Photo
Photo
Photo

Episode 72 / July 5, 2020

Ishpreet Gandhi, Stride Ventures on the emerging role of Venture Debt in the startup Ecosystem

hr min

Episode 72 / July 5, 2020

Ishpreet Gandhi, Stride Ventures on the emerging role of Venture Debt in the startup Ecosystem

hr min
Listen on

 

 

 

After completing his MBA from Delhi School of Economics, Ishpreet worked with many banks like – Kotak Mahindra, IFDC, and Citibank among others. For a major part of his career, he worked on Debt funding companies via Banks as Financial Institutions. Eventually, this made him start a Venture Debt Fund of his own, Stride Ventures in December 2018.

Some of its portfolio companies include – Stellapps, CredR, and LetsTransport among others. In this podcast, Ishpreet shares his experience of being a part of Debt funding in companies across all domains and building a Venture Debt Fund ecosystem in India.

Notes –

01:05 – His early career in Investment & Corporate Banking

04:30 – Experience the VC Ecosystem and founding Stride Ventures

06:58 – How does Stride Ventures differ from other Venture Debt Funds in the market?

09:22 – At which stage does Stride Ventures enter in a Company?

13:55 – With what financials does it makes sense for a company to raise a Debt round?

19:50 – How much returns do a Venture Debt fund typically expect?

22:27 – Investing in companies like Stellapps & CredR

27:53 – Potential sectors in 2020-21 from a Debt Fund’s perspective – SaaS, Logistics, and Gaming among others

29:45 – Building an ecosystem of Venture Debt Fund in India

 

Read the full transcript here:

Siddhartha 0:01
Today we have with us Ishpreet Gandhi. Ishpreet is the Founder and Managing Partner of Stride Ventures. He is the Delhi School of Economics alum and has worked with Citibank India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC Bank before founding Stride Ventures. Stride Ventures portfolio includes Stellapps, LetsTransport, Avanti Finance, CredR. So, it’s time to dive deep into Venture Debt with Ishpreet. Welcome to the podcast, Ishpreet.

Ishpreet 1:02
Thank you, Siddhartha. Thanks for having me.

Siddhartha 1:04
Ishpreet, going back in your journey in 2018, Why did you choose to open a Venture Debt firm instead of a traditional venture capital firm?

Ishpreet 1:15
So, I’ll actually try to answer this question in terms of relating to my background. But venture debt was an obvious choice for me seeing my background. You just mentioned about the banks I worked with. But actually I started my career some 14, 15 years back with Standard Chartered, my first bank. Actually, I was working with small and medium enterprises. This was typically company up to 250 crores of revenue or $30 million. And the intent was basically that that point of time, it was more of a liability-driven business which had a cross-sell of assets. And the stint actually taught a lot of things in terms of dealing with small and medium enterprises before I moved to CitiBank in commercial banking. This was a short stint and actually, from the banking perspective, I just wanted to see larger companies in terms of revenues. The business movement happens there and for the banker, it’s always good to associate with corporate clients. It was at least the notion back in point then, and that from there on, Kotak hired me to take care of the multinational corporates vertical, which was typically companies above 250-300 crore of revenues. And that was an actual introduction to private equity-backed companies because it was MNC. Our definition was multinational corporates who had establishments in India, as well as private equity companies that have subsidiary companies basically but owned and controlled majorly by private equity funds. And post that Yes hired me to lead MNC vertical for north and east. I was managing as a team leader for 13 to 14 sets of forums before. Basically, while doing with the corporate banking multinational corporates, we started dealing more with venture capital private equity funds. And what I realized was that when you meet these funds, the typical requirements were we can do larger associations with you, why don’t you find portfolio companies on debt? That is a working capital requirement for the companies which are funded by venture capital and private equity. Now, if you deep dive into the banking as late as 2015, when I started dwelling upon why don’t we start funding some of these companies who might be loss-making? Can we support them from the banking perspective, whether it’s working capital finance or something else? And I think the perception at the bank level at the top level is always to get associated at the early stage and maintain some relationship because you can catch them young and grow as a company and bank keeps on augmenting this support. And 2015 was the time and actually, while Sequoia was just entering BIRA, that point of time was a series A transaction. The company’s revenue was hardly anything for the companies to get a traditional bank line. So that was the first introduction to debt for venture capital-backed companies, for me. The first lenders to BIRA that point in time from Yes Bank, it was practically a million-dollar exposure, which then got augmented to a very large exposure over a period of time. And what we realized was that we were backing founders who’ve had a great vision in terms of building businesses, which are traditionally unique in itself. So if you remember the positioning of this brand, it was kingfishers of the world as a domestic beer brand. And then there were foreign liquor brands like Hoegaarden, Corona, the positioning was can we give you an Indian price point for foreign liquor taste. And all these businesses especially, which is a little inventory heavy has certain cap requirements on the working capital for inventory and other inventory and receivables. So we started with the working capital exposure, which got augmented, it gave us the confidence to look at more companies in that space. We started building some of the other companies like we were the first bankers to Lendingkart on a debt site. And then we did companies like Rivigo, and LEAP, the leap is pilot company, based out of Bombay. They’ve grown well. So that was not a single day or delay of interest, leave alone defaults. And then IDFC hired me. This was my last stint before I started the fund. IDFC hired me to build the corporate MNC book for the north and east at the same time building on the venture lending, and that’s where we did these companies again, and the realization moment came in when you realize that actually working for a bank and you can do as much for your companies, while the ecosystem is so large across banks NBFC, and not only if you like a company and you can fund them from the fund itself, you can really partner with several banks and do not have a limitation with one bank for those companies. That’s where actually the current partners in the fund which is Avtar and Abhinav, I met them in IDFC. So that was a common street for us. Before I started thinking about the fund and 2018 as you mentioned, I came out of the bank, applied for the license. It’s not been a year even July 19, we got a license from SEBI. And now we announced our first close and we’ve been building since then. I think we’re proud of our companies which we have done and we are working closely with the banks the endeavor which we started the fund with.

