Full Transcript

Dhruv Sharma: Hey there listeners and welcome to the final live stream of the Offline Network, the final live stream in 2025 of the Offline Network. You'll notice we have two different backgrounds today, that's because we're in two different cities and I'm going to actually ask Utsav to tell us why that is and what we were doing.

Utsav Somani: So as you may know that I run this community called Offline and we've got an awesome team that planned this amazing founders retreat for all of our members. There were approximately 70 people who came together in this beautiful country called Georgia. A short five-hour flight from Delhi, but honestly the best time that we've ever experienced like the Georgian hospitality, the countryside and the snow of course was beautiful. We covered a lot of activities, you can see in some of the images that will pop up on our screen as well. Everyone had a blast, there were a lot of cha-cha shots, which is a Georgian liquor as well. But apart from that, I think the time that we spent together was just wonderful and Dhruv decided to extend his trip to experience some of that Georgian hospitality for a day longer. And yeah, I mean the weather was phenomenal, the people were amazing, the kind of activities that we've done, just amazing, right. And I think you'll see many of that in the videos that we put out across this week as well, but exciting, exciting. What did you make of the retreat, Dhruv?

Dhruv Sharma: So what I absolutely loved was the time we spent within the community with the members, their partners, their spouses, and we were chatting about this just last evening, right. When we first got in, everyone was just talking shop, going back and forth about how the year was for our respective businesses, trying to understand other people's businesses. By the second and third and fourth day, we really, you know, we came together as just like as people, as humans, bonded in a way that, you know, I haven't seen us bond in quite some time. Many, many years ago, someone told me that, you know, the difference between say banking and venture, and what they said was in banking, very often, you know, what happens is transactions lead to relationships. And what happens in venture or the private markets is relationships lead to transactions. So we weren't there to sign deals with each other, though, that might just end up happening. But if it does happen, it will happen because, you know, everyone really just came together as people.

Utsav Somani: And, you know, And so many of our team and guests were there, Piyush, Rudra and many others were there. And everyone's had a great time meeting the offline community as well. And I mean, just hold your horses. If you join our WhatsApp community, you will see access, early access to some of the videos and content that we put out from these few days that we spent on the Georgian slopes. But coming back, we were not streaming on Friday. There was somebody who called us out on Twitter, where they said, the Indian TVPN needs to talk about unacademy or are they just doing PR friendly exercises. We of course, were busy with the retreat. So we don't have a nuanced view on this. But from what I think it transpired from whatever we read on Twitter and posts that were put out by many other people, I think unacademy cut their exercise window from 10 years to 30 days, which affects a lot of their alum employees. Dhruv, do you have an opinion on this?

Dhruv Sharma: Not an opinion yet, Utsav, and that's partly because we were away, but partly also because it still is a developing story. I'm not sure lots of, you know, a lot of the people who are posting their hot and sharp dates also have a fully formed opinion, you know, they don't have access to the investment agreements. You know, I will say this, that you only come to realize how sometimes inaccurate news reporting can be when you are a part of it. And so I think what we might do for this story is we'll try and see if we can just get, you know, the key individuals involved come talk about this.

Utsav Somani: We tried getting Gaurav on the show, by the way, yesterday, but I think he's busy with all of this stuff right now. But would have been lovely to have Gaurav and maybe Kashish join us to break it down, like I think give him a more neutral platform, because I think words can get lost behind these emails and exchanges on Twitter and all of that stuff. So I think it will be good to have him sometime on the show.

Dhruv Sharma: But on balance, I think, you know, one has to obviously empathize with the employers as well. They're now kind of on a short clock, 30 days is all that they have to make a decision. The one thing I will say, you know, with respect to that is maybe what could make this easier is if Gaurav and the Unacademy team were to just rope in a credible third party and ask them to put out pros and cons so that people have to have, you know, people can make a decision within those. It's still going to be a personal decision. But for people who are sitting on vested options, you know, it's really come down to do you want to be a part of the, you know, liquidation waterfall or not. And Unacademy may have done some things right and some things wrong. But the tax treatment of ESOPs is definitely something that they haven't, you know, written down. And maybe that opens a broader conversation with, you know, with our government as well.

