A Junior VC

Excited to have Prasanta Sarkar, Cofounder & CEO of Newtrace, with us on the AJVC AMA this week, hosted by Raj Nayan Datta! 🗓 23rd June, 2024 🕰 9pm IST 📌 AJVC Community Slack channel (invite-only participation) Prasanta is a 2x Marie Curie fellow, with a PhD in Fluid Mechanics & Energy Engineering from Université Grenoble Alpes, France, and a Masters from The University of Manchester. He is an aerospace engineer turned entrepreneur with industrial & research experience in fluid dynamics, computational mechanics & new product development. Newtrace is a climate-tech startup building next-gen electrolyzers for wide-scale adoption of affordable green hydrogen. The vision they swear by is simple - to decarbonize the world through innovation, leaving a cleaner, greener, sustainable future for generations to come. Newtrace develops novel electrolyzers that are as affordable as alkaline but as efficient as PEM or even better. Their ultimate aim is to build the most cost effective & reliable workhorse for hydrogen production. The way to do this is by designing the electrolyzer from ground up without using any membranes or rare earth metals. Newtrace designs for large scale manufacturing and have intellectual property across electrocatalyst, stack design and balance of plant. Catch him at the AMA! Santosh | Tanish #ama #ajvc #newtrace #funding #indianstartups

We're delighted to host Ankit Alok Bagaria, co-founder and CEO of Loopworm, at the AJVC AMA on Sunday, June 2nd, at 9pm IST, on the #community-101 Slack channel. Participation is invite-only. Loopworm is an insect biotechnology company based in Bangalore. It processes cultivated insects into products for applications in animal nutrition, agriculture inputs and biologicals, using novel green technologies. With the aim of reducing dependence on fishmeal, Loopworm has been able to bring down the cost of insect proteins to below fishmeal prices, with consistent quality and industrial quantities. Started from the dorm at IIT Roorkee alongside Abhi Gawri, Ankit has propelled Loopworm to emerge as a leader in the insect protein and fat product segment in India, with a commercialised 6,000 metric tons/year factory. Ankit completed his BTech & MTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Ankit leads the R&D & technology strategy as well as business development at Loopworm. A Forbes 30U30 India and Forbes 30U30 Asia winner, Ankit has won various awards and recognition during his undergraduate studies, notably the Global Ericsson Innovations Award 2017, two gold medals at the Inter IIT Tech Meet 2018, and the Encore Award for Overall Excellence at IIT Roorkee. Ankit has also authored multiple articles covering the use of insects in aquaculture diets and has been featured on the Fish site, AgFunder, AquaFeed Magazine and Agrospectrum India. Join us tonight at 9pm IST, and exchange thoughts with Ankit!

This weekend, we have Swapnil Shrivastav, co-founder and CEO of Uravu Labs, as our guest on the AJVC AMA at 9PM IST, Sunday 12th May. Founded in 2017, Uravu Labs develops a 100% renewable water infrastructure for the 21st century, producing drinking water by utilizing inexhaustible atmospheric moisture and renewable energy. 100% renewable water is 💭 harnessed from air - an inexhaustible source that contains water equivalent to six times of the world's rivers combined, and it replenishes naturally in 8-10 days, ⚡ utilises only renewable energy, derived from solar and carbon neutral sources of waste heat and biomass, to power the entire infrastructure, and 💦 rejects no wastewater in the process, unlike technologies such as reverse osmosis After finding success in India, Uravu Labs is expanding its reach globally. Plans are underway for its first international pilot project in Japan, serving as the first reference point for Uravu Labs in Japan. With this expansion, the company is on its way to providing sustainable water solutions on a global scale. Co-founder and CEO Swapnil is an alumnus of National Institute of Technology Calicut, and Indian School of Business. He has 4 years of experience in water-from-air segment, executing lead roles in product development, fundraising, team buiilding, client interactions and marketing. He has co-authored a paper titles 'E-Democracy for Smart Cities (Springer)'. Join us tonight for an engaging session with Swapnil. Participation in this AMA is invite-only.