Siddhartha 6:55
Awesome. So there have been, you know, venture in India for quite some time, how is Stride Ventures different from other venture firms?

Ishpreet 7:06
Yes. So with due respect, I think it’s a great franchise built up by all the people currently. It started from InnoVen, and SVP came to India then InnoVen happened, the franchise built up. I’ve been seeing the evolution of this since 2015. And practically the first AIF came in being as a venture debt fund. And it’s grown strength to stand from there. I think the entire ecosystem has been built very well. Now, actually, if you see broadly, so that the ecosystem in India for venture debt, it’s very under-penetrated. If you see in the West, it’s a very mature market. There’s a significant venture debt to venture equity presence, whereas in India, it’s still very underpenetrated. First of all, as an asset class, I think there’s a great opportunity to work closely with founders, give them debt, protect their dilution, but within that Stride actually, typically do not only work on transactions, which is equity funded, rather, we are proud to say that all the companies which are funded to now from the fund are in between an equity round with the company required more support. So, it’s not on the top of the equity round. So, we actually distinguish ourselves in terms of working closely with the business understanding the requirements, whether it’s receivable financing, inventory, financing, capital expenditure for which they deploy equity, and block their equity. Rather than deploying equity we have been preserved the equity and use the debt for that. And that’s how we do generally more revenue-oriented businesses. We also work very closely with the banks to create customer profiling for them, whether it’s building their corporate relationships, because we work with corporate banking ourselves, introducing some clients to them or natural banking support is very, very important here. If you provide the financing to an end customer to create a company product Or give them the capacity to buy a product. It goes a long way. So yeah, the differentiation is the entire team has a banking background. And we’ve totally worked on the financing requirements of the company from A to Z, it’s not only about us lending when we lend to a company, but we also get a lot of banks introduced and work very closely with the banks in order to create a large presence in the financial ecosystem.

Siddhartha 9:22
And usually, you are present once a venture capital firm has done equity financing in the company or you can come before that also, like after an angel round or a seed round?

Ishpreet 9:40
No. So, you actually are right, we do look at an institutional investor to be on board for us to fund and the reasons for that, as I said, we are generally revenue-oriented companies, so institutional investor brings in the discipline of the company to first of all, naturally a capital, and second discipline corporate governance in order to ensure that the company has reached a stable aspect before looking at debt because though the debt is quite attractive in terms of protection dilution, it’s an obligation to repay. So, if the company does not have sufficient or decent cash flows at least to repay a debt. It becomes difficult for the company in case they’re only equity dependent, if tomorrow, equity round gets dry or becomes difficult to get, I think that can really be haunting sometimes. So it’s very important first of all to understand the business requirement, debt can be substituted with equity and it’s only for the growth stage or growth aspects of the company. So we are generally, you rightly said, we are generally around series A, and come in the post an institutional investor just for these aspects.

