1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. I’m sure you hear this in AI conversations in particular. This conversation today hasn’t been as AI-heavy as usual, but in those discussions, domain knowledge comes up a lot.

People who can extract real value from enterprise AI and workflow are those with deep domain knowledge. They understand what’s happening and where they can add value by working through those processes.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The venture equation, which a lot of entrepreneurs struggle to grasp, is you have to go from zero to a hundred million dollars in five to seven years once you’ve entered the venture timeline. If you’re not doing that, then it’s hard to make the fund equations work.

There are some small funds that are doing Bootstrapping to Exit or Seedstrapping to Exit kind of deals. That’s a slightly different investment thesis, but they still need to find high-velocity companies to be able to exit them. Velocity is critical—without it, exits don’t really happen.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: This is interesting. I’ve tracked a company that pioneered selling diamonds online—Blue Nile. You must be familiar with them. The entrepreneur came from the diamond industry; his family had roots there. He had a key insight: in the U.S., diamonds are primarily purchased by men for engagement rings.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a few case studies of what you have invested in. As you’re describing those stories, tell us a bit about how you found these companies or how they found you, and what did you see in those companies that made you want to write those checks?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 1)

Vinit Bhansali, Founder and General Partner at Takshil Venture Partners, discusses how his firm is investing in India.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Alex Benik, Encoded Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: So the real question then is, in the vintage that you are currently investing in, that’s going to start maturing in the five- to seven-year period, AI is also maturing greatly when it comes to acquisitions. It complicates the build versus buy question quite a lot, right?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Alex Benik, Encoded Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a couple more of your examples of what you’ve invested in.

Alex Benik: Sure. At Battery, I was an investor in a company called Packet, which was a bare metal hosting provider. It was acquired by a large data center company Equinix. The founders Zac and Jacob Smith are twin brothers and have gone on to found a company called Datum.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Alex Benik, Encoded Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: That’s refreshing to hear. Tell us what you’ve invested in. Let’s go over some case studies. Describe the situation when they came to you, what attracted you, what made you write the check, and what you saw in those deals.