This weekend, on Sunday, April 28th, at 9pm IST, we have Rishi Batra, co-founder and COO of twid (That’s What I Do), as our AJVC AMA guest. Twid is a revolutionary rewards-based payment network that turns reward points into a fully fungible currency, helping consumers access all of their rewards from banks, brands, travel and dining on one platform and make payments for their daily spends. Founded in 2020 by Amit Koshal (co-founder & CEO), Rishi and Amit Sharma (co-founder & CTO), Twid is disrupting the rewards points ecosystem. With affiliations to notable names such as Axis Bank, YES BANK, IndusInd Bank, Flipkart Supercoin, InterMiles (Jet Privilege Pvt. Ltd), and Payback, Twid boasts access to a substantial points pool of approximately $2.2 billion. Twid has an impressive 100K+ merchant partners, including JioMart Digital, boAt Lifestyle, MakeMyTrip, BookMyShow, Netmeds.com, MyJio, Ixigo, etc., with access to 90+ million customers. The company is backed by Rakuten Capital & Google, during their $12M Series A fundraise. Rishi has 20 years of experience in scaling businesses and investments. Previously, he co-founded and was COO & CFO of Fashalot, a mobile marketing platform that connects offline fashion stores with shoppers & drives footfalls through interconnected loyalty. He has held leadership positions in the investment division of The Times Group and Copal Partners. He is deeply passionate about consumer internet, fintech, rewards and media businesses Rishi has an MBA in finance and is a silver medalist from the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad and a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Pune University. Join us tonight to have a conversation with Rishi. Participation in the Q&A session is by invitation only.

‘Curriculum is like religion, everyone has their favourite’ states Sumeet Mehta, Co-Founder and CEO of Lead on Ep-103 of A Junior VC’s Founders Unfiltered Podcast. The modest entrepreneur is a treasure trove of insights and first principles on teaching and learning, making the episode, as host Aviral puts it, an education on education. Before he found his calling as a teacher, Sumeet followed a conventional path which took him to PEC Chandigarh and IIM Ahmedabad, and a cushy job at P&G in Singapore. The 8-year stint followed by 5 years as the top executive at Zee Learn set him up to be one of the few people operating at the intersection of curriculum, tech and schools, all of which proved valuable when he launched LEAD in 2012. Sumeet recounts the challenges posed by Covid, when his team built India’s largest online school network of 600 schools only to dismantle the well-oiled machine as the pandemic receded. He is matter of fact when he notes that the pool of capital which chased and later deserted EdTech is not education’s problem and that LEAD’s raison d’etre arises whenever a child is not learning despite the parent paying. Tune in to find out how Sumeet, who maintained a loyalty to open-pleated trousers during his student days, got mocked and then earned the respect of his jeans-adorned classmates. https://lnkd.in/gadcBfx4

📢 We're delighted to have Neeraj Menta, cofounder of SuperK, with us tonight at the AJVC AMA, at 9 PM IST, only in our AJVC Slack community. SuperK is a franchised grocery retail chain for small towns. It empowers unorganised kirana stores to offer modern retail experiences to small-town shoppers and allows entrepreneurs to easily own and operate supermarkets using its data-driven, tech-enabled operating model. SuperK started as a single store in Anantapur. Today, it has expanded to 130+ supermarket stores across 80 Tier 3,4,5 towns in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with an ARR of ₹100 Cr. Anil and Neeraj, co-founders of SuperK, met during their undergrad at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. After graduating, Neeraj worked with Big Bazaar - Future Retail, Flipkart and Zeta, before starting SuperK. Neeraj's co-founder, Anil, was very bullish on franchising. He tried to scale the multiple growing franchises such as FirstCry.com (BrainBees Solutions Ltd.), McDonald's, Zoomcar and DriveEasy. Both Neeraj and Anil took inspiration from this concept and set their hearts on solving for the modern and general trade industry. Join us to exchange thoughts with Neeraj. Participation is open to all AJVC Community members. Invite-only event.

Akshay Singhal, founder and CEO of Log9 Materials, is our AJVC AMA guest for Sunday, April 14th, at 9pm IST. Akshay, a 2019 Forbes "30 Under 30 Asia" Awardee, stands to solve the pressing global issue of climate change with the power of nanotechnology and innovation. He has spearheaded Log9 to make it a significant player in the EV battery space. Akshay graduated with honors in Materials Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee in 2015 and completed his Ph.D. in Nanotechnology at IIT Roorkee in 2021. He has research experience from University of Alberta, Canada, has published more than 6 scientific articles and has filed more than 50 patent applications. As an active supporter of progressive action on Climate Change, Akshay has begun angel investing in startups that positively impact the planet. Log9 is India's leading battery technology company, innovating across cell, battery pack and digital stack to offer highest performance, long lasting, safe and reliable battery solutions. It is the only company to have developed Li-ion cell (LFP and LTO) technologies for gigafactory production from ground up, commissioning India's first Lithium Ion Cell production line with 50 MWh capacity. Log9 employs India's largest battery R&D team of over 125 members. It has 120+ patents to its name, has 5400+ batteries deployed across a range of EVs with a 20% market share in the EV 3-wheeler cargo segment. It closed FY23 at $9M in revenue (3X YoY growth), projected to touch $32M in FY24 Log9 is pioneering the development of specialised battery technology from cell to pack level with an advanced digital stack for applications in the tropical belt and is poised to be a battery leader across India, SE Asia, Middle East, Africa and LatAm. Join us tonight at 9pm IST only on the AJVC Slack #community-101 channel.

