay look I'm gonna have to put my money for nine years and I'm not I'm for sure I know that it's not going to be in a AI company but rather it's in a e-commerce company so how do you sort of and you and your first investors who are behind the fund how do you sort of take that decision to say that okay this is the way we go no it's a great question see it's a common misconception you could say that that you know how long does it take to win right but the first guy the first angel investor in flipkart who wrote a check in 2008 for 10 lakh rupees walked away with 130 crore rupees in 2018 so the size of the win was massive right and and I think that's what we should also remember that it's not just about the win it's about the size in VC it's all about size right out of 10 companies you want to have five companies that shut down you're gonna have two or three that will that will probably fizzle out or you know just probably return how much you put into them one will give you decent return one will give you fantastic return now that fantastic company has to be massive and the misconception that that arises is that AI or these enterprise SaaS companies just multiply faster I can tell you that as an investor in both sides right there is no mathematics to it it really is about traction so at the end of the day the company that gains the fastest traction will get the fastest valuation multiples also so if I look at an exotel which is in our portfolio it is doing so fantastically well it hasn't raised a single round of capital in the last eight years right and today their revenue numbers are in you know in in triple digit crores right if you talk about and on the other hand you could have a purple right that has had its own own own pathway and today obviously is doing extremely well but there were many times that purple offered us an exit right we didn't take it even today there are there are people that want to buy purple shares we don't want to exit so the point is I'm holding on because I'm holding on for that massive exit but otherwise if I wanted I could have taken a 40 x 50 x at any time in this company's history and moved out but I think that purple is going to become a unicorn or or rather not a unicorn but it's an IPO candidate in my opinion and therefore I'm waiting for that day because that is when my 10 lakh rupees will become 130 crores right and that size of victory is what I'm looking for right at the end of the day so I think in both in both there are examples of pluses and minuses it's just a conception that it takes seven to 10 years but honestly within three of if a company has not raised their ground in three years enterprise SaaS or otherwise and it's not getting replaced by customer capital which is that revenues are big that company not going to do well in any which case whether it is enterprise SaaS or whether it is AI or whether it is uh uh in consumer tech but eventually I mean you know as an investor you also have to bet on the e-commerce company being able to gain customers faster so that they can you know therefore grow so much faster I mean I know for e-commerce earlier that was not the case the investments were a little different to say that okay we'll build the platform first and then the customer will come but today I mean are you sort of shortening that curve there and you'll say that okay how can we reduce the burn and make sure that you know the customer journey is becoming shorter uh the the the journey to reaching out the customer is becoming shorter and therefore we are able to grow the startup as much faster yes I mean I think in any case I don't like companies that have negative negative unit economics right you're you're uh if you're selling something uh for a price below what you have bought it for right that that company is not creating any value in the first place right and and and if it is not even able to communicate value to its customer base right uh and and and in in that case I would be very clear right that the companies that are burning money right at an operating level we don't invest in them period and it has happened I mean this is I think been in our portfolio for a very long time net burn typically comes from investing in in capital assets and now earlier for a flipkart as we discussed you know before the before we started was that that was because they were investing in the in the capex that wasn't there in the country right which is like where are the hubs where is the overnight delivery where are where is all of this cash on delivery network that was created nothing was there they created that so therefore they had to spend all this money that was not in the operating side it was on the tech side or the capex side today you're going to spend money in in in basically saying okay where is my customer base where can I find it how do I create a hook that it comes back to me again and again and there is some marketing capital you have to put in over there right but cannot be forever it cannot be a line item that says you know what I'm going to spend 25 percent of my sales on marketing regardless of what is going to happen right and that's where the company is faulted because that same percentage which looked very small at 2 crore let's say 2 crore ARR you're spending 25 percent on marketing 50 likes when it's 200 crore it cannot be 50 crore right it has to come down to maybe 10 crore or something right otherwise if you're always spending a huge percentage of your income on marketing right then you don't really know what you're marketing to right that the eventually that cost has to come down because repeatability brand awareness you know your your message getting out there all of those things are going to drive direct and organic sales right and and that's what company should be focusing on that that what is my product market fit right have I achieved it how many of my customer base is saying if 40 percent or more of my customer base today says that without my product their life would be significantly impacted in a negative way I am achieving product market fit right and once I have product market fit my my my marketing expenses are going to go down any which ways and if that is not happening and I'm not achieving that then I'm not then I'm