Summary

The Offline Network Episode 3: Tax Reform, Deep Tech & Crypto (aired 2025-09-05). Guests: Sumit Gupta, Neil Borate, Vishesh Rajaram from CoinDCX, Livemint, Speciale Invest. Sumit: "Difficult to say, but what I can say for sure is that if you would have asked me this question three years back, I would be doubtful if India would essentially talk about crypto so much and will even be serious about regulations." Sumit: "You know, now we are relaxed because those two years were terrible for everyone in the industry." Topics: venture capital and funding, AI and LLMs, crypto and Web3, consumer brands and D2C. The Offline Network is India's live show on startups, tech, and venture — streaming M/W/F at 4 PM IST on YouTube.

Full Transcript

Dhruv Sharma: Hello and welcome to the third stream of the Offline Network, the show where we bring people who keep moving the story forward. Look, this is just our first week and we've already had two episodes and spoken to six guests and today we have three more. Today we are speaking with Sumit Gupta of CoinDCX, we're speaking with Neel Bharate and later in the show we'll also be speaking with Vishesh Rajaram of SpecialInvest. Now since the last time you tuned in and we spoke to you, the government has announced GST reforms. What's up? What do we know so far?

Utsav Somani: So three numbers to look forward to 5, 18 and 40. They're trying to bring down the cost or the taxes for many of these categories to boost consumer spending with the festive season just around the corner. So e-commerce companies, DDC brands and many other retail brands that people save up for when they're heading into the festive season should see a big boost. But this also means that government is taking a big tax hit as well. So that's why they're calling this a Diwali gift. It'll be interesting to see how this all boosts consumption. They're expecting at least 40% bump up in numbers this season.

Dhruv Sharma: Very interesting and also this is not a standalone reform. It's happening on the back of direct tax reforms, which were announced a few months ago, a repo rate cut. And I think the overall expectation is that these steps in back-to-back motions will spur and revive the economy. How do you think this will impact companies in our ecosystem, companies that sell to consumers?

Utsav Somani: The short-term impact? I mean, September 22nd is when it all goes live. So I mean, it's a cleaning up of a lot of, I mean, the ambiguity and like differences in the GST regime, right? So they're calling it GST 2.0 as well. And September 22nd, it goes live, Flipkart, Amazon, everyone's shifted their big sales and the big festive sales to that period. So large categories, right? I mean, DDC brands are going to get a big boost because beauty, wellness is covered in this. They're giving it a big health push as well. So all of those discretionary spends that go towards these categories will see a big boost as well.

Dhruv Sharma: I mean, there's two ways of looking at this. And one way is, of course, people who have to spend on discretionary goods and luxury commodities. Tax has never been the reason why they're not spending. And so to that extent, it might just be a limited bump up. But again, I think we'll have to wait and watch. To your point about just two rates in effect now, there was a point in time when we used to have 17 central and state taxes, which were reduced to four, which are now two plus one, you know, syntax. So yeah, it's the second slew of reforms. And it's definitely news that affects all of us.

Utsav Somani: And what else is happening? Another trend that's catching up, right? Almost everyone is ordering, anyone who's tuning into the show has experienced QuickCommerce, the power of QuickCommerce, where you're doing your top up spending, like you go to big horizontal ecommerce platforms to do your everyday spend, not your everyday spends, but the whole weekly spends, maybe or the monthly spends on goods that you're procuring. But also, QuickCommerce is now enabling this whole generation of top up spending where you don't think twice and you just log into like Blinkit, Zepto or Swiggy, Instamart and just get anything that you want in 10 minutes. But this also brings a whole different set of challenges, right? Long tail discovery for categories like fashion, where you need to solve for return deliveries, you need to solve for, I mean, cold storage in terms of meat deliveries and many other things that you need to solve for. So this whole industry is being unfunded. And one of the companies raised a decent round in this one and saw a big jump in valuation as well. First Club, they're trying to focus on quality products, higher AOEs, they're trying to do better delivery, and you know what you are paying for, that's what you want to get.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. You know, what's interesting is that, of course, at some level, these companies compete with each other. But at the end of the day, they all compete with your refrigerator. And they've, they've had it so that I mean, how do you generally plan your groceries or do you order several? Do you find yourself ordering several times in the day?

Utsav Somani: Several times in the day. To be honest, it's very hard. And also it's made, I mean, the muscle memory is that, hey, I can always Blinkit it later, right? Or any of these other platforms that it's so simple that you don't think twice about money. Although parents didn't have that luxury, they always had to write down these big grocery lists and just order. But that, I mean, QuickCommerce, India is a very unique country that's been able to crack QuickCommerce. And why is that? Approximately 500 pin codes in the country are accounting for all the ecommerce activity in India. And majority of that are in short clusters with cheap labor, cheap delivery, infra. All of this combined, India is one of the very few countries in the world that has QuickCommerce this thing. So now we're going to see many such players unbundle this whole opportunity.