For this weekend's AJVC AMA on Sunday, March 17th at 9:00 PM IST, we have Shreyans Nahar, co-founder and CEO of Finsire. Finsire is mapping global assets with digital infrastructure. Finsire builds for regulated entities, financial institutions governed by SEBI, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), @IRDAI, PFRDA and other internet companies. India Stack has given the opportunity to many Indian companies, both B2C and B2B, to build world-class products that digitise a lot of legacy systems and processes. Finsire intends to leverage one such opportunity to build on asset custodians like @Account Aggregator, National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL), CDSL - Central Depository Services India Ltd, CAMS, Kfintech, MF Central, GST, ITR, MCA to name a few. Finsire has raised from investors such as Spark Capital, DevX, iSeed, DeVC, Mars Shot Ventures led by Razorpay founders, and founders or directors of other companies such as Groww, Google Pay, Twitter India and more. Today, Finsire builds APIs that identify most assets in India and products around secured credit and artificial intelligence. Finsire intends to be the asset gateway for India, and for the world. Shreyans holds a BTech from Vellore Institute of Technology, an MS in Management and Engineering from Columbia University. Join us at 9:00PM IST on our AJVC Slack community to exchange thoughts with Shreyans.

Our AMA guest for this Sunday, March 3rd at 9pm IST, is Aditya Soni, founder and Chief Executive Officer at CheQ. Join him only on our 10K+ strong AJVC AMA Slack community. Driven by a mission to demystify credit and enhance financial literacy, Aditya founded CheQ to make credit management accessible, rewarding, and simple for everyone. CheQ stands out as a unified platform that streamlines monthly payments, monitors credit scores, and ensures that managing credit is a rewarding experience. After graduating from Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad Aditya started his career at Citibank. He spent eight years there, honing his skills in the credit card business. His journey continued at Flipkart, where for eight years, he led the fintech and payments division, pioneering industry-first solutions like Flipkart Pay Later and debit card EMI options. He also managed Flipkart's largest category of smartphones, for 2.5 years, demonstrating his versatile leadership and strategic acumen. Under Aditya's leadership, CheQ has seen exponential growth. Today, it has 800K+ users and facilitated 5M transactions worth $1.8B in its first year. It achieved operational profitability and expanded its offerings to include personal loan services. CheQ is setting new benchmarks in the fintech sector with its innovative solutions and customer-centric approach, reflecting Aditya's vision for a credit-empowered India. Please join us tomorrow, 3rd March, at 9:00 PM IST on the AJVC Slack channel community-101 to exchange thoughts with Aditya.

Our AMA guest for this Sunday, Feb 25th at 9pm IST, is Sumit Nigam, Chief Technology Officer at Perfios. Join him only on our 10K+ strong AJVC AMA Slack community. Prior to Perfios, Sumit was the Head of Engineering at bigbasket.com. With 26+ years of experience, Sumit has worked with VERISIGN, EMC, Informatica and Walmart Global Tech, transitioning from hands-on-technical architect roles to leadership positions. His expertise includes development of low-latency, high-volume applications, architecture of data-intensive systems, application of mathematics and data science, design of distributed systems, troubleshooting intricate systemic issues, and optimization of diverse technology stacks. Sumit holds a BE in Electronics and Communication Engineering from @NIT Calicut. Perfios is India's leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider in the B2B fintech sector. It specializes in a wide spectrum of financial services, including real-time credit decisioning, advanced analytics, onboarding automation, due diligence processes, comprehensive monitoring, and more. At the core of Perfios' capabilities lies a sophisticated data platform, meticulously designed to collate and analyze both structured and unstructured data. These solutions are crafted to meet rigorous standards for performance and security, ensuring the utmost precision and reliability in financial decision-making. Today, Perfios has 1500+ employees, categorizes 3Bn+ transactions monthly, services more than 1200+ financial institutions, offers 500+ APIs, processes over 2M+ API calls a month and has automated 90% of the credit decisioning process. Please join us today, 25th February, at 9:00 PM IST on the AJVC Slack channel community-101 to exchange thoughts with Sumit.