1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Jishnu Battacharjee of Nexus Venture Partners (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Jishnu Battacharjee was recorded in November 2019.

Jishnu Bhattacharjee is Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners, a fundamentals-focused firm that aligns with the 1Mby1M philosophy. Jishnu takes us through several examples of how the firm is thinking about investing in startups. Excellent conversation.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s catch up a bit with where you are now with Nexus. What is the current fund size? What are you focusing on? 

Jishnu Battacharjee: We are now in our 13th year. The fund started in 2006. Fast forward 13 years, we are managing $1.4 billion. We are investing from our fifth fund, which is $360 million. It’s one fund and one team across two geographies – US and India. We have offices in Silicon Valley, Mumbai, and Bangalore.

We invest across sectors both in consumer as well as enterprises. We want to be the first institutional check in a company. Across five funds, we have done about 90 companies. It’s a relatively concentrated portfolio. When we start working with the entrepreneurs, we want to be their thought partners in building their company.

Sramana Mitra: From what I understand, you do both India-facing B2C as well as global B2B.

Jishnu Battacharjee: I would add some colors. It’s one fund across geographies. One-third are addressing India-facing opportunities. Those happen to be mostly Indian domestic consumption and business services.

Two-thirds are all technology either starting in United States or out of India. Of course, there are also a couple of companies that we have started in Canada and Europe. Two-thirds of companies are all B2B SaaS.

Sramana Mitra: Double-click down on both of the sectors. Give me a bit of your thoughts on what is your current analysis. If you could also set that in perspective. Historically, what was your investment thesis and how has that investment thesis evolved vis-a-vis India-facing B2C and global SaaS B2B?

Jishnu Battacharjee: From day one, we have been focused on one core team. If you look at how opportunities have been evolving globally as it relates to India and Southeast Asia, India and Southeast Asia is a region which is a hybrid of China and Israel.

Most of the opportunities in China are domestic. With Israel, almost everything is focused internationally. India is a nice blend of the two.

There are a lot of domestic opportunities across education, healthcare, and finance. There is a fantastic technology talent. Now we are also seeing operations being done out of India where you can serve globally. That is increasing.

Previously, it used to be IT services, but now, a lot of product companies come out of India that address the market. With that vision, we started. We wanted to leverage our understanding of global technology and presence in Silicon Valley.

If I look back, about 33% of our companies are originating from the United States. That number has increased over time. All these companies are software companies addressing global markets. We are a product-first and people-first firm.

What I mean is, we invest in entrepreneurs with product-focused thinking and more than just an idea. They don’t necessarily have a product on day one but everything should be led by product. We want the companies to evolve to offering something that is self-serve that can lead to self-serve go-to market.

Because of that, most of our companies are used globally without the need to manage a sales force. That’s how the evolution has happened. It has gone more towards how to build something that is simple, easy-to-use, and just works.

This segment is part 1 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Jishnu Battacharjee of Nexus Venture Partners
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