Dhruv Sharma: So what you're saying is the horizontal platforms brought about that behavioral shift and that takes time and it takes capital. But that shift has taken place now. Even on QuickCommerce, everyone went from being cynics and naysayers to just everyday consumers. Look, we're both ordering several times in a day, as is everyone else who's on our show. And what you're seeing is if you're doing several categories at once, look, things vary from one category to the other, right? Like there's things like soap and shampoo don't go bad if you keep them on a shelf, but perishables do. And every now and then you have something land at your doorstep and the quality doesn't check out. And so you either return it. And so that's specifically what this company is solving.

Utsav Somani: Absolutely. Absolutely. And now going into deep tech funding, right, there are approximately 160,000 startups in India and only 3600 of them are in the deep tech category and they've been funded. So very few dollars go dollars or rupees go into funding deep tech companies. These are capex heavy businesses that probably change what we use in our daily lives as well, because the kind of technology that they bring about in terms of our consumer behavior as well, but also give us access to is interesting. What's your take on the new alliance that's been formed?

Dhruv Sharma: I mean, it's interesting and you don't I mean, I'm not even sure if this is the first time we're seeing such a thing, but it's it'll be interesting to watch. But on deep tech, I think, you know, it's a unique category. And by the way, I personally don't like using deep tech as a I just prefer calling it hard science and engineering. But those companies are different. Their requirements are different. They're like you have to float investments into such companies. Sometimes your starting point is a long R&D cycle. You have to get to a prototype, model it, simulate it, and only then, you know, if something's going to work or not work. And then, of course, you double down on manufacturing capability. So you have to front load investments. You can't rip feed capital to these companies. And of course, we're going to have Vishesh later on in the show to just unpack all of this for us. And even, you know, taking money out of these companies, you can't do it on an artificial timeline. So if this consortium has come together to commit to, you know, to collectively commit what I'd assume they're calling pay capital, it's going to be good for us and for India's long term future.

Utsav Somani: Absolutely. And India is already making a big push, right? The semiconductor mission, the AI push that we're doing with the India AI mission that Arpit spoke about. So a whole bunch of money is going into driving this. We're approximately at five percent of all the capital that's being put into Indian startup goes towards deep tech companies versus China, where it's thirty five percent. So I think we can use that catch up time and the catch up capital to come to that stage where we can leapfrog in terms of different innovations. And UPS showed us that we can do it on the software side. Can we do it on the hardware side? I think that's the thing that we can see going forward. And talking about AI, Akrit touched upon one of the things that we can do differently as India uniquely is data labelling and Uber's recently announced an initiative where they're all the partners on the platform in 12 cities, 12 Indian cities can now use that free time to do these micro gigs. And they're calling this AI data labelling. Uber has created a separate wing called Uber AI and they've got some big clients across the world as well. So people, the drivers, when they're not earning, right, sharing earnings are taking a hit as well. So whenever they're free, they can use their mobile phones to basically do like different annotation projects, tagging images, tagging receipts, comparing text, all of that stuff on the fly and earn an extra side gig income.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. Marketplaces just don't like residual capacity, do they? I mean, even their original model was to acquire an asset and then sweat the asset, basically turning CapEx into OpEx. And the drivers, poor things, used to have a little spare time on hand and now that's going to get used to. But also this data labelling thing, I've not really gone deep into it. Can you maybe just spend a minute talking about what it really is? Because you brought it up with one of our previous guests as well. I want to learn more.

Utsav Somani: So, I mean, in terms of, I mean, there is so much amount of data that's going and being created across these platforms in the world, right? Somebody needs to manually tag it. And the funny thing is, when you do a capture on a different website, when you're trying to log in, that's a mini form of data labelling as well. They're actually using, that company is using you to do data labelling on the fly and you don't even know it. So tasks like these, like you need to tag images, data, like so Tesla is generating a lot of real world AI data via their cars. Somebody in Philippines, Indonesia or any of the other countries is actually tagging all of that, just so that the system has more context as we go along. Of course, the build, that muscle and the software to, I mean, basically the car should be able to...

Dhruv Sharma: On maps, Google Maps, I mean, the prediction on ETA gets better when more cars in any given, you know, region are using it. Interesting.

Utsav Somani: Awesome. Let's step into the guest segment. I go back a long time with our first guest, Sumit Gupta. We're going to talk about crypto, capital and clarity with our guest, but let's start with crypto. Welcome to the show, Sumit. I think you're on mute. Happens. What's happening? Long, long time.

