Stellaris Venture Partners

Had a great time at the GSF Founders-Investors Conference! Thanks Rajesh Sawhney for this opportunity & Khadim Batti for your insights! Two key topics of discussion, both relevant for Indian #SaaS entrepreneurs: 1. Domiciling your company 2. Approach to AI Few thoughts: ➡ Domiciling your SaaS company in the US has been the norm. Why? - US customers want that - US investors want that - Future acquirers want that - US IPO is the preferred exit aka Freshworks Most of these assumptions are not 100% true. US customers are OK as long as contracts are being written from a US entity. That entity can be a subsidiary of your Indian parent. I believe this is not a practical challenge. Yes, US investors wanted this, but it has changed substantially. When Whatfix was raising its Series B, I remember that a few US investors "preferred" a US HQ. Today, most US investors are OK with an India entity. Y Combinator also recently has started funding companies HQ'ed in India! For mid-sized acquirers, having IP in the US is still a plus, but for larger acquirers (e.g. SAP, Oracle, Cisco), this is not an issue. Their M&A machines are well oiled to make acquisitions across the world. This is the most significant reason as to why you want your company to be HQ'ed in India now. US IPO is quite hard, the bar is $250-300M at least, and even then, you need to truly stand out in your category. India, however, may offer a scarcity premium for SaaS companies to be listed. We have seen RateGain go public in India. I expect several other IPOs in India. One can go public in India with even $50M ARR, and still be a highly differentiated offering! ➡ On AI, loved Khadim's quote: In the short term, we are all overestimating AI's impact & in the long term, we are all underestimating it! Incremental features like natural language based analytics, autocomplete, summarization are important, but every provider needs to ask themselves if they can reimagine the category with AI. At Whatfix, the team is rethinking what human machine interface should be. Instead of humans adapting to applications, it is applications that will adapt to humans, which means that applications in the future may be "invisible". Humans can instruct in natural language what they want to get done from a place they want to e.g. Slack, and expect the software to autoexecute through agents. ➡ That being said, we are not there today. As Khadim said, we are overestimating what AI can do today. AI has enough hallucinations, and for enterprises, "almost OK" is not "OK". The level of accuracy required is far off. In the short term, we will see higher investments in product development as software providers raise the bar with reimagination of their categories. In the longer term, we expect costs of development to come down as AI makes it easier, faster and cheaper to build! If you're a founder reimagining an existing category or creating a new one, we would love to speak with you! Stellaris Venture Partners

10 actionable #GTM insights for early-stage #SaaS companies targeting enterprise sales👇 More by Alok in his latest blog: https://lnkd.in/gCV7a-F3 Naman Jain Sayantan Sarkar

There's just a different thrill of hacking and shipping solutions on a tight deadline. That's what we have always lived by at our company. Over 30 teams did exactly that at the Entrepreneur First x Stellaris Venture Partners AI agents hackathon organized recently. A lot of people, including those working as full-time engineers in respected companies, flew down from cities like Indore & Ahmedabad just to participate in it. It was amazing to be invited as a judge for the event with some really incredible people like Alok Goyal and Nirant Kasliwal. I'm quite glad to see how people are building really cool AI apps using open-source models and thinking deeply about user journeys and use cases. Congratulations to the winners, you did very very well! #hackathon #ai #startups

We are excited to announce that Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners Ventures, will be speaking at the ETRetail E-Commerce & Digital Natives Summit 2024! 🌟 Rahul Chowdhri, with his extensive experience in venture capital and strategic investments, will provide invaluable insights into the future of e-commerce and digital innovation. Don't miss the opportunity to learn from one of the industry's leading voices. Register Now: https://bit.ly/4ekvY4k #ETEcomSummit #ETRetail #ETEcomNatives #TechConference #eCommerce #FutureOfTech #TechTrends #InnovativeTech #BusinessBoost #SuccessStrategy

Just dropped a new podcast episode covering Venture Capital Industry with Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners. Here’s what we discussed about : -> Learn how Venture Capital has evolved in India -> Understand the investment thesis and evaluation process firms take to evaluate startups -> Discover traits of successful founders and startup stages -> Get insights on valuation, investment sizes, and fund timelines -> Hear the story of Mama Earth's successful investment, they made a return of 38X! -> Different between VC, Private Equity and Angel Investors -> Explore future opportunities and industry trends in India. (Premiumisation theme, Electric Vehicle Industry, 2021 funding frenzy, Edtech and more) -> VC as a career opportunity for youngsters Podcast out now. Link in comments #QuriousClub #VentureCapital #Startup

🚀 Hiring sales talent to kickstart your GTM? Vispi's advice is to prioritize character over experience. ➡ In our recent edition of #SaasTalks, Vispi highlighted that coachability is key: those who embrace feedback always excel. ➡ Look for strong work ethic, preparation, and clear communication skills — not just flowery words — to find the perfect #sales fit for your #GTM strategy. Watch the full episode on enterprise-centric GTM here: https://bit.ly/3xPwqHq Alok Goyal Sayantan Sarkar Naman Jain

➡ Rahul's take on the 5 qualities investors look for in founders: 1️⃣ Adapting quickly to new challenges and uncertainties 2️⃣ Inspiring your team with a strong vision, especially as your startup grows 3️⃣ Navigating tricky situations and walking the talk 4️⃣ Selling effectively to investors, customers, and partners 5️⃣ Focusing on keeping customers happy to sustain growth 🚀 Dive into the latest episode of The Qurious Club podcast, where Rahul Chowdhri discusses the evolving Indian economy, our Mamaearth story, funding activity in recent years, and more. Hosted by Siddhant Bhandari. https://lnkd.in/gfDciNJ7

Of late, there has been plenty of chatter about #software being "dead”, driven by lowering growth rates and reduced valuations. ➡ There is a general narrative that software is becoming so easy to create that software will create software, and in due course, software will also execute software! ➡ The prediction is that software will go into the world of invisibility. Funding is at an all time low, which further adds to the credibility of the argument. But this narrative is not new, and is one that I disagree with. My take below 👇 #saas #software

This #AIAppreciationDay, there's no better occasion to celebrate the innovation that unfolded at our recent AI Agents Hackathon, held in collaboration with Entrepreneur First 🤖 The #hackathon remains an unforgettable meeting of brilliant minds with cutting-edge technology. Over 130 developers immersed themselves in a flurry of creativity, building solutions across analytics, financial services, manufacturing, developer tools, and travel—all in a non-stop 24-hour sprint! It was a weekend of teamwork, creativity, and driving innovation through AI Agents. From automating tasks and driving data-driven decisions to enhancing efficiency across industries, AI agents are set to redefine the future. Here’s celebrating all the fresh ideas and new friendships formed, and catching up with familiar faces at the hackathon! We’ll see you again next year 👋   Shoutout to our partners Whatfix, Amazon Web Services (AWS), LlamaIndex, Bolna & Composio for their support.

Last week, I attended my first hackathon after graduating from my college! Stellaris Venture Partners and Entrepreneur First conducted a 24-hour "AI Agent" hackathon in Bangalore on July 6-7,2024. I got to meet a lot of smart folks who were passionate about technology and startups. If you are thinking about building your startup, going to such hackathons are great first step because: 1) You are out there building, not just daydreaming, sometimes a little push is all you need. 2) You get to understand the startup landscape better. There will be investors/accelerators interacting and scouting, successful founders who will share their experience, and startup enthusiasts building. 3) Talking about people, you find a peer group interested in creating a startup, which is immensely important. You might find your cofounder and/or your startup idea there. Good Luck!