just out there you know blindly throwing money at things right and I'm not really solving the problem or I don't even know who I'm solving the problem for which is even worse right um you know in the last few years what I have noticed is that for most e-commerce brands they went into a digital policy wherein you know they had stores and they also had an e-commerce website and they were servicing on the ground to the customers I mean you look at and and they become big I mean look at a lens that's a great story you know which has managed to do both product and stores as well as websites that is unique in its experience so I mean you look at Nike also and I mean they are also going the same route so do you feel that probably for purely e-commerce companies I mean they started as a digital native but I mean now also post the pandemic also it's going to be a physical plus or a store plus a website or a digital place together that is going to keep winning or do you think it's only going to be e-commerce from Hera see I do believe that and there is a possibility you go online and then go offline right and that that that need gets to be driven by the business our lens card I can understand because you know spectacles or glasses are a touch and feel thing right it may not be possible for everything that way like obviously pepper fry went online then is then created their stores however I believe very strongly that that brand should not go offline retailer first and then try to go online because the offline retailer has unfortunately got a lot of things working against you first of all they take a large chunk of your sales right 35 40 percent commission is a given secondly you have no idea who bought it right because because they are never going to share the list of customers who bought that item so you have no you've spent 40 percent getting a customer right but that is really just for the real estate that this guy has got right whether it is a godre jishas basket or whoever right but you did you have no idea which customer segment bought your item and why and if you have not learned that in the earlier rounds trust me the later rounds are as it is right because you don't know what your customer who your customer and why they are buying which is what what online solves for you online solves that problem that you know who's buying you know what they're buying it for because you can you know put put enough tracking cookies to figure that out and therefore even if you're spending 40 percent say amount you're spending offline as you would online right you would end up learning a lot more about your customer which is the real key for spending all this money right now once you've built a strong enough base online and then you come offline you can probably get better terms because now a godre jishas basket wants you versus you want them you know and in so many cases I've seen obviously all these offline retailers have private label brands of their own and many times when you have a successful brand that you've launched over there they'll get a private label of their own to replace you eventually as well because they know you're also not manufacturing it is all contract manufactured so you have to play all of these out when you're as as strategically as a founder and think you know what I should probably go online it is very simple now you can get a warehouse now you can get warehouses on demand you can get an amazon seller account I can sell it over there I can then build a website and bring sales to my site using Shopify if I can do all of that it can happen in a few laps it doesn't require tons of money so why go to offline retailer trying to convince them you have to pay them listing fees you have to pay them to figure out where in the store your product is going to get FaceTime if instead of doing all of that for 10-15 lakhs you could just go out there and start selling why not do that yeah I agree but I mean eventually you know people I mean I mean I was just reading about the UAE market and one of the most progressive retailers who's opening big stores over there is Lulu hypermarket because you know they feel that customer today is all contrary I mean I can tell you that in the pandemic I have done more trips to a grocery store than I was doing otherwise because you know there were four things you couldn't find but part of it was also little because there was no delivery happening right if I look at look at the number of deliveries below my building today right it is way higher than what it was pre-pandemic you know so in that sense that there is a significant shift because unfortunately this is because also the virus you just don't know how it's spreading right so do you really want to go to a hypermarket today and stand next to somebody you don't know and then and then land up getting an infection coming back home and probably passing on someone else right and and I think that is what is driving people to buy online right that's why swiggy is doing so well in in in the post pandemic world compared to what was doing earlier and we have restaurant investments as well so so in that sense I think at least for the next year I don't see this behavior really changing in a big way right yes you will have people that still have to go to the store and and and the segment of market will still do that right but I think a large chunk of the of the market that owns a smartphone today is moving and almost 25 30 percent of the market is already transiting online and that number will only go higher as these as these coronavirus numbers keep on going you know if they hit the corona mark you can imagine how many people would rather not go outside then sit inside their home and and and transact it is just it is a safer sure we have a question here from Aman Pandey can we give Aman Pandey the mind you can you can ask it himself actually Aman go on please unmute before you are yeah go on hello hi hi so so our startup I have raised the question like we are making a platform for the vendors and the freelancer who are related event industry and entertainment industry like they are actors singers and they don't have a specific platform to get the jobs or to get the freelance events and all this thing so we are making