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): Yeah, congrats on the show. It's exciting.

Utsav Somani: It's a live new format that we're trying and thanks to guests like you who've spent time educating us and educating our listeners as well. But a recent news that I read, so we're going to do this quick fire, quick format and we're going to catch up on all the world of crypto with you. You've recently announced a BitOasis acquisition, very recent, not super recent, but recently recent. You've launched in Bahrain as well. So lots happening at your end. You're spending time in the Middle East, you're spending time in India. Give us some numbers, like paint a picture of what does the story of CoinDCX look like as of today?

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): Yeah, it's been seven and a half years. Started from two young engineers who just got to know about crypto and then fast forward, it's been seven and a half, eight years and we are a 500 member team operating in multiple regions. Of course, Middle East is a very exciting market, very growing market. We've got licenses, which is something that is yet to come in India. We've got full licenses from Bahrain Central Bank. Very few central banks have given recognition, acceptance to crypto. So Bahrain is one of them. We got there. There are a couple of other regions where we are almost about to get licenses. So very exciting market. A lot of activity happening there. On India, it's a little lagging, but a lot of action happening behind the doors.

Utsav Somani: When do you think it's going to happen? And especially with the RMG ban, like, do you think it's headed in a positive direction that now that spend and attention is going to come towards crypto?

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): Well, honestly, Utsav, if you ask me, when will it be regulated? Difficult to say, but what I can say for sure is that if you would have asked me this question three years back, I would be doubtful if India would essentially talk about crypto so much and will even be serious about regulations. But now the signals that I'm getting from different sources is that there is inclination to regulate the sector, especially given what's all happening globally. There is geopolitical angle as well to crypto. There's Genius Act, Clarity Act, all of these acts getting passed. And now even the rest of the Asian countries are now openly accepting it. I think this is going to have some influence on Indian government's thinking. And I see a lot more conversations happening around acceptance and aligning the regulations with global sort of narrative because it's a global asset class. You can't take a very different stance. Our finance minister has already clarified it. But some of the departments were sort of, you know, in Delhi Dalit mode. Now they are all also seeing that it's not just us that are saying regulate us, but it's also some of the other countries and their stakeholders pushing, you know, regulations globally. So yeah, hopefully, maybe in, honestly, if you ask me, 2026, second half or 2027, first half is where we may see action happening is, again, my personal reading.

Dhruv Sharma: Sumit, if you rewind the clock to when you first started and when you entered the crypto industry, again, we're talking from an industry standpoint, not from a CoinDCS standpoint. There's always some days that are sort of etched in your memory, right? Like those big days where you remember where you were when you heard something or read something. So maybe just walk down that so-called memory lane and tell us what those days have been for the industry in your journey.

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): Yeah, for the industry. I mean, there are many, many. Anyone can write a book and it's going to be very interesting and you will make a movie out of it.

Dhruv Sharma: This industry has had more such days than any other industry. Yeah, true that.

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): Yeah, I mean, from an industry perspective, I think 2018, April and what some would very well remember, that was the time when many startups, like every third founder I was meeting who was, you know, starting up, you know, was thinking of launching an exchange. And then suddenly this banking ban came up where no crypto company was allowed to get services from the banks. This was in April 2018 and that was the time when we were about to launch. But that was the time when the market started falling. We started building the company after that. So that was a time like when companies were shutting down left, right and center, like pretty much 90% of the startups died, you know, overnight that time or people who were about to launch, they just stopped building it and pivoted to something else. And then two years later, in 2020, when this banking ban got reversed, I vividly remember every founder who was building in the, I was in Mumbai, every founder was building the category, just hugging them, hugging each other. Like there were celebrations all around in the office. People were like so happy. And that was a two year tough battle where, you know, there was a long battle between, you know, RBI and the industry and Supreme Court gave a decision in favor of the industry. And that was a time when people are like, okay, fine. You know, now we are relaxed because those two years were terrible for everyone in the industry. If you don't have capital, you'll be dead.

Utsav Somani: Interesting. And I mean, coming back more to CoinDCX now, what are the, I mean, you've gone through a hack recently, by the way, how's the team doing? How's the model within the company? And what are you doing to come out of it more strongly?

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): I mean, it's all learning, right? It's all learning. In the biggest of the biggest exchanges have faced such kind of situations. But what really matters is how you handle those with transparency, honesty, and clarity to the customers and ensure that customers...

Utsav Somani: You guys did a great job, by the way. You guys did a fantastic job, the entire team coming together, live streaming and answering everyone's questions. I think that was trust building at its core.

