Sasha Mirchandani: Guardian Angel

It was the 1965 romance wars classic Dr. Zhivago that prompted Sasha Mirchandani’s mother to give her son a homely variant of the most famous name. It is a somewhat informal abbreviation for the Greek name “Alexander” (literally, defender of men), historically best preserved by the military commander Alexander the Great.

Modern Chief Mirchandani now leads Kae Capital, an early-stage investment fund, as Managing Director where he evaluates tech geniuses’ business ideas, raises money from wealthy investors, and completes 12 orders. is consulting with the partner team before closing a deal. hours working day. True to the unaffected dignity engraved in his name, he seems to do it all with a passion unrelated to the kind of ritual that sometimes accompanies his rank. Having too much invites disaster. Anyway, it’s the entrepreneurs who build everything, I just give them the money to live their dreams,” says Mirchandani.

The duality that his name suggests also plays out in other aspects of his identity. Having started his career with his father Gulu Mirchandani’s aspiring TV brand Onida Electronics in his 80’s and his 90’s, he has been a direct beneficiary of the established family business and gradually Angel of the Country Joined his Financing his ecosystem and as a result became an entrepreneur himself. Likewise, Mirchandani’s business acumen is as much to his direct social ethos (Sindhi people owe one of the world’s largest trading communities). world.

Like most shrewd businessmen, Mirchandani uses these dual influences to his advantage. Case in point, restaurant reservations are made under his last name in India and under his last name abroad, so many hosts don’t have to wrestle with syllables all night long.

an angel is born

In 1996, after returning from the United States, Mirchandani joined his father and uncle’s company, the Oneida Group, as an ordinary salesman in the Mumbai branch, selling televisions and washing machines to various local electronics stores, competing with each other. I fought head-on with the salesman. In stark contrast, most of his peers, after graduating abroad, returned to India and joined large family-owned companies for senior positions such as directors and CEOs.

“I thought I would be the same, but my dad had other plans. He wanted me to get through the hard times,” Hustle included. Accustomed to the irreverent manners of the Washington, DC, rich class, he spent the next few years at Onida as a regular employee with limited resources, working to advance to more managerial positions and the accompanying Claims to appreciate hard work. “If I hadn’t seen that kind of life firsthand, I wouldn’t have been able to empathize or respect what the people who work for me bring to the table. You want to put your child in a lower position for years of training instead of being a boss from day one,” he says.

After working in the family business for about five years and observing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India over coffee with his father in 2001, Mr. Mirchandani first voiced his frustration with the lack of access to capital for Indian entrepreneurs. did. “My father, who graduated from BITS Pirani in the 60s, took big risks and started the business from scratch in the absence of outside funding such as venture capital and private equity. Twenty years later, things were no different. He details how he persuaded Gulu Mirchandani and another Onida board member to invest some of the company’s money in a venture run by young alumni of IIM Ahmedabad. “Dad, it’s his 2001 now. We have to support entrepreneurs,” he said at the time.

Mirchandani with his parents Geeta and Gulu Mirchandani and other family members

Between 2002 and 2005, Mirchandanis acquired several more under new entities, with the father acting as the Limited Partner (LP) providing the capital and the son acting as the General Partner (GP) managing the funds. made an investment. Angel investing is a risky business, much riskier than lending money. Naturally, it was not easy to join a patriarch who made his own fortune instead of inheriting it. “My father was apprehensive but he understood my point of view. It was about giving,” Mirchandani reveals. According to him, these investments weren’t made to make money, but on paper they made investors “ridiculously” wealthy.

By the way, Mirchandani had another epiphany, this time over coffee with his close friend Prashant Choksey. Why not join the Angel Club and pool your capital to offer small ticket sizes of Rs 100,000 to Rs 150,000?” but the seeds of the next partnership had already been sown. Thus, in 2006 the Mumbai Angel Network was started. This is he one of India’s earliest angel investment platforms for early stage ventures. Over the years, the platform claims to have made over 200 investments, seen over 100 exits and next rounds, and earned an average IRR (internal rate of return) of 35%. Mumbai Angels aims to invest Rs. business line April 2022.

Venture Capital: A New Chapter

Nearing the end of his stint at Onida and now Head of Corporate Affairs and New Business, Mirchandani met with a US-based venture capitalist from India as part of a regular business meeting. Telling a new acquaintance all about the sideline of angel investing, he unwittingly impresses the gentleman, who later calls him his BlueRun Ventures or BRV (formerly his Nokia Venture) venture capital firm. Partners) to run their global business in India. “I was really shocked when I was offered that job. I didn’t even know such a job existed. I encouraged them to apply, because anything other than the family business is precious,” says Mirchandani.

After flying to California for some in-depth interviews before the whole partnership, BRV offered him the job. “Partway through my career, I generally left both the family business and the entrepreneurial spirit to work for someone else as a regular employee, albeit a senior employee. It’s the other way around,” he continues. The best decision I ever made in 2007 when it came to joining a billion dollar fund as head of India. ), Mirchandani has now invested professionally, writing early-stage startup checks worth between $6 million and $10 million.

Collaborate with talented colleagues at BRV to learn best practices involved in running VC funds (meetings with hundreds of potential investors, filing paperwork, compiling reports and analyses, regular phone calls with investee companies) meetings, etc.). He incorporated these insights into his Kae Capital. The 2011 founding completed Mirchandani’s venture into capitalism. Over ten years later, Kae is still in good health. This is probably due to the caution and perseverance the founder learned from past mistakes (sometimes others’, sometimes his own) of investing in hot markets at unfair valuations. Last month, the company closed his third fund in his $96 million corpus. The fund focuses primarily on fintech, SaaS (software as a service), consumer tech, B2B (business-to-business) commerce, healthtech, direct-to-consumer (B2C) brands and gaming startups.

Mirchandani sometimes dislikes the bureaucratic nature of running a VC fund, but he more than makes up for it with the young and interesting entrepreneurs he meets every day. “We empower very smart people to create something out of nothing. Of course, many of the companies we invest in die, but the ones that survive are… Billboard It’s pretty amazing to see your name on or read about them on Forbes.For example, I was the first investor in Myntra, which is now a $10 billion+ company. And it’s laughable considering the board meeting was held at (founder) Mukesh Bansal’s house… in just 10 to 12 years,” he says.In an old interview with Financial ExpressHe expressed mild regret that he exited the online fashion retailer before merging with Flipkart and missed the resulting opportunity to make more money from his investment.

Yet it is this thrill of realizing the potential success of a business venture that was just an idea that kept 50-year-old Mirchandani motivated years later. Ultimately, in a business with such ups and downs, the excellent return on investment is always highlighted by lost opportunities, so long-term survival depends not only on money, but on the entrepreneurial spirit itself. is needed.

listen in full interview On Entrepreneur India’s Spotify channel, audio shot.

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