Utsav Somani: And many founders chime in as well. I think the Cast24 founder, Vikram, then there was Razorpay founders as well, giving a brief history about the exercises or the buyback exercise that they've done within their companies as well. So that's exciting in a way that people still believe in the value of ESOPs. And there are people like Ravi Handa, who was our guest as well on TUN, who made a point that focus on maximizing your cash sort of component of the salary and not worry too much about the ESOPs. It's sort of like buying a lottery ticket. Of course, that ESOP liquidity is concentrated in many of the top one to five percent startups of the country. But if done right and if the company does well, it is definitely a huge upside. Like, I mean, whenever any of these companies like Urban Company or any of the companies that went for an IPO this year, I'm pretty certain that the Bangalore rents would have gone up because of that. Just because so many people have cashed in.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. And if we can stay with this point for a bit, sure, it makes sense to optimize for cash early in your career or if you're in a specific life stage, you know, sometimes life happens, you have obligations, you have kids to send to school, you have a home to buy, your parents are aging and so on and so forth. So, again, it's a very individual choice, but I mean, ours is not the only startup ecosystem in the world and there's others too. And once people, you know, have a sufficient, I mean, once people have a personal safety net, you will almost always see them optimizing for ESOPs or something that can create asymmetric opportunities in the future. So should this one incident, you know, be the death sentence for ESOPs? Absolutely not.

Utsav Somani: No. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, Kashish made that point, right? ESOP buybacks, which are a facilitator on his platform as well. He's seen a number go up significantly as well. He put out a LinkedIn post as well, describing some of this. So I think, I mean, two sides to every story. Like we've always come into the show, I mean, discussing how, I mean, there's no one way to cut a particular story and we don't want to present an opinion that we haven't formed yet. So I think, thanks for calling us out. Of course, we want to present the facts to you and always come chat with you about news and our WhatsApp community is alive and buzzing. So just come and chat with other people who might have different viewpoints as well to this thing as well.

Dhruv Sharma: And equally, I might add, I mean, it's one thing to expect the show, you know, this platform to have a sharp new mistake. Maybe you have one of your own. And if you do, I mean, we're just a message away and we're happy to invite you into the conversation and, you know, what your thoughts have been on any story that's developing.

Utsav Somani: But I mean, look at the facts. They're basically doing, I mean, the valuation that they mentioned in the email that they put out was 2650 crores, approximately. So UpGrad seems to be the potential acquirer of this company. They've raised significantly more amount of capital than this. And it's a stock-based transaction from what Gaurav put out as well. So anybody who exercises will, of course, be liable to pay taxes on the stocks, the shares that he or she gets. And there's no, I mean, real possibility of getting cash for that right now, even if they've crossed the liquidation preference hurdle. All of these are very technical concepts. So we do need an expert to come and chat. That is, yes.

Dhruv Sharma: So there is no cash and it's all stock. And again, to our earlier point, right? Like, I mean, options are contracts, they're not securities. So for you to have a dog in this fight, you first need to be in the liquidation waterfall and hold carbon stock. And that's essentially what this whole thing has been about. Now, in order to exercise them, you have to foot a tax bill up front, which is incredibly, I mean, which can be incredibly daunting for most people to have to pay taxes on money that you haven't seen yet. And yeah, so it's a difficult situation for everybody.