Siddhartha 10:50
So, Ishpreet, help me understand when the largest startup in India I would call Jio to be the largest startup in India today, has raised $15 billion for 25% of their dilution, and they are using this to get over debt. And as of today, they have become debt-free. Yeah. So why should a startup take the debt? Isn’t it setting a wrong example by Jio that they are raising venture capital to ward off debt?

Ishpreet 11:25
Yeah. So, it’s a good question, but just try to understand from Jio’s perspective, the reason why they’ve been able to raise equity right now, is because debt supported them at the requirements, right? In the case of need, debt was there. That’s all you need to scale. And that debt has made Jio in terms of a particular scale. And now Jio can fetch valuations because it’s deeply penetrated in the Indian ecosystem. So the debt played its role, now’s the time to pay back right? And that’s how it happens. Our intent is never to fund the company for donkey’s years, right? So our structure of Stride is 12 to 18 months of debt, right typically. So it’s actually in case in need when you require it, do you only depend on equity investors or debt can play a role? can debt be combined with equity round? All of these aspects actually, you have to think as a founder. And if it is a decent portion, and is not giving you sleepless nights, it’s fine, right? So if a company that let’s assume has raised 150 crores of equity, and ends up taking 10-15 crores of debt, right, the business itself will be able to repay a debt. The problem lies with the fact that you end up taking debt more than equity or probably that leverage is so high that your repayment is an issue, right. That’s what we first of all introspect before giving a debt. And I think founders are very conscious, right? They do not take debt for the sake of it. It should be taken in the case of a need. Today, I think it’s a classic example when venture debt has really got the limelight in the ecosystem, because of the fact that equity is not around the corner for everywhere for everyone, it’s only the existing investors who have dry powder are willing to back their companies who’ve been performing well. Even if their revenues apps subdued, they are still performing or they are still ready to back them. The problem is that the aspect is why the company would not take a debt. So, these are the reasons why they’ve come to debt. So, debt might give them support for the next 12 months, 24 months when you have more certainties around and more equity up for grabs and that’s the time you do the repayments for the debt. So, rather Jio, which you have given as an example is a classic example that you use debt judiciously when it’s required in the business. It’s not it’s painful, it can scale the business and it can be paid back right? The way Jio did it.

Siddhartha 13:50
Help me understand, Ishpreet, a company that has 150 crores in their bank from venture capital. Why would they raise a 10-15 crore debt when they have to pay, let’s say one crore every month to repay the debt back?

Ishpreet 14:04
So, they will not take that. I’m saying the company was raised 100-150 crores can afford 10-15 crores, 20 crores, 30 crores of debt. The reason being that they might have raised that much but they would have burned a lot of it. So if you’re in a scenario that they might be around, say 15 crores, 20 crores, 30 crores left at the bank. And the burn is that much to support them for 18 months or a year. That’s the time when they say okay, that one year can become two years, or that eight months can become 16 months, 20 months of the runway through date. That’s where we played a role. Right? Because that gives them a cushion to really go forward or get the business back and then raise an equity round. And you know what happens, right? You’ve been in the ecosystem, generally, the perception is if you have the limited runway in the bank, you’re not able to negotiate, right. So that’s the point where you have the money with you then and at least you can really buy your time, you can get your business back and you can have a favorable valuation for the business so it plays a very critical role. I think that’s a undermine aspect of the debt it’s been seen as actually a company sitting with 200 crores would not take debt, they should not take debt for me as well. But a lot of companies in India right now are might be in between six months to 18 months of runway, what they will do? Or do you see an equity round around the corner for all of them? No, they would not get it rather most of them would struggle right now to raise around in spite of the fact doing revenues right at especially those valuations what they would have done previously. So, I think we’ve scooped too many companies to validate this that there is an inherent requirement for us to give those companies debt.

Siddhartha 15:44
And I agree with you you know, in time especially like these when everybody’s taking a careful look at their investments. And most of the money which is lying and dry powder with the VC is their first priority is to support their existing portfolio companies and rather than investing in new companies, so for those companies which are doing revenue and which have 12 to 18 months left in their bank, they would surely, you know, go for venture debt.

