1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Daniel Ibri, Mindset Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Earlier you said you wanted to discuss how venture capital is changing. We have a little time, so I want to explore that.

There’s a point of view circulating that even though venture capital is focused on vertical AI right now, AGI could make vertical AI irrelevant. And if AGI arrives during the timeframe when current gen-AI companies mature and prepare for exits, those exit opportunities might disappear. These are existential threats for venture capital. How do you think about that?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Daniel Ibri, Mindset Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Another important point: the probability of building a true unicorn—not an artificial one inflated with liquidation preferences—is extremely low. Many overfunded companies become “zombiecorns” or fail due to overfunding.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Daniel Ibri, Mindset Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Great. That clarifies things. Now, let’s talk about AI. What’s happening? What are you seeing? What are you investing in? What do you like to invest in?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Daniel Ibri, Mindset Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I would like to hear a bit about some case studies of companies you have invested in following this investment thesis you just described. And what have you learned? Why are they choosing you, and what value are you adding? How are you playing this investment thesis out?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Daniel Ibri, Mindset Ventures (Part 1)

Daniel Ibri is Co-founder and Managing Partner at Mindset Ventures. This is an excellent discussion about the changing dynamics of AI and venture capital.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Mohanjit Jolly, Partner at Iron Pillar (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What are you seeing in India? The first wave of Indian e-commerce or consumer brands served the higher end. Now the middle class is much more tuned into e-commerce. Everyone uses 10-minute services like Blinkit. What trends are you seeing in going down-market in e-commerce?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Mohanjit Jolly, Partner at Iron Pillar (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Unfortunately, the media has framed entrepreneurship as financing. Entrepreneurship is customers, revenues, and profits. Financing is optional. Exit is optional. The media has completely confused entrepreneurs with this financing-centric narrative.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Mohanjit Jolly, Partner at Iron Pillar (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You probably know this. In 1 Million by 1 Million, we have taken a different approach than the typical venture capital mantra of “blitzscale out of the gate, go big or go home.” We don’t believe in any of that. We do “bootstrap first, raise money later,” and that has produced a lot of very interesting success stories. FreshWorks was incubated in 1Mby1M. The first three years of FreshWorks were here. We didn’t raise money for FreshWorks until they had paying customers.