Utsav Somani: I mean, stay tuned. We'll keep tracking this. There's something happening in the world of global edtech as well. Coursera and Udemy merge in a $930 million all-stock deal as well. The combined entity is now valued at $2.5 billion. There's all this activity in the tech world, I think, which post-COVID, I think, took a bit of a beating. But I think today we can, of course, we're talking about Coursera, Udemy, Unacademy, but the big one was Physicswala that went for an IPO this year. And we'll talk a little bit about the IPO market as well as we end the show as well. A quick rewind now. I think let's just give ourselves a pat on the back. We've done this for 43 episodes. We've had 80 plus, 85 plus guests now. And many of the guests who've come on have gone on to do such wonderful things, like Akhtarath, who announced his $75 million fund and discussed it with us on the show. He was the first guest to come on TON as well. And there are these companies like Noise, who was on the retreat as well. Gaurav Khatri has crossed 1000 crores in net revenue. Nikunj Biyani has scaled to over 160 crores in ARR as well. Sumit Gupta has raised funding from Coinbase and seen 4.5X growth in the year. And I mean, it's just insane. Even one of our guests, Nitin Jain, he's discussed it on the show, but I think he's formally announced it on LinkedIn as well that he's leaving our business to start his next venture. And we'll have many of these guests back again on the show in 2026 as they keep on building and scaling and growing. And it'll be exciting to keep tracking the same guests as we grow the show as well to hear from their previous experiences and what they're building next as well. I'm pretty excited about it, by the roster of guests that we're building and the stories that keep on evolving. Yeah, Dhruv? Yeah. Yes. Yes, absolutely. What are you most excited about in 2026? What should we do differently? Or what should we do more of?

Dhruv Sharma: Like with respect to the show?

Dhruv Sharma: I think like we, so first we have to do a lot more of what we've been doing, which is finding incredible people to bring to, you know, to bring to the show, to our listeners. And the one thing that we have done differently, I'm not sure if this resonates with, you know, the people who listen in just yet, is most of our guests come and share, you know, a moment time with us. We're not doing these capstone style, you know, let's do a look back at your life's journey kind of, you know, say quote unquote podcasts. And so, and that makes it different. That makes it again, very, very human. You see how, you know, somebody who's still contending with decisions and choices, you know, how sometimes deeply flawed their thinking could be even or how conflicted they could be in the moment. I think that's what sets what we're trying to do here apart from, you know, everything else that we have out there. We, of course, we, you know, we do listen and lean in and draw inspiration heavily from people who've been, you know, what's the point of reinventing the wheel? You know, the Chinese actually were saying so that there's nothing new under the sun. So did we get inspired by format? Absolutely, we did. That format in turn was also inspired by something else. And, but yeah, what we do on the show, regardless of the format is covered deeply Indian stories from the Indian ecosystem with Indian founders. And it's fun.

Utsav Somani: And everyone's doing their job. I don't know why people call other people out on Twitter. But I think, I mean, nobody invented journalism, right? You're just putting like, I mean, keyboard to basically your word processor document. So you're not doing anything new. Like everyone's just trying to do news in their own way or try to tell new stories in different ways. And I think that's great for founders and startup ecosystem in general. Like, I think you should support more of this. I think the world is drowned in negativity, rage, weighty, click, all of this stuff that is just driving people to like, get opinionated or aggressive about certain things. But sometimes it's just good to have a calm, peaceful environment where you can just talk about stuff in a very peaceful manner. Like, I think that's my in with T.O.N as well. And I believe you believe the same thing as well. We want to talk to people who are building awesome technology or building and progressing the startup ecosystem of India and having them on the show is just phenomenal. And it's, I mean, privilege for us that we get to speak. I mean, across 40 shows, we've spoken to 85 different founders and their stories are inspiring. If it doesn't inspire you, then I don't know what else will, to be honest. And next year, I think we'll do more of technologists as well. India has seen a bunch of deep tech activity this year. We've covered all the AI mega deals, but India is having its own deep tech moment. And Vishesh was on our first show as well from Speciale Invest. And I mean, the kind of stuff that's getting funded in India, like it's fascinating. Like even recently, Digiantra, one of the space companies raised 50 million and they're all doing such cool stuff. Like, and we don't have, of course, the technology brains to dissect all of this or have an opinion on this, but just hearing from the founders directly and bringing that to our audience. I think that's a privilege that we do not take lightly. And we'll keep doing more of that. Yeah.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. That's in fact been like, it's been one of the most heartening things to see yourself, which is to see a lot more, I mean, the real builders and tinkerers dive in and build like more atoms and not just bits kind of companies and take up like hard science and engineering type problems. We had Sparsh, in fact, with us on the offsite as well of all carbon. Last year, we had a Vest. These are all great, you know, examples of great builders. And to your earlier point, right? There's a very, very fine line, I think, between being critical and being cynical. And being critical is great. Like applying critical thinking is what makes us subjective and objectively good. But nothing breaks my heart more personally than seeing, you know, young cynics. And you have an entire lifetime ahead of you, by all means, be a, you know, original thinker, be a critical thinker. But you don't become cynical that early in your lives and career. So, you know, that's what we sometimes find on Twitter.