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): I mean, like, honestly, if you ask me what's up, I think transparency is the token of trust. And the fundamental principle was we just have to be as transparent as possible. Nobody even asked us, you know, do all of this because we were like, we had the customer questions clarified, but it's just that we feel it's our responsibility as a market leader to come out. And as CoinDCX, I mean, we genuinely believe that we just need to go out like even though keeping the ethos of blockchain, just like even we release our monthly transparency report. I think very few companies do that globally. But I think the idea was that we just need to carry that ethos and just be as transparent as possible, which in fact, increase the trust even more. So our business now is actually higher than what it was before the incident, right? And customer acquisition, all of that has gone up because this is what customers need at the end of the day, that if something goes wrong, how is this company going to treat us and our assets? And we have sort of, and the entire team did a phenomenal job. There's a lot more energy in the company. And I think these are the times when people come together and we take learning from this and then how can we come out of it stronger? Take those learning is what matters the most. And if you are able to generate 10x more value by just keeping that learning in mind, I think that's a good, good, good ROI.

Utsav Somani: Sorry, I'm just going to ask him one more question, because I think we've not covered the numbers of CoinDCX. Like what's publicly available? How many users do you have? How many countries are you live in? What kind of tokens are available? Like just some general numbers.

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like we have over 2 crore registered users in India and yeah, around a couple of million users outside India as well, which have almost like 8 to 10x more ARPU than India. But India is like a very fast growing market. We have grown 4.5x in the last one year alone. And apart from that, we have presence in India, UAE, Bahrain, a couple of other regions, but we are pretty much present in the rest of the Middle East as well. And there are plans to expand internationally given the tech we have built is pretty much the same. And a lot of people know CoinDCX as just an exchange. But I just want to clarify to the audience here that CoinDCX is not just an exchange. Exchange is our core business. But we have a bunch of other products that are in the Web3 ecosystem, all the way from having our own self-custodial wallet where people hold the keys with them, to having our own ventures arm, to having our own API stack, to having our own blockchain that in future we plan to serve it for Indian Web3 use cases. So we have got a bunch of stuff on DeFi side and a lot more exciting stuff in the works, which we will intend to release in coming quarters.

Utsav Somani: Awesome. Dhruv, sorry, I interrupted you.

Dhruv Sharma: Oh, no, not at all. So I just want to go back to the incident, Sumit. You know, one of the goals we have with TON is to make it super dense and high signal for founders. And this is as high signal as it gets, right, to have you on just shortly after that incident is taking place. So condense the learnings for us, Sumit. It's not the first time it's happened. And as much as we would like, it's not the last time it can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime. So what have you learned and what can we take away from it as founders?

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): Yeah. So just to clarify, the way we handle our assets is a lot of, most of the customer assets are parked in cold wallets, right, which is completely segregated. And this was a very sophisticated social engineering attack, very sophisticated, one of its kind. We've never seen like that happening with anyone else, because what the way we operate is that every time something like that happens, there is a war room that gets created and we just incorporate all the learnings from then and just like make sure that, okay, where does Coinbase stand? You know, given the learnings, what others have gone through, how are we protected? And every time I think we have, we made sure that it's done. Even this time, the wallet infrastructure is completely protected, safe, has been there, has been the case. And even this time it was completely unbreakable. What we operate is like we operate on third party exchanges, liquidity model, and some of the funds, like every business needs working capital. So you park those funds in different, different places to source liquidity. And that was the tech vector, which generally is a unique thing to us because not every exchange essentially relies on third party exchanges for liquidity because the problem exists pretty much in India, right? Where the markets are not as liquid after taxation. So you have to rely on that. The idea is that now we will not have any funds lying externally. We will work on a credit line so that it doesn't require us to keep even a small amount on exchanges. And that way it's like much safer. After that, we've got like three, four top global cybersecurity experts to audit the entire system. They've done it. We actually do it. We have gotten, you know, we regularly do pen testing and security audits. Nobody was able to sort of detect or, you know, identify something like this, but this was a different one. We learned from it. And the, what you've done is we have now open sourced the learnings to everyone so that they can also learn from this. And this doesn't happen to everyone, anyone else out there.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. What we're hearing is set up a war room, diagnose the problem, get in front of your customers, address this pretty much in real time. And yeah, thank you for sharing that.

Utsav Somani: As a closing thought, Sumit, what's next for you? CoinDCX, the team, what's on the roadmap next six months?

Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX): Oh yeah. So a bunch of exciting stuff. I think two things that we are focused on other than the stuff that is in pipeline and lot of things will come out in the coming quarters, as I mentioned. But I think one is we see a lot of new users coming from different asset classes. I think 2021 was more of a, you know, not smart money or other dumb money coming into meme coins and a bunch of stuff, right. Which is not the right thing. Yeah. NFTs and like crazy. And when you, when you give a statement like invest what you can afford to lose, that means you're already acknowledging that it's, it's very, very risky. And then the next cycle, I think over the last couple of years, institutional money, which is smart capital coming into the sector. And now what we are seeing is smart retail money gradually coming in. So the user average age, you know, is sort of gone up. So now it's people who are in like thirties to 30, 30, 35, like in that range who have like disposable income who want to diversify from real estate or gold or equities to crypto, maybe two to 5% exposure in crypto. And they get it. Like when I asked, used to ask this question, okay, why do you invest in Bitcoin? Be like, Oh, you know, it will go up 10 X or it will go to zero. I don't care. But now people get it right. And a lot of that has to happen with like what all is happening globally. And you know, people who have money, they get it. And they believe that, okay, this is what I'm doing for next five, 10 years as part of my portfolio allocation. And this is good to see. This is good to see. There's a lot more sanity in the market, less hype, which is good. You don't want hype because when it goes away, that's when you see the stuff that really matters. And there's a lot more real building that's happening from the founder side. Even the VCs are now a lot more sane. And the use cases that are coming up in terms of stablecoins, DeFi are a lot more sane and not just talking about tokens, 5X, 10X. So yeah, it's good to see.

Utsav Somani: Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show. As you cross new milestones, we'd love to have back. Best wishes to you and the team. Absolutely. Thank you, Utsav. Thank you, Dhruv. Cheers. Thank you, Sumit. All right. So now, I mean, Bitcoin isn't the question that's on everyone's mind. But what are the questions on everyone's mind when they think about personal finance? And we've got Neil Burate, who was the editor at Mint. And now is doing his own company by the name of FinePrint. And let's unpack some of the questions that most people have on their minds when it comes to financial planning. Welcome, Neil. Hi, Utsav. Thank you so much for having me. Hi, Dhruv. Hi, Neil. How are you doing? Dhruv, you want to get us started?

Dhruv Sharma: Yes. In fact, I had one question for Sumit as a parting shot that I am so tempted to ask Neil, what's the funniest, most creative name you've ever heard for a meme coin? But look, Neil doesn't track that market. Neil, those infographics, I'm sure you've heard so much praise for them. How many people have worked behind the scenes to make that possible?

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): So, Altair is my designer. But apart from him, it's a team of about five people.

Utsav Somani: I mean, the kind of research that must go into all of that also is fascinating, right? Because they're always educated. Like, I mean, I've learned something new from every single time. And that's why I reached out to you, because those infographics have left an impression on me and many other people. And they get forwarded and circulated on WhatsApp as if they're like learning material.

Dhruv Sharma: Thank you so much. Maybe a good question, just to ask Neil, just to set the context would be, Neil, I mean, of all the beats you could have picked as a journalist, why personal finance? And when did this really happen in your journalistic career?

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): So, actually, it's the other way around. I wanted to be a financial advisor. And I studied, first I studied law, then finance. And I worked for a SEBI RIA for a few months. And the segue into journalism was accidental, where there was a vacancy at value research. And I joined there. And since then, since 2016, I've been writing. So, it was more about what do I do is in finance and journalism happened on the site. And now you've become a founder. What's fine print about? Yes. So, I realized that there's one very, very big problem, unsolved problem in India, which is a provident fund, EPF withdrawal. And nobody in the formal sector was holding for it. I mean, there are agents and touts and things. But this was the first startup. So, FinRite, which is the parent company, they have been doing this for almost two years now. They have proof of concept. And what they figured out is that if you understand all the rules and by God, they're complex. But if you understand all the rules, you can get people's money out as high as 90% of the time, whatever 10% you can't get out, refund the money and move on. So, so this when I heard about it, I felt that it was worth solving. Yeah, yeah.

Utsav Somani: But you've written about retail investing for years, right? Almost like a decade, if not more. What are some of the biggest challenges you see or blind spots that Indian retail investors have currently, in your view?

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): Yeah, I think the biggest blind spot is home buyers, that most retail investors are 90, 100% invested only in the Indian market. And whether it is stocks or bonds, it's still the Indian market. The reason for that is that the financial system has never actually told them about asset allocation, never actually, you know, explain to them that this is how you can get open diversification. This is how you can also take exposure to precious metals. Now, precious metals are interesting because gold has been traditionally a part of Indian families and our savings. But it's never been looked at from a financial portfolio standpoint that you should have some of it to hedge. And now people are realizing and realize rather painfully.

Utsav Somani: Interesting.

Dhruv Sharma: And the industry that you work in has, there's an oversupply of information. Yes. And what have you learned? And what can you share with us about putting the right information in front of people? And how does that influence their behavior?

