1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: With Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder of Mela Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Yes, definitely. I also want to ask you about your current strategy of investing in AI companies. It sounds like this is a team that you really liked; and you invested in that team and the concept. How often do you do that? Do you invest in concepts much?

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: With Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder of Mela Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: So, tell me, what AI companies have you invested in? Let’s do a few case studies and as you are describing them, talk about why you have invested in those companies.

Cloud Stocks: Veeva Accelerates AI Initiatives

Veeva’s (NYSE: VEEV) recently announced quarterly results continue to impress the market. Veeva is adding AI capabilities to several of its offerings as it continues to successfully migrate its customers over to Vault CRM.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: With Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder of Mela Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Very good. Just as ChatGPT broke into the mainstream consciousness and really put AI at the center of discussions, The first wave of startups that came out of that euphoria are mainly wrappers. To your point, wrappers don’t have a deep moat in terms of being an AI centric company that is really going to be able to take advantage of AI and build significant defensive advantage to in enterprise applications.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: With Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder of Mela Ventures (Part 1)

Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-founder at Mela Ventures, discusses his firm’s AI investment thesis.

Three Co-founders Bootstrapped with a Paycheck, Now at Over $50M Revenue: Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsive (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: All right. Well, it’s an amazingly great story, I think, and there’s a lot to learn from it. I’m really looking forward to publishing the story. So, congratulations. Great job. Really great job with execution, and I take it you’re basically operating with direct sales, right?

Ganesh Shankar: Correct. It is operating with direct sales.

One thing I didn’t cover is how important it is for startups or sales-driven organizations to celebrate early achievements. In the initial days, we understood the philosophy of a few key principles very well.

Colors: Sunset on the Ice I

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Sunset on the Ice I

Sunset on the Ice I | Sramana Mitra, 2022 | Watercolor, Ink | 9  x 5, On Paper

Three Co-founders Bootstrapped with a Paycheck, Now at Over $50M Revenue: Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsive (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: This is something we reinforce all the time in 1Mby1M. Do not chase investors, chase customers. If you get customers, investors will chase you.