Somesh Dash, IVP on learnings from the crisis of 2002 & 2008 and investing in resilient companies

While having his family roots back in Odisha (India), Somesh had his upbringing in the US.After completing his graduation from UC Berkeley in 2001, as the US job-market was hit after 9/11 he came to India and joined Sony Entertainment.Later in 2005, he joined Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) back in the US. IVP was founded over 40 years ago and has so far invested in over 400+ companies out of which 111 have gone public.Some of its portfolio companies include - Twitter, Slack, and Soundcloud among others.In this podcast, Somesh shares his experience of investing in growth-stage companies across various sectors. Notes - 02:20 - Building a portfolio with numerous public companies05:52 - Two lessons the Startup Ecosystem can consider during Covid-19 crisis as learnings from similar past events12:51 - Starting his career in India after 9/1123:22 - Investing in companies in their growth-stage - Twitter, Thrive Global, Netflix among others27:30 - Diversity in portfolio companies spread across Cyber Security, Consumer, Analytics & Enterprise Softwares31:27 - Missing out on Salesforce & Zoom39:08 - Second wave of Tailwinds which most people might missout in the startup ecosystem43:50 - “A Startup’s aspirations shouldn’t be to raise the next Unicorn-venture round, it should be to build the next Microsoft or Google.”53:27 - Importance of Mental Health from a VC perspective

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