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): So I have a rule of thumb. The more entertaining a piece of content, the less informative it is. And unfortunately, the algos push up the entertainment content rather than informative stuff. So I hope eventually the algos and AI themselves figure it out. And I don't just mean influencers doing deals, dancing about finance. I also mean mainstream media putting out clickbait stories. And I was unfortunately a part of that machine for part of my career. But we'll definitely avoid it the fine bit.

Dhruv Sharma: And I'm sure as part of your work, you get to meet with several people like you who are trying to do something about financial education and awareness. And even in among the youth, what are some interesting things you've come across lately that you can share with us? In terms of startup ideas and finance? Yes. Yes. People who are actually on the ground, improving financial literacy.

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): Yeah. So I think a lot of problems that earlier were not identified as problems are now being finally solved. So Provident Fund is one. But I've also seen people trying to solve for loans, the liability side of things without being a seller of loans. So of course, it's an old FinTech model to be going around sellers. But what if you instead took the consumer side and help them figure out what's the cheapest deal available? So there is that. I've seen people using ONDC for mutual funds. And it's a long shot because Mutual Fund Infra is already built out and there's an ecosystem around it. But if ONDC is able to drop the costs of investing, that could be another quite interesting area.

Utsav Somani: And there are these trends that get started, right? I mean, Ravi Handa, this famous Twitter personality, he's brought about this word more publicly, FIRE, Financially Independent Retire Early. And everyone has their numbers to throw about this trend. And everyone's like opining on this stuff. What's your take? Like, are people thinking about this too early? This thing, what's I mean, is it like a Gen Z problem? Or is it like just generally, I think we're too exposed to these ideas now?

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): You know, it's a success that for younger millennials and Gen Z, salaries shot up so early in their careers that they could actually think of retiring in 5, 10, 15 years. That's a privilege that those of us who are older never had. And in terms of aspiration, if it makes you save more, if it makes you invest smarter, then absolutely, I'm all for it. The only, I guess, hype or negative side of it is that it could lead to very risky investments to achieve that number. It could be people binging out on small caps or micro caps, just because the past five years have been good, or some other risky asset and losing out in that process. Interesting.

Dhruv Sharma: So if you were to, yeah, sorry. What's very interesting about that is, I mean, about the number, look, everyone's going to have a different number. Yeah. And everyone's going to have a different time frame to get to that number. And if it's not realistic within your circumstances and your starting point, then there's this great dissonance and dissatisfaction. And I'll be honest, I see that, you know, every once in a while. Any thoughts, Neel, on what might be the way to solve for that?

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): Yeah, in terms of the expectations. So honestly, it just has to be time. Because if you think of Gen Z's, they have entered the stock market in the post-pandemic era when the market has gone only in one direction. And they just have to see a correction, which is already underway. So one year we've had a zero return, you know, give it two more years and people will wake up. That's one side of it. The other side is the pandemic coincided with a huge boom in IT salaries. That also, I think, has gone the other way now. So that whole reality check is well underway.

Utsav Somani: If you were to end this segment with five money 101 rules, like what could they be for anyone? And it can be a small kid who's listening into this or somebody as old as 50, 60 listening to this. What are the five money that they should always follow? Never go into lifestyle creep or any of that stuff that you can end with?

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): Sure. So number one, have an emergency fund of at least six months of expenses. Number two, have your own health insurance. Don't rely on your employers and get it as early as possible as you can in life.

Utsav Somani: Any rule of thumb to follow? What health insurance amount that we should get or people should get?

Neil Borate (TheFynPrint): Most people go by default for five lakhs, which is not enough in today's day and age. It's difficult because it depends also on ability to pay an income. But I would say that if you can do a five lakh, 10 lakh base and then do a super top up of at least 50 lakhs, it sounds like a lot. But the premiums are really low for super top up. So apart from health, then there should be term insurance for people who do have financial dependence. For mutual funds, I think they should be aligned to goals. So long term goals, equity, shorter term goals, debt. And finally, for retirement, there are India has a bouquet of interesting products, NBS, PPF. They should also be part of a well diversified portfolio.

Utsav Somani: Awesome, Neil. Thank you so much for tuning in, educating us, educating our listeners. And yeah, we hope to have you on the show again soon. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Awesome. So now we have a very blessed Vishesh dialing in from a holy location. And I think what better way to talk about deep tech when he's got the blessed look on his face. Welcome, Vishesh.

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): Thank you. Truly blessed to be on this session. Very excited.

Utsav Somani: Where are you dialing in from?

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): I'm actually in a temple town called Sringeri in the northern Karnataka. I tend to spend time when I can here.

Utsav Somani: Amazing. And is this to celebrate the milestone that you recently achieved, the 600 crore fund announcement that we saw?

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): Honestly, it's just a process. I don't think it's really a milestone. There's more work to do and more to do. I think it allows me to zone out and peace out a little bit when I'm here. So I tend to do it when I can.