Ishpreet 16:15
Yes, that’s one. Second, Siddhartha, Also, I don’t think. and I’m being honest here, I don’t think founders are very privy about how the debt can be used in the ecosystem, which actually all of us are trying to educate. So, for example, working capital financing and inventory funding, capital expenditure, you end up deploying your equity for that equity has a cost. So in spite of the fact you might have decent money at the bank, there’s no harm taking debt to support those reasons. Because if you end up taking debt, and this might have to be repaid, but actually, it’s covering your working capital requirements, which otherwise you would have covered through equity. So the equity can be used for probably the burn or the growth of the company while the debt can be used to take care of the working capital requirements. And these are various requirements for every business. Today inventory has built up for a lot of companies and they have invested in the inventory. It’s getting sold, especially for the inventory led businesses. Receivables from a lot of corporates have dried for a while, right? It’s not today’s case normally also if you see corporates, they take time to give receivables to startups. It’s anywhere from 90 days to 120 and 150-180 days, and they end up waiting for those receivables. There are ways to get them financed and get them early and rotate the money well. So there are a lot of structural uses of debt. Venture debt should not be only looked at traditionally as a support to just protect the dilution. If you really use it judiciously with bank support and venture debt together, I think there’s a lot of synergies

Siddhartha 16:18
So, Ishpreet, one of the key things which Stride specializes in is in bringing banks also as a debt instrument. So can you help elaborate on that, and what does the interest rate overall look for a startup after you and a banker financing them.

Ishpreet 18:07
So actually, I can actually use it as an example, for a company which we have done just from the Fund, which we’ll be announcing in a couple of weeks time. So we’ve got a bank who is co-lending with us at an combined interest rate cost of around sub 12. So our natural financing is mid-teens while banks are the lower end of the spectrum. So, we have signed some MOUs and done some partnerships with the banks to build the entire case for the banks themselves. The reason why it comes natural to us because we’ve done it previously in the five, six banks. So, the intent is can we provide an ecosystem for a startup to not only reduce the cost of financing but blending together with the banks, but also provide Case in point for the companies to use banks for a lot of different things. So, they can use banks for giving more power to the customers to buy the products for this, if you put building a finance product at the customer end, it helps them get more customers there are ways to do it. If you build in not only finance at the customer level but provide your stakeholders’ finance, like your drivers, you farmers, all the sectors have a lot of partners that work for them. If you give them finance, it helps them attach to a platform of the startup. So a lot of things use cases which banks at the CEO level want to do. So, Stride is working very closely with them for all our portfolio companies to create that thing. So, you rightly said that we have been collaborating with companies, one which we have done recently, we’re actually also building those synergies with the banks. In fact, we are also looking at foreign financing with some of the foreign banks. So we do a lot of foreign trade. Because a lot of companies these days have preferred Singapore and the US as one of their establishment alongside India, so we are building cross border synergies as well.

Siddhartha 20:05
And what are your risk versus return profiles as compared to traditional VCs?

Ishpreet 20:11
So, Siddhartha, there are two-three risks in this business for debt naturally is business running out of cash is the most important risk, right because if the business owner runs out of the cash, the repayment becomes an issue. Another risk basically, our venture capital at risk as well about business not doing well in various forms founder problem might come in or something else. But our basic problem for venture debt would always be for the startup running out of cash. Since we are not heavily dependent on equity investments to bail us out, we look at more of cash flows of the business because we are not doing funding alongside an equity rounds only. We do independent rounds as well. So from that perspective, we are very, very prudent about what businesses to fund what kind of Cash Flows there are. Yep, so the most important risk is that the business not doing well or the cash flows becoming a problem and the equity investors might not be lamb. That’s that the risk which you have to foresee, returns perspective, we place our loans that maintain we have a warrant component for all the synergies, we bring it into the ecosystem. That’s traditionally anywhere from 15 to 20% of the debt amount, which is typically at the last round valuations or closer if a company’s raising a valuation mirroring that. And, yeah, that’s the return on the warrant upside, which we can have. So it’s mid-teens, for those that weren’t upside. So we typically change somewhere around 20% to 22% kind of IRR, it can be 25 depending on the case.

Siddhartha 21:53
and the warrant here helps to leverage the upside when the next round or evaluation happens?

Ishpreet 22:00
So, we actually place our warrants, as I said in the last equity round or alongside and so as the company goes, progressive in terms of the valuations, the future upside is something which the fund can gain out of. That’s warrant upside for us.

Siddhartha 22:19
And that is not time-bound once you invest in a warrant, let’s say the next round

Ishpreet 22:24
Life of the fund, Siddhartha, maximum, this is what you can take warrent for. So yeah, if you have a six year fund life, well, you will take the warrant for six years.