Utsav Somani: And I mean, he has made everyone an armchair trick take where they think that they have access to the world's knowledge, but everyone else does too. Like it's what you do with it. I think that ends up defining where you end up in life. That's my opinion. But yeah, something to celebrate.

Dhruv Sharma: Our final stream is becoming deeply reflective. I think there's something about the final week of December.

Utsav Somani: I'm doing this after a three-hour sleep on a red-eye flight. So I think, of course, my brain is a little foggy, but so much to celebrate. But next year, I think we'll bring more VPs of technologies and CEOs and all of these people to come and explain like deeply technical stuff as well. And some of our audience might find that exciting as well to hear from them as well. Because typically what we've done is we've had more CEOs where they talk about business and the industry in general. But maybe we can do some deep dive sessions as well. So let's experiment with this format in 2026. Yes. All right. Lots to celebrate in the startup ecosystem. Big, big IPOs. Misho, Urban Company, Grow. I mean, First Cry, Physicswala, FineLabs. I mean, the returns on them have been insane. So... Aether, Lenskart, Bluestone, the class of 2025. And I mean, VC funds have crushed it. We've discussed the P15 story where everyone was writing them off. There was churn in the team as well. And now they've really come back with a bang with them on the leadership position in the liquidity market now. Yeah. And funding, of course, as anything, it's cyclical, goes up and goes down. You can obviously look up the numbers, but I think we've had a good year in terms of bouncing back as well. It'll be exciting to see some AI activity come up in India as well. And great to see Arpit leading that charge as well, where he's trying to find AI companies and AI founders in India and support them with the global network that he has in his fund also. Unicorn activity is back up. We had 23 unicorns in 2022, 2 in 2023, 3 in 2024, and 11 in 2025. So 2025 was a good year for the mythical creature.

Dhruv Sharma: How many do we have now, sir?

Utsav Somani: Man, I think the number is over 100. But of course, it keeps fluctuating because some, I mean, of course, take an exit from that or are dead pooled. So I don't know what the real number is, but it's definitely over 100 for now.

Dhruv Sharma: Maybe close to 120, maybe.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, we're the third largest startup ecosystem in the world. So there is definitely activity and always will be. And I think with these IPOs and what we've discussed, there'll be second order benefits to the ecosystem where founders will get liquidity, you will sync up, you will get for the fences and start more risk taking ventures as well. So it's all part of the boom cycle, basically, where it'll eventually lead to good outcomes.

Dhruv Sharma: So as the OG angel, how does it feel to have, you know, to see such a, I mean, the story play out over, you know, what now, like 15 years?

Utsav Somani: No, I first wrote my first angel check in 2014. The first one was a company called Testbook. Now the founders are doing the next venture, which is Grexar.ai. They're trying to help small businesses in India get an online store presence and also get them traffic or footfall via giving them presence on Google.

Dhruv Sharma: I recommended it to the gentleman who cuts my hair. And he, you know, used to build a website and then, you know, his digital presence and then went and told all his friends about it as well. So yeah, very timely.

