Dear Investors,
YourNest’s entrepreneurial journey, that started 20-months ago, has helped us gain perspective on various parameters of success for an early stage fund. We believe smart investors demonstrate capability to invest in the right idea, early. They are not only supportive, collaborative and friendly but also back the venture & stay invested. This helps build successful, performance centric teams and creates powerful brands. Most importantly, they know when to exit.
Our belief that “people – their vision, beliefs, values, individual initiative, creativity and experimentation – rather than the technology or the business models, drive the start-ups”, is strengthening. It is all about execution, for us, to enjoy a healthy strategic exit. Execution for a start-up does require entrepreneurial freedom and a talent pool.
In the last few months, we saw our start-up creating value through their initiative and experimentation –
- Bookmycab smoothly transitioned to a proprietary technology solution that is enabling its “booking revenues” to grow at the rate of 20% month on month.
- MyCity4Kids has conceptualised and launched a new product offering branded as mycity4kidsCAN that helps brands engage on India’s largest online platform for Parents/Mothers. The unique mycity4kidsCAN proposition is based on 3 pillars: Unique, curated and parent-sourced CONTENT; Sharply segmented AUDIENCE of Parents; and Specialized NETWORKS to engage Parents.
- Proof of Performance (PoP) has attracted a CTO who is enabling them to improve the effectiveness of product offering and delivery. The search for COO/CEO is still on-going at PoP, even as they bag initial orders from Lintas (for Hindustan Unilever), LG, Star TV, ITC, Dabur, Wave Infrastructure to name a few.
Our conviction in our start-ups is reinforced by recent investments made in Zomato.com (Rs.227.6 crores valuing it at Rs.1000 crores) and Olacabs (Rs.126 crores at an undisclosed valuation). These decent valuations at early stages of business, during tough economic conditions, is a validation of the ability of first generation entrepreneurs’ to create value for their investors.We stay committed – to our investments and participation in subsequent rounds of funding in our portfolio companies.
Sunil K. Goyal
November 15, 2013