Siddhartha 22:34
So, among the hundreds of the companies, you have seen since last year to this year. So why did only these four, you know, Stellapps, LetsTransport, Avanti, and CredR. If you can share case by case you know, they met the criteria which you have

Ishpreet 22:51
So basically, especially Stellapps, CredR, Let’stransport the one which you just have done. All four actually, because for the other company, it was a different structure. But for all four of these companies, I think we only saw from a potential perspective, the market size, that what kind of market size these companies are catering to and what kind of dominance they have in this market. So I think all four of them are, by far, one of the largest in their own space, right. So, Stellapps with just recently, as recently three days back, they’ve been awarded as the best two tech companies in India by World Economic Forum is the largest dairy tech player in India. They cover some 25,000 villages, have a deep-rooted penetration 500o farmers. It is a very, very unique cap table of lot of impact, plus non-impact investors with 13 equity investors, including the likes of Omnivore, Blume, IndusAge, others. So yeah, I think they’ve been really cracking on the segment, seasoned founders come from a very, very strong experience doing the CXO level jobs at Wipro, IoT based company which is actually deciphering the quality of the milk who name the largest milk players in India who take and procure milk. The quality and certifications are getting done by startups. They’re working on the most code which actually would quantify the quality of the milk so it’s like Intel Inside, there will be a certification of the milk that what kind of milk consumption we are doing, what kind of quality of the milk we are consuming. So yeah, great founders large market, one of the best in that space largest by itself. Similarly, other players which we have funded, I think we discussed briefly LetsTransport early but yeah, LetsTransporter in intracity logistics is one of the largest players there. Again, a combination of a good investor and founder with a big market to cover CredR is a two-wheeler brand Again only concentrating on two-wheeler use pace. And Coronavirus has really picked up the pace for the company, right because a lot of people are moving away from public transportation and the cheapest source of taking or weighing a vehicle is two-wheelers is crowded right now because what they do is they buy it from the likes of Hero, TVS, they have contracts with them, refurbish at the centralized center, give a warranty to the bike. And it’s sold out of CredR showrooms on the top of it. So it’s like buying almost a new bike the way they prefer we should buy it with a warranty, which is actually an quite unorganized market in India. And they’re the largest player doing this. So, if you see really good and the recent company, which we have done, which we will be announcing soon I think all of them are by far the largest in this space is what we believe, and a lot of synergies with the balance which we’ve been working on for all of them in various forms. And all of them have use cases for the date. So, I think these are the major reasons why we select them. And some of these companies will be given the term sheet or again, the same, same aspects. So, I think we’ve been very judicious about where to land to. It’s not about giving debt for the sake of giving debt alongside equity investors. It’s basically understanding the businesses, understanding what value add we can bring on because venture debt has not practically been seen as that value add, majorly in the ecosystem. People think that it is more of the protection of dilution, we wanted to bring more out of it. The interesting thing is we work very closely with the board and the company to decipher and do that.

Siddhartha 26:39
So as a part of your financing, you get a board seat always?

Ishpreet 26:43
Yes, in most cases we have it. And that’s only actually that’s only the synergies which a founder realizes which Stride can bring it through the prior experience. Because for companies, the companies which you mentioned, if you get financing partners for them, all of them will have it keep on increasing on the scale. And we are the best as of now in the ecosystem in terms of the previous experience to do that, they would realize it very well. So they believe it’s of a different discussion, which happens at the board level when we talk about the financing build-up for the company, not again, Siddhartha, not specifically talking about financing the companies directly but building the ecosystem as well for that. You’re talking about probably a farmer loan or driver loan, or some similar structures, which can really propel the ecosystem for a startup to really scale on the revenues as well and have an attachment to the right kind of partners.

Siddhartha 27:32
And coming in 2020, how do you see the next set of companies who are going to become your part of the portfolio, the next term sheet, what are these companies like? What are the markets you’re going to participate in?

