Founders Unfiltered A Junior VC

🎙️Founders Unfiltered Ep-109:

Brought to you by the Founders Unfiltered podcast by A Junior VC - Unscripted conversations with Indian founders about their story and the process of building a company. Hosted by Aviral and Mazin.

Join us as we talk to Movin Jain, the Founder of Skydo about their story.

Movin completed his B.Tech in computer science at IIT Delhi and later earned an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad in 2011.

He gained experience as a research intern at Lyric Semiconductors and Bell Labs Lucent. His career includes roles at InMobi, AVP at Barclays Investment Bank, Associate Director of Product at Ola, Director of Product Management at PhonePe, and Vice President of Products at Meesho.

In April 2015, he founded Galleri5, and in 2022, he launched Skydo.

🏢 About Skydo:
Skydo, a fintech startup based in Bangalore, is dedicated to making cross-border B2B payments seamless and reducing forex charges for businesses by over 50%.

By partnering with leading banks worldwide, Skydo provides businesses with foreign virtual accounts for receiving payments, free from taxation and compliance burdens. Businesses can create their US virtual account in just 5 minutes by signing up at skydo.com.

Join us as we talk to the co-founders of Whatfix - Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar Namburu about their story.

Khadim earned his Bachelor's degree in Engineering from University of Mumbai and a post graduate degree in IT from IIIT Bangalore. Starting his career at CMC Ltd., he worked at Huawei, Applabs Technologies and Kenexa. He co-founded Whatfix in 2013 with Vara.

Vara completed his Bachelor of Computer Science and then pursued his Masters in Computer Application from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University. He joined Huawei, where he met Khadim and joined forced with him to start Whatfix.

🏢 About Whatfix:
Whatfix is a digital adoption platform designed to help organizations enhance user engagement and productivity with software applications. It provides in-app guidance, interactive walkthroughs, tooltips, and training content to simplify the onboarding process and ensure users can effectively use new software. This platform aims to reduce the learning curve for users and improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of software adoption within organizations

🌐 For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Join us as we talk to Ashok Hariharan, the CEO of IDfy about their story.

Ashok earned his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Penn State Engineering and went on to complete his MBA at the Indian School of Business.

His career as a hardware engineer includes positions at Acterna, Coree Networks, Marconi Communications, Laurel Networks, and Astuto Networks. He also served as a strategy manager at British Telecom.

In 2008, he founded Gaboli Online Services and has been the CEO of IDfy since May 2011.

🏢 About IDfy:
IDfy is an Integrated Identity Platform that combats fraud with advanced KYC, KYB, and verification solutions. Recognized by Deloitte and Forbes in 2023, IDfy performs 2 million daily verifications.

Key offerings include APIs for verification, a video onboarding platform, RiskAI for risk management, IDfy360 for custom workflows, and CrimeCheck for legal history checks.

🌐 For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Playlists🎬:
🎙️Founders Unfiltered: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_1r_yCxtrkFtTqwgoKj8f66
🎥 AJVC BTS: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_2SqAGAJ0_rS1--1u82jvfL
🦄 Start-up Chronicles: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_0ujPMygWRZQcJBK250BXbC
🔎 AJVC Insights: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_00SpPyAU_zhicXdehoNuBd
🎯 Deep Dives: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_2BHzAOji1wBEKjXo-go7e6
📈 Founder Insights: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_1L3HjHLvNUQgPWGrfcoc-q


🎤 About the Hosts :
Aviral Bhatnagar is a VC at Venture Highway and is the Founder of A Junior VC. He started the A Junior VC Newsletter in 2018 after observing whitespace in conversations in the Indian Venture ecosystem. He completed his B. Tech from IIT Bombay and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.

Mazin Biviji is a Product Owner at Agoda and a founding member of A Junior VC. He previously worked at Deloitte as a Senior Consultant. He completed his MSE and BSE from the University of Michigan and his MBA from INSEAD.

🌍 Join us at https://ajuniorvc.com/community/ to be a part of an exclusive community and grab the opportunity to question and hear our guests live every Sunday.

🚀 AJVC: https://ajuniorvc.com/

✂ Editing Credits:
1. Neel Panji - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neel-panji-598b7b176/
2. Sweta Singhania - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sweta-singhania-755b92183/

🔎 Research:
1. Ayush Kumar - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayushkcs/
2. Sahil Nizam - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahilnizam12/
3. Aditya Chauhan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditya-chauhan-27b298177
4. Deepthi Nagoorkar - https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepthi-nagoorkar-64408085/

00:00 Intro
02:24 Rapid Fire
08:24 Early Days
17:02 First Company
19:01 Meeting the Co-founder
20:33 The Idea
22:30 Post Ideation
23:51 Failure of the First Version
25:20 Start of the Enterprise Business
25:53 Initial Pitch
28:32 Growth Stage
29:50 The Struggles
31:21 Leadership lessons in Growth Phase
33:36 Vipassana
35:12 The North Star
37:07 Culture and Transition
38:57 Leadership Development
41:58 The Website
45:10 Fraud
1:00:18 Accelerated Growth
01:04:26 Unfiltered Feedback

#ajvc #startups #india

Join us as we talk to Uttam Digga, the Co-founder & CEO of Porter about their story.

Uttam completed his integrated MSc in Economics at IIT Kharagpur in 2012. Following that, he held positions as an Analyst at both HSBC and J.P. Morgan before launching Porter in 2014.

🏢 About Porter:
Porter goes beyond logistics, fueled by their mission to 'move a billion dreams, one delivery at a time.' Embracing 'Own It,' they've grown rapidly with 7.5 million drivers and 15 million customers.

Backed by $150 million in investments from leaders like Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global, their tech-driven approach sets new standards in last-mile logistics.

Join us as we talk to Ranvir Singh, the Founder and CEO of Kissht and Ring about their story.

Ranvir completed his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2001 and his MBA from IIM Bangalore in 2005. He served as an associate partner at McKinsey & Company, held the position of Managing Director at Si-Creva, and established Kissht in 2016.

He is also the founder and CEO of Ring and a founding member of FACE.

🏢 About Kissht & RING:
Kissht is a fintech platform that provides instant, seamless credit to consumers for purchases at both online and offline points of sale. This next-generation financial technology company strategically aids individuals in increasing their borrowing capabilities.

RING is a top fintech company in India, emerging from the success of Kissht. It excels in data-driven lending and serves over 11 million customers, with 40% from tier 2 cities and beyond. RING provides both short and long-term loans for business, personal, and recurring needs.

Join us as we talk to Rajat Deshpande, the Co-founder and CEO of FinBox about their story.

In 2009, Rajat completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering at IIT Bombay.

His professional journey includes roles such as General Analytics Associate at ZS Associates, Senior Associate at Citigroup, Advisor at BookMyCab, and Vice President of Product at GoPigeon.

In 2017, he co-founded FinBox.

🏢 About FinBox:
FinBox was founded in 2017 with a mission to democratize financial services for the next billion Indians.

It provides advanced credit infrastructure, simplifying business operations so companies can concentrate on growth.

It offers a comprehensive lending platform, featuring tools like bank statement analysis, alternate data underwriting, LOS, journey orchestration, partner management, business rules, and multi-bureau analytics.