Utsav Somani: Nice. All the best. I think that's a good fund size as well to get more founders into the ecosystem.

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): Yeah, I think we're truly fortunate. What is for us to really celebrate is recognition that the category of investing in science and tech and investing in science and tech in India, because both of them 15 years ago was an oxymoron as far as venture investing in India was concerned. So the fact that we have given an opportunity to do this as our third fund and in the venture world, when you do three, four, five, you're recognized to have finally made it to at least base camp, if not the peak. So that's definitely a good milestone. And I think we owe it to the category. We owe it to just where India is shaped up. We owe it for where just founders have also shaped up in really building globally aspirational companies from here. So that's something we're definitely celebrating here today.

Dhruv Sharma: Vishesh, are there any structural or other differences in a firm, in a fund that's set up to invest in hard science and engineering as opposed to your peers who invest in those kind of companies, but other kind of companies also?

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): Yeah, so I think, you know, one, there are two or three things to sort of slice and dice it, right? So from an LP perspective or from a fundraising perspective or structuring a fund perspective, we're very clear that, you know, high risk, high return, high alpha positioning. We're very focused on just science and tech and we're very focused on investing in pre-seed and seed, right? So that way we're messaging very clearly to the ecosystem, to the founders, to the investors saying, guys, we just do one thing. We underwrite technology risk and we underwrite technology risk in longer station businesses. So with that positioning, and if I have to then peel that layer further down, we have to run small funds. Because if we're doing pre-seed, seed, I can't be running a $100, $150, $200 million fund and then claim to be doing pre-seed. Because we all know in our business, you do a certain set number of companies per fund and then that sort of figures out how much in follow-on, how much in the first check. And that sort of also defines the stage you play, of course.

Dhruv Sharma: And in the context of fundraising for the fund, is it more of finding the LP archetype who will be a natural fit for this category? Or is it about, you know, going on the road and convincing LPs of the story?

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): I think it's both. But I think there's a huge difference between... So I've been in venture now, fortunately, for 18 years and still there. When we went out raising capital, let's say 15 years ago, LPs didn't understand venture capital and India. They understood private equity. And therefore, most of us would go out there and say, oh, we're a venture fund, but we're very private equity-ish. Half our companies have revenues, half our companies have profits. So that's not really venture. So what that really meant was the LP was not willing to take this. The LP was looking for the GP or the fund to diversify and offer a basket. From 15 years forward, we talked to LPs who made five, six, seven fund investments. They've got one multistage fund, they've got one consumer fund, you know, they've got one series A fund. And they're saying, oh, we want to do something very niche. We want to do something very early. We want to do something. So the LP world is far more educated, far more focused, far more clear about how they're constructing their portfolio. And that's a big shift.

Dhruv Sharma: And what's it like being a, I'm sorry, I was just going to ask, what's it like being a capital and a business partner to founders who are basically scientists and inventors and tinkerers and may or may not be commercially savvy to begin with? How does that really, how does that part of your job play out?

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): Yeah, you know, honestly, that could be taking too much credit because I think that page is turned. The profile of technical founders that we're investing in are either MTech, PhDs, all sub 35, or young professors are between 35 and 45, all of whom are extremely savvy in terms of where the world is, where the world of commercialization is, where the world of raising capital is and how to think business. What they have mostly not done is built a business. Right, so that part is still a leap of faith on whether they will be able to build an organization, build a business. But all the theoretical understanding and the commercial knowledge of why they need to commercialize is right up there. Having said that, in order for us to be useful beyond the capital, I think we attempt to be useful in three categories. And the one that we value the most is customer introductions. So I think the one thing we've learned in longer station businesses is if you want to make sure that you're reducing the path of time to product market fit, you want to make sure you're having more customer conversations. You want to make sure you're hearing the ultimate truth or the ultimate intelligence, which is only going to come from the customer as well. So as many of those conversations that you have that can lead into POCs, customers, NRE funding conversations, they're all solving for lifeline issues or existential issues for the company. That's the highest bucket. The second highest bucket is to think through the first five hires. We've always learned that in zero to one, the first five hires end up being super critical because they're the big next nodes for the next 10, 15, 20, 30 hires. And therefore, time is spent to see if we can be useful, if we can add any value in your network. And the third and more obvious is, of course, trying to put through follow on rounds of capital. And then again, what's sort of unique for a longer station business is you're not going to have revenue for the next round. So it's not like you've shown PMF and you're at a million dollars of revenue and you're scaling to three to nine. So often you've got to think back to saying ground up as against top down to saying, hey, what are the big risks in this business? And over time and over capital, when do these risks get mitigated or killed? And in longer stations, science and tech, the more risk you kill, the more value you create.