a platform for them it's more like more like to link in already where people can post updates post jobs get jobs and for that the development thing it requires a lot of capital like if we are we need an MVP of that product to show the investors to show the for that it requires a lot of capital like five lakh for that only development goes so how to go with that we don't have funds that much so let's have a different way are you are you sure you can get gigs right yes you can so yeah very simply let's do this if you're if you're so sure about getting gigs okay and you don't have the money to build a platform today take some of these guys and close the transactions offline today right by finding I'm still doing this I'm still doing money from that utilize that money that you earn which is customer capital to build the online portal which is the MVP it doesn't have to be fancy remember no MVP needs to be fancy the MVP just needs to work right yeah so if you look at Oyo's first website when we invested it was a very liquidy website obviously compared to today when they bought all this funding and massive team and all that the website looks you know I mean a gazillion times better but initially just the fact that he had a website was operating and there was revenues coming through that website that was enough to invest into Oyo with right and and I think five lakhs is a pretty hefty amount but that's probably because you're trying to make it very nice and fancy with all widgets today try not to do that try to make it as simple as possible even if it is a WordPress template that you're using to get started and the transaction all you're doing is getting demand online having them fill out a form and contacting them offline to close the transaction it is good enough yeah I'm still doing these things because I'm a coordinator for the last six to seven years as the problem is like I have a lot of data bits like their contacts their mail id uh suppose uh someone has event and he was looking for a singer so what I do I manage them for for them and I drop the masses for the singer suppose I have 10 singers and I individually drop uh masses so some are responding some are not responding and there is a problem of coordinating with them yeah sure and that is going to be a problem okay thanks Amman I think you'll probably need to take this one to one this is becoming a very long discussion so are there any parting thoughts you want to give to Amman well I would again like I would say that let's see the the last point you were saying that that it is going to be difficult to contact these people that's going to be difficult regardless right but at the end of the day remember you just need to create a working prototype you need to create a MVP you need to show that it works if you don't have the money do consultancy do it offline just just raise money uh selling and use customer capital to build your website I mean the greatest example is wow momo right the guys build 40 restaurants from customer capital before ever raising an angel round right and they started with 11 000 rupees and look at whether brand is valid today so choice is yours of how to raise the capital sure we'll give it to Shiva Shankar uh he's also got a question here Shiva please unmute hi is it audible go on audible yeah okay thank you thank you very good morning and sorry really good afternoon I got a little bit of a skeptical question here and I think we are keep watching what Geo is doing in the market with the digital space uh like combining in a whole lot of big guys into this space uh somewhere I think all the starters when I'm into the ecosystem I'm sensing you know fear of you know where these businesses are taking them and then losing out for the big guys or maybe you know they're not having they need to compete in a tough tight space with big guys so where is there is space is going to be available for the new entrants and these guys are really you know making you know a lot of noise on that so where where where this is heading towards that if you look at the history of entrepreneurship right I think we've dealt with this question so many times in so many decades and before Geo the you know there was a time when people believed that Walmart was too big or Exxon Mobil was too big and so on and so forth every see every every business has its cycle uh so so to your question that is there going to be space there is always going to be space right that's the key about entrepreneurship that it always finds a blue ocean in a red sea right and and and I think you leave it to the entrepreneur to figure out what it is I mean if you notice the snowflake IPO that happened I think yesterday it's already up a hundred percent in a day right so there's always going to be space otherwise Amazon would have owned the entire world market because of its sheer size but there's always going to be a new frontier there's always going to be a new space that uh that entrepreneurs need to explore and and and finally enough entrepreneurs are exploring space as an option absolutely I think I wish for that I think we we did indeed started uh promoting one of the uh local amazon kind of the things basically you know uh democratizing the you know digital space as well as the market space so highly local and hyper local kind of the thing and we have done a trial at least in three different cities and then and also tier two and towns uh remarkable response because given a kind of a scenarios and then the restrictions of the moments uh the response is quite good so probably I'll reach out and then I'll share our story very shortly and then see and where we can take you to the awesome looking forward to hearing more about it yeah thank you thank you sure so uh you know I need one question I would love for you to tell us that what how is it that you have been sort of advising your own portfolio startup during this time I mean you know I'm sure some of them would have done very well given the fact that you have a massive e-commerce investment but some would obviously be seen as uh you know non-fugal investment um spent by that customer so therefore he doesn't want to at least right now um put his dollar over there so how is it that you're advising your startups to