Arriving at a decision was difficult in the backdrop of a year which has been fraught with challenges for the venture capital industry as valuations and fundraising saw a major hit. Exits became scarce and the IPO market dried up.
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ETtechAfter a lengthy deliberation, the jury bottled down on Fireside Ventures’ founder Kanwaljit Singh and Nexus Venture Partners’ Jishnu Bhattacharjee.
While Singh has been a pioneer in the consumer investing space making early bets on direct-to-consumer (D2C) startups much before the segment became buzzy, Bhattacharjee has emerged as one of the most prominent VCs specialising in cross-border SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies.
The jury finally zeroed in on Silicon Valley-based Bhattacharjee for his consistent track record of portfolio exits through acquisitions.
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During this 15-year investing career, Bhattacharjee has clocked over 15 exits in his portfolio, including Citrix’s acquisition by Cloud.com, American Express’ buyout of Mezi, and Gluster’s sale to Redhat. His other unrealised gains sit with companies like Postman, an application programming interface (API) management startup valued at $5.6billion, and Druva, a software company providing data protection and management valued at over $2 billion.
“Receiving the Midas Touch award is an honour for me and the entire Nexus team. This is a recognition of our work over the last 16 years in the startup ecosystem. This is a recognition of the exceptional entrepreneurs we have partnered with, building globally leading companies, both in India and the US,” Bhattacharjee said on winning the award.
“The innovation and digitisation catalysed by startups is a cornerstone of today’s Indian economy, creating millions of jobs and changing lives for the better. We are grateful to be able to play a part in this movement and look forward to serving the entrepreneurial ecosystem for years to come,” he added.
Bhattacharjee, one of the foremost names backing the cross-border Indian software services community, joined Nexus in 2008 and was quickly promoted to managing director by 2012.
A jury member during the discussion said, “What is important to look at is the quantum of capital deployed and returns made for the fund. There were two separate themes of D2C and SaaS, but returns made should take focus.”
Jury member, Shekhar Kirani, partner, Accel, who won the Midas Touch award last year, said, “Global SaaS companies born in India are building amazing products for the world. Today, we have several companies with over $100 million in ARR and thousands of global SaaS companies in the making. With an astute eye for spotting innovation and commitment to nurture talent, Jishnu has played an instrumental role in shaping the success stories of many Indian SaaS firms. This win is a representation of the maturity of global SaaS companies coming out of India.”
Other contenders
Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal
ETtechSnapdeal founders Bahl and Bansal began angel investing a decade ago but the size and scale of their personal investments have picked up in the past few years. In a more structured venture capitalist avatar, Titan Capital now has a portfolio of over half a dozen unicorns and more than two dozen startups in the $100 million to $600 million valuation range.
Kanwaljit Singh
ETtechA direct-to-consumer (D2C) specialist, Singh launched Fireside Ventures in 2017 and has doubled down on some of the biggest D2C brands in the country. Having previously cofounded first-generation VC firm, Helion Venture Partners, Singh has already clocked exits across 11 investments and has successfully raised three separate funds for Fireside.
Varsha Tagare
ETtechA chip design engineer-turned-corporate venture capitalist, Tagare manages almost half of Qualcomm Ventures’ portfolio in India, primarily focussing on segments including deep tech, robotics, logistics and internet of things.
TCM Sundaram
ETtechSundaram has been a venture capitalist since 1999, at a time when the term VC was practically unheard of in India. Popularly known as TCM in the industry, his early bets with Lenskart, Policybazaar and CloudCherry have stood the domestic fund in good stead in terms of returns to limited partners. Lenskart is described as one of Sundaram’s ‘forever bets’.