Utsav Somani: And these companies take seven to 10 years to exit and super heavy in terms of front loading CapEx for them, creating those capabilities. R&D spans are huge. So how does the funding journey for a company that you've seed at pre-seed and seed look like? I mean, are you able to make those capital introductions? Do you think that capital stack is well developed or there's more work to be done there?

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): So two part answer, one to just sort of feel that further. So I think in India, if you want to have, I guess, let's be specific, if you want to build value, it's going to take your time. I think that a very few companies that, you know, hit it out of the park in three, four, five years. So time is less the concern, because I think we all accept it to ourselves that it takes 10 years to build something. So the second piece of the question is a capital stack problem. I think the capital stack in the early stages is far more evolved, far more sorted than in the growth stage, because like us, there may be three, four, five other people who all want to early stage want to come in, take high risk, look for high returns, solve for high alpha. But that doesn't necessarily mean B, C, D, all the private equity investors who've done consumer or done growth stage manufacturing are willing to do decision risk businesses. And I think that will evolve. I think some of us will also have to go, maybe raise those pools of capital to backup companies and later on. We've seen this happen in consumer facing businesses as well. So it's only a matter of time that we mature ourselves, the ecosystem matures, our portfolio also matures, where we bring in those pools of capital, which today, honestly, don't exist in the full form. And the good part about the problem is this problem is common to most of the geographies. Half a dozen deep tech funds in Australia also have a growth capital run separately outside of the C cap. So I think those are sort of the learnings we have to see what's worked in Japan, what's worked in Australia, what's worked in Europe. America has, of course, very different geography, different market, different capital, but we possibly have to lean into some of the other geographies to see our cue cards.

Utsav Somani: Interesting. Dhruv, I think you were saying something.

Dhruv Sharma: Yes. I mean, Vishesh, two questions, really. One is, one is something that we've seen in the news. There's now news of a new consortium coming together, which is putting together a pool of capital, about a billion dollars. We'd love to, from your perspective, understand that. The second question, an optional one and philosophical one is, you know, it's incredibly heartwarming, by the way, to see you, to see you marry your personal faith. And of course, your day job keeps you at the cutting edge of science and technology. So maybe talk to us a little bit about that, if you're comfortable.

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): I'm most comfortable. I'll take the easier one, which is the second part. I think, well, you know, different people have different forms of expressing their philosophy and I'm a big fan of what Nobel speaks in his simple sentences, three, four, five words that you pick up on philosophy. I think, I think you often have to stay as light as you can so that you're able to be as agile. For me, philosophy allows me to, you know, load up all the weight that I possibly will have from the job and just think from first principles, which is a big piece of what we do in our business. So I've been very fortunate that my own personal life learnings play into how we're shaping specialism organization. If you may repeat the first question, Dhruv, I've.

Dhruv Sharma: Oh, it was about this new tech.

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): Yeah, it was very exciting. I know I read the headline about the US-India alliance and they're talking about a billion dollars, which is great. I was also very fortunate to be on a call with the government of India. And of course, a few other fund managers two weeks ago, when they are talking about an RDI fund. And I believe there's a budget of about 20,000 crores, which may be over 20 billion dollars of capital that they are bringing in very specifically for deep tech. They've outlined the category. So they're very serious about this. So I think I think it's great timing, because I think earlier in the conversation we talked about how growth capital stack is non-existent. And some of these will definitely bring that pool of capital. It's a great place to be from for a fund like ours that's doing very early stage investing that we believe will bring another 20, 30 companies to the ecosystem for growth funding. It's great to see capital showing up for India.

Utsav Somani: In your line of business, if you were to do crystal ball gazing, 2035, what's one sector in India that could be truly, truly generate a globally defining company?

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): I think they're very serious about a space station in 2035. So every piece of that infrastructure that takes for us to have a space station is going to be very, very valuable. And we've seen conflict from hand to hand translate to conflict with 100 meters away to standoff distances, yes, to conflict to drones. And I think the next conflict will be in space. And therefore, solving for things in space is going to be more crucial than ever before and less obvious.

Utsav Somani: Awesome. With that note, we'll let you be. And thank you so much for tuning in.

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): I most appreciate you accepting me in the form I am. Still doing this. Thank you so much for having me in this.

Utsav Somani: Giving us the time.

Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest): Thank you for speaking to both of you. Thank you. Bye then.

Utsav Somani: Awesome, folks. So we're closing week one out. We've had nine awesome guests this week, and we've learned about AI, venture, deep tech, sciences, all kinds of different industries. What's clear is that India is not chasing the wave. We're creating the tide ourselves. And keep tuning in to TON every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 4 p.m. to learn more. Thank you. Bye.