hang on to stay strong to keep the business going and you know not essentially uh sort of we get or get carried away by the market sentiment which is obviously not the highest or the most positive at this point of time so again different startup I'll talk specifically about e-commerce startups right now I think uh and especially because they're selling digitally right so there was a time when we started the pandemic we obviously you know had a we had a 21-point action plan for all our startups to corona proof themselves uh and a lot of that advice was reduce your fixed expenses you know cut all discretionary spending let people go if they are not aligned with the long-term business plan right or with the rather the short-term business plan for for that time uh because we just didn't know how we're going to come out of this entire lockdown right this was obviously none of at least I have never seen a lockdown in my lifetime uh so many of us don't really know right how this is going to this is going to uh pan out but now now that this entire lockdowns are opening and you're seeing the kind of traction that is there in the digital economy we're telling them to go big right and and I'm telling my founder that if you figure out your unit economics and you know how to sell and you know what your target customer is this is the time to really go large because by the time offline distribution comes back online right can you get these customers to permanently shift their uh their their you know transaction behavior online and if you can do that I think there's such a huge market available let me think about it there's in India today that we only 1.6 percent of our retail sales comes from online 1.6 percent in the US is 16 percent right and and India has always you know galloped through these kind of things right so I think there's a huge huge potential available we've got about a year year and a half as if you're a d2c brand uh or even the digital economy side to you know really upend the uh the offline player because you know it's going to take them that much time to come back online sure but I mean you know now given the fact that we are not in a lockdown now but nevertheless people are working from home how is the action point uh how are the action points different today versus what they were left in april when we were in a very very strict lockdown so right now of course you know um there's of course needless to say there's unemployment today which is higher than what it has been for india in many many years so therefore anyway customer spend is going to be less the customer is going to be very tight with his money so how do we sort of get out of that phase this is the second phase that has come the first phase was of course you know where is lockdown and everything is stopped now second phase is customer is not ready to sort of go out and start spending as much so what's then there are two kinds of customers there as well to be honest right there is also people that are getting hired because a lot of these startups who got funded and they've done mega rounds they're out there hiring there's a hiring spree right now in bangalore right for example because everybody's you know there's so much money now getting pumped in so there is people who are getting hired as well but I do understand when you're saying that there is that there is that middle economy that hasn't really come into the digital side which is which is the one that impacted the most right but even there you know you've got these reskilling companies you've got these startups startups were creating these online platforms this let me reskill you as a developer or reskill you into into some way where you can be part of this gig economy again right and start earning money look at the drivers out there right there's going to be 300,000 400,000 drivers they're going to get required for all the deliveries that are that are required so you know it's always it's it's the way do you see the glass half full or half empty I think that's really the question that we are looking at over here but yeah when it comes to now let me tell you that what we've realized during this during this lockdown and because of this work from home scenario that the CEOs of large companies have so much more time than they did when they were traveling around everywhere right and and we're able to actually tap into this potential and it's been amazing right we've been able to get through like the we just did yesterday a showcase of six of our startups through the largest financial services player in India where their entire C-suite was sitting on the presentation for two hours right yeah pre-pandemic putting five of those people into a room would have been impossible right today it's easier because everybody can do it on zoom so so in in that sense you know closing a transaction is so much more faster today because this whole Indian mindset that unless I meet you unless I shake your hand unless I know you I will not sign on paper or not do a transaction all of that has gone for a toss right today people are signing term sheets we signed up LPs you know corrosive investment is happening without people actually meeting so that is a permanent shift in we lost your voice can you hear me now oh yeah yeah we can so you know um so we've just got a question so he says uh how do you see any new age conglomerates coming up in the future at least in the FMCG space most agency consumer brands exist are currently established strategies many of them coming up yeah I think Nike all these guys are going to become major FMC FMCG players obviously I keep them back to purple for that reason because I think you know the way the brand has grown has become because is really I'm more excited about the way it's grown than the money I'm going to make from it right and in in that sense um there's a lot of space available in in multiple different places you know I can't just tell you that okay this is what to do over here this is what to do over there that's the entrepreneur's job but to find find find out that space but I personally believe again beverages space is is really ripe for for disruption even the confectionary space is I for disruption either chocolates chocolate space all of these