Dhruv Sharma: You also had a dog in the air tech fight since that long?

Utsav Somani: Yeah, Testbook was one of the early ones. Then Matrix invested now Z47 and a couple of other, Iron Pillar came in. Then they ended up selling the company as well. And so it was a mildly profitable exit for the angels. And then my second investment in 2015 was the company called Sugar Cosmetics. Now Vinita is of course a shark as well. And Elevation bought out the angels as well. So I've seen the journey play out. But of course, I didn't have that much liquidity back in the day. And I didn't have a fund nor like the syndicate product, which AngelList India did. So liquidity was always a challenge. So I was investing maybe in four or five companies a year back in the day. But I think Titan Capital, I think, was the more prominent investor back in the day. They started early. They were like, I mean, founders of Snapdeal back in the day were, I mean, one of the most prominent marketplaces of the country. So they did exceptionally well as angels. So, yeah, I mean, everyone's, I think, if you start...

Dhruv Sharma: I'm privileged to have served them as customers at AngelList India as well.

Utsav Somani: So, boom. So, yeah, I mean, the story is playing out. I haven't had an IPO yet. Misha would have been that first one if I had listened to Rohan and Joey from, Rohan and Arjun from Good Capital. But, yeah, I mean, the story is still playing out. I think next two years look very promising for the exit in the liquidity market overall. Yeah, Fintech is leading. No surprises there. Health tech, e-commerce, AI, food tech, all the web sectors have made a mark as well. And, I mean, yeah, the VC outlook's looking nice. We've had Axel as the most active investor. They did 30 plus deals in H1. Bloom Ventures was the seed category leader as well. And Westbridge Capital's really stepping up as well with General Catalyst coming in big as well in the late-stage category. Exciting. I think it's exciting. We've had 10.5 billion gone into startups so far and still 17% down from last year. But I think the numbers do tend to have a lag of when they get reported in the public. So, I think we'll probably match 24 if not exceeded.

Dhruv Sharma: Plus, it's a cyclical business.

Utsav Somani: It's a cyclical business.

Dhruv Sharma: So, there are local trends, but, you know, globally, we keep tending upwards. There's this really nice graph, by the way, on Ray Dalio's How the Economy Works video on YouTube. Where, I mean, if the broad trend, the sinusoidal ways, if it's trending upwards, the trend within, if you really zoom in, could still be up and down and up and down. But you're broadly trending up. And that's, I think, the story of the ecosystem as well at this point in time.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we've got much to cover. We don't want to keep you away from the holiday season. So, hope you have a wonderful holiday season. Do check out our newsletter. We put out a good newsletter on Substack as well. It's called TO and Dispatch. Second edition came out last week. Dhruv has mentioned some solid book recommendations. I'm much more of a lighter guy. So, I'm recommending some awesome TV shows that I've seen across the year as well.

Dhruv Sharma: What are you saying? We both recommended an equal number of books. I haven't recommended no movies, though. What's Landman? Landman?

Utsav Somani: Landman is amazing. It's by the creator of Yellowstone. It's the Madman guy and Billy Hopthorn. Like, dude, what a show. It's about this midwestern oil billionaire and how the deal making happens when you have to sell, I mean, extract oil and then sell it. So, fascinating. I mean, that Jon Hamm guy is amazing, basically. So, he's done really well. I've recommended one of his other shows as well. Your Friends and Neighbors. It's on Apple TV as well. Go check it out. I mean, it was a good year for TV. I think these OTT shows are killing it. So, you can get sucked in easily.

Dhruv Sharma: But everyone, do see our second newsletter.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, that's the TLDR. All right, folks. Have a wonderful, wonderful year end and do write a banger LinkedIn post on everything that you've accomplished in 2025 and send us your best ones and we'll be sure to share it with our community as well. Let's cheer each other on and have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year to you. See you in 2026. Bye-bye.