Ishpreet 27:48
So, we are actually sector agnostic except for deep tech, so we can do SaaS right because again, receivables revenues are a problem. They are from corporates, sometimes But yeah, as I said, we do a little bit of at least the business should have validation in terms of revenues is our only criteria. We’ve been actually looking at various sectors. So actually, as we speak, we have like, four term sheets out. And we’re looking at two more. So within the next two months, you’ll see some bit of announcements from us in terms of some of the transactions which we’ve already partnered with. And these are sectors as you wanted to understand the sectors. These are sectors, anywhere from education, to FinTech, to Agritech, to be interested in these B2B supplies, healthcare. So, these are five sectors that have been doing revenues, right. If you talk about education online, if you talk about healthcare, if you talk about content gaming, or if you talk about, again, logistics which are essentials need, or B2B which are doing essentials and BB, all of them have been doing revenues. Maybe not 200 person, may be limited, but all of them Agri as a sector we really like do, some of them might have seen impact, some of them have not seen as much impact. Yeah, so these are the sectors which we’ve been looking at. And I think the transactions will follow in these sectors soon.

Siddhartha 29:13
and it will be if you can share your perspective on how the Indian market has positioned itself in the venture Debt space in the compassion to the global market. And secondly, where do you see the Indian market venture space in the next five years?

Ishpreet 29:29
Look, Siddhartha, it’s a good question from a perspective, that actually some time you need to change the perception. It is a very high-risk business, from a perspective of some of the investors by some investors believe it’s a low-risk business, right. So there is a lot of varied perceptions about venture debt. I think if you really bring a scale to this business, India is actually very under-penetrated in the larger sense. If you look at West it’s a 10- 12% of the market cap to venture debt in terms of funding a lot of companies. So we see a huge potential in India. And I think if you’ve seen recently the traction in the past two-three years, curtsy to the existing close as well. So we’ve tried to build an ecosystem that actually has an appreciation of this asset class. Since it’s widely known invest and actually venture capital private equity business in India has really worked as well. It’s a very mature market, you see seasoned founders coming in and making very good businesses, right, who understands the ecosystem very well. People like you who have been building a lot of different skill sets of their own because you had a varied experience. You see a lot of people who really do take a chance and say, Okay, I can build a niche. So these are not the only the disruptors in the form of young guys, these are equally the mature guys will believe that they can be space around. And I think debt can really be a use case. I want to call it as debt only because of the fact that naturally, it’s venture lending back but debt used to well can really scale the business to a different level. Glad you mentioned the example of Jio, because every example which you see the company, who’s done, well have used that way. So I think it has to be used from a perspective, I think, a lot of notions about having sleepless nights and all that, that you should not take debt to replace equity I told you earlier. But if you use it for your business very well, I think India can really really, as as the venture capital and private equity market keep on growing this asset class will keep on evolving very well. And the next thing you asked the next five years or 10 years? In the next five years, I think the position from that perspective, all of us as existing players will really step up and support the ecosystem. And yeah, I think it’s very important to work very closely with banks, I think it would really go along with that companies to build a very scalable model and venture debt can really play an important role, lenders can really play an important role.

Siddhartha 32:06
I think Debt draws the negative connotation from the likes of large players you know, sorry to mention the YES bank here, but the stories which we have heard, YES Bank, Kingfisher a couple of others.

Ishpreet 32:25
The banks happened because of Kingfisher right. So, first of all, you have to understand why the lending institution went under, lending institutions went under either maybe bad corporate governance or basically, the corporates or the companies didn’t do well, or there’s bad corporate governance at the company’s level. So, the institutions which you just mentioned was a reflection of that right. So, if that is in place, which is I think, something which we discussed that corporate governance is very critical which you expect a high degree of corporate governance from venture capital, private equity investors as well when they are on board, that basically if that’s taken care of, I see no reason why debt would not be used. Well, if you’re talking about flyers or the company’s going down under financial institution because of that particular aspect, I think, yeah, that’s where the challenge is. But I don’t think that can give a negative connotation to debt. If I think slowly and gradually, I think we’ll see it changing. That’s our endeavor as well, that you see founders speaking highly about these things, and really adopting it when rather than running away from it. So I think glad you brought it up. Siddhartha, I think that there is a perception to be changed. I think it’s seen a change because if you’re getting debt today in these difficult times, right and because of XYZ reasons, or some of the investors not supporting I think it’s already changing a perception because in need if you’re getting some debt right and extending your runways? That’s the way you have to look at this.

Siddhartha 34:05
Thank you so much, Ishpreet. It’s been a wonderful conversation with you and thanks for sharing your experience and insight.

Ishpreet 34:11
Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasant discussion and all the best you’ve been doing great work.

Vector Graphic Vector Graphic

Know when new episodes are released. Subscribe to our newsletter!

Please enter a valid email id