Ashish Dave of Mirae Asset Global Investments takes the audience through his personal journey through the Indian VC sector during the EPGP seminar on ‘Insights into the Indian Venture Capital Ecosystem’
23 August, 2021, Bengaluru: Ashish Dave, a leading investor and Board member in India’s dynamic venture capital landscape, led a highly interactive and candid session for the students of the Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management (EPGP) at IIM Bangalore, on the topic, ‘Insights into the Indian Venture Capital Ecosystem’, as part of the EPGP Seminar Series, on August 19 (Thursday), 2021.
Ashish heads Mirae Asset Venture Investments (India), where he manages $1.5 billion in venture capital for Mirae Assets, a leading multinational financial group with over $450 billion of assets under management.
The seminar was packed with keen insights based on Ashish’s valuable years of experience in the venture capital industry. He started the session by taking the audience through his personal journey through the Indian VC sector, and his involvement in different stages of the VC process, from angel investments to the growth stage and pre-IPO investments. Contrary to what people think, Ashish emphasized, venture capital is more about the people aspect rather than just the money aspect.
“If you are an angel investor, you are basically investing in people. Numbers or projections are not there yet to help you. But in a growth stage investment, subjective aspects such as quality of the management team, passion of the founder, and objective aspects such as financial metrics and a clear path to profitability do matter a lot”, Ashish pointed out.
When quizzed about how he constructs his multi-stage investment portfolio at Mirae, Ashish underscored the importance of a solid macro-level understanding of the economy and the need for dynamism in theme-based investing. “You either add risk or take away risk from the portfolio. While keeping the interpersonal aspects in mind, you have to look at the companies unemotionally. A good way to start would be to identify the business models and thematic strengths of the companies and analyzing them in depth”, he suggested.
Ashish shared that he is most bullish on three sectors: FinTech, EdTech and SaaS. With the pandemic bringing a lot of behavioral changes in the way people use products and services, he believes that there are a lot of opportunities in these sectors for start-ups that execute well. As technology solves the problem of affordable distribution to India’s vast population, the next phase is to provide superior digital experiences to Indian customers via more user-tailored FinTech, EdTech and SaaS solutions. “For instance, there is a great scope of opportunity for start-ups to build better solutions for asset-rich Indians to seamlessly manage their assets and cash flows”, he said.
Responding to a question on how to enter the VC ecosystem, Ashish stressed that it is a long game and that it is crucial to gain direct exposure. “You can apply to early-stage or non-branded funds, family offices, or incubators/accelerators. Learn the ropes. Understand, develop, and build your network. Self-learning is the key. And do have a view on things that matter. This makes it easier to add value and acquire skills that are relevant.”
Ashish ended the seminar by highlighting the fact that to become successful in the VC space, one must always look to deeply understand the sectoral trends and market cycles, and identify clear paths to profitability, growth, and sustainability for their portfolio.
About the Speaker:
Ashish Dave heads Mirae Asset Global Investments (India) where he manages $1.5 billion in venture capital for Mirae Assets, a leading multinational financial group with over $450 billion of assets under management. He is a highly experienced investor and Board member, having been in the VC ecosystem for 14 years. He was earlier with Kalaari Capital and Mumbai Angels Network. Mirae's portfolio includes many of India's famous unicorns and decacorns, including OLA Cabs, bigbasket.com, Zomato, Shadowfax, Zolo Stays, KreditBee, Raise Financial Services, Koo India App, Jai Kisan, Trell, Unacademy, ShareChat, and Jupiter. Ashish Dave is listed in Fortune’s ‘40 under 40’.
Ashish Dave of Mirae Asset Global Investments takes the audience through his personal journey through the Indian VC sector during the EPGP seminar on ‘Insights into the Indian Venture Capital Ecosystem’
23 August, 2021, Bengaluru: Ashish Dave, a leading investor and Board member in India’s dynamic venture capital landscape, led a highly interactive and candid session for the students of the Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management (EPGP) at IIM Bangalore, on the topic, ‘Insights into the Indian Venture Capital Ecosystem’, as part of the EPGP Seminar Series, on August 19 (Thursday), 2021.
Ashish heads Mirae Asset Venture Investments (India), where he manages $1.5 billion in venture capital for Mirae Assets, a leading multinational financial group with over $450 billion of assets under management.
The seminar was packed with keen insights based on Ashish’s valuable years of experience in the venture capital industry. He started the session by taking the audience through his personal journey through the Indian VC sector, and his involvement in different stages of the VC process, from angel investments to the growth stage and pre-IPO investments. Contrary to what people think, Ashish emphasized, venture capital is more about the people aspect rather than just the money aspect.
“If you are an angel investor, you are basically investing in people. Numbers or projections are not there yet to help you. But in a growth stage investment, subjective aspects such as quality of the management team, passion of the founder, and objective aspects such as financial metrics and a clear path to profitability do matter a lot”, Ashish pointed out.
When quizzed about how he constructs his multi-stage investment portfolio at Mirae, Ashish underscored the importance of a solid macro-level understanding of the economy and the need for dynamism in theme-based investing. “You either add risk or take away risk from the portfolio. While keeping the interpersonal aspects in mind, you have to look at the companies unemotionally. A good way to start would be to identify the business models and thematic strengths of the companies and analyzing them in depth”, he suggested.
Ashish shared that he is most bullish on three sectors: FinTech, EdTech and SaaS. With the pandemic bringing a lot of behavioral changes in the way people use products and services, he believes that there are a lot of opportunities in these sectors for start-ups that execute well. As technology solves the problem of affordable distribution to India’s vast population, the next phase is to provide superior digital experiences to Indian customers via more user-tailored FinTech, EdTech and SaaS solutions. “For instance, there is a great scope of opportunity for start-ups to build better solutions for asset-rich Indians to seamlessly manage their assets and cash flows”, he said.
Responding to a question on how to enter the VC ecosystem, Ashish stressed that it is a long game and that it is crucial to gain direct exposure. “You can apply to early-stage or non-branded funds, family offices, or incubators/accelerators. Learn the ropes. Understand, develop, and build your network. Self-learning is the key. And do have a view on things that matter. This makes it easier to add value and acquire skills that are relevant.”
Ashish ended the seminar by highlighting the fact that to become successful in the VC space, one must always look to deeply understand the sectoral trends and market cycles, and identify clear paths to profitability, growth, and sustainability for their portfolio.
About the Speaker:
Ashish Dave heads Mirae Asset Global Investments (India) where he manages $1.5 billion in venture capital for Mirae Assets, a leading multinational financial group with over $450 billion of assets under management. He is a highly experienced investor and Board member, having been in the VC ecosystem for 14 years. He was earlier with Kalaari Capital and Mumbai Angels Network. Mirae's portfolio includes many of India's famous unicorns and decacorns, including OLA Cabs, bigbasket.com, Zomato, Shadowfax, Zolo Stays, KreditBee, Raise Financial Services, Koo India App, Jai Kisan, Trell, Unacademy, ShareChat, and Jupiter. Ashish Dave is listed in Fortune’s ‘40 under 40’.