places I can find a player which has a massive market available in India which they can house supplies right I mean think about think about it there's just so much space available just tell me tell me take a rock throw it at some place you'll find an opportunity to make a billion dollar company yeah and I'm sure you're looking forward to more of that so you know you mentioned that you know it's so much easier today to probably for startups to go out and present because then you don't have to really fly anywhere or physically go there for a meeting so I mean how do you think in e-commerce I would say particularly and this is something I have noticed is that it has been on less on the receiving end of capital while there are lots of other companies you know whether it's in gaming getting particularly I would say has got a lot of funding in this pandemic and then there is AI and then there's a whole lot of deep tech that is getting a lot of funding his tech tech is of course again been another winner but e-commerce has not probably been getting as much taller value as the rest of the technology side so is this do you think any specific reason for it and I mean do you think maybe another two months down the line that is the investors are weighing this up and maybe two months down the line is going to be more work out more on the e-commerce side actually Ritu I think the the thing is that most of the founders don't want to raise money honestly many of these founders and without getting into names and specifics have actually become profitable they're actually generating so much cash in today's day and age that that quite honestly they don't want to raise money they're saying listen why can't I just use this capital that I have and and grow my sales right and then get a higher valuation in the future you know and this is these are quite active discussions that we're actually facing where one of the companies we're investing in today because we signed a term sheet pre-pandemic right that's why we're able to complete the transaction otherwise the sales are up forex during the pandemic like post pandemic what the number they had in fact they're already forex of that today and it is not just one of them there is this is a story in many of them you know and I think that's why you're not seeing so much over there this has now become a market where it has gone from an investor's market to a founder's market now the founder will decide whether he wants money or not because another form of investing or another form of money he can raise is debt because now that he can see the cycle working right where you can see okay if I buy if I put in money I can return the money back in three months why should I dilute my equity position and there are so many venture debt funds out there and even nbfc sitting on capital we're willing to give it out if I can raise capital even at 15% isn't it cheaper than giving out equity where are the expectations of the investors probably 35 40% right and keep it for myself as the founder or as the shareholder of the company and I think that's what's happening that's why you're not seeing uh all the rounds have happened I would not say nothing has happened but rounds have happened but actually speaking they don't need the money they're not looking for money so you have to go and convince them they are take my money otherwise they don't want it sure have you been able to do some investment during this time during the last six odd months we've been yeah we've been more more busy in the last four months than we were in the first two or three months of the pandemic because we were really focusing on on on saving what was there in the portfolio but in the last four months we so we've completed we've got seven rounds that we've done you've done two rounds within the portfolio we've completed the investment which is you know Dalchini we've completed the second one we're about to announce we've completed a round in piggy ride which is a fresh investment we made and there are four other investments that we are currently uh in a documentation stage so you should be listening to you know in the next 40 45 to 60 days you'll probably hear you know uh all these announcements uh of the rounds that have happened sure and we're absolutely looking to consuming those things about that now looking forward i i think i've always i've always believed that uh the best time to invest is in a bust when nobody else is investing because that's the best time to to find amazing deals at at amazing prices and that's why i'm super excited yeah we too so thank you very much for joining us today and i think this is a great talk and you know i've realized that whatever whenever i've had a chat on e-commerce with an investor it always gets into debates because you know there's so many things but get always sort of get into a conflict of discussion but i think very interesting times and you write i you said earlier that a lot of today's better to be online and then go offline if you have to but from going from offline to online as i'm realizing i'm talking to a lot of uh physical or store-only brands it's extremely tough for them to sort of pave out a complete way as to how they will go online and create that kind of business um so this talk is actually going to be there on facebook live for anybody who has more questions they want to ask from anirudh i'm sure uh he'll give us five minutes of his time and probably take uh an answer those questions so keep those questions coming on facebook live and we look forward to more such talks and particularly anirudh we would love to talk to you next time holding those products and actually having the taste of that beverage um you know that you were talking about the non-alcoholic beer and other things and uh you know it would be um so much better to see you in person rather than on the screen when we do absolutely absolutely i i think sooner than later i i love traveling so surely for sure yeah hopefully uh you know we we're able to travel very quickly and yeah looking forward to doing this physically next time thank you thank you very much uh anirudh and uh look forward to seeing you again thank you so much for your time ritu and thank you everyone who was logged in bye