AJVC

My undergrad at IIT Bombay was Engineering Physics. My biggest learning from it was that uncertainty is not a bug, but a feature of life. I gained a deep appreciation for math, data-driven analysis and embracing probability. After a few startups in college, I ended up at B-School at IIM Ahmedabad. As I graduated from IIM A, my path to consulting at an MBB was set. While interest from the firms started to build, I got an offer from a venture capital firm starting up in India. I was heavily dissuaded from joining a startup VC firm. No brand name, unclear growth. I had no experience. The choice was non-linear and unconventional. But my instincts told me that working in a chaotic small team with uncertainty could be my fit. It was my first time practicing uncertainty. The leap was also my first commitment to living and breathing startups. I was tasked to help build out the VC firm in India, from scratch. As an unknown Junior VC, I began to share data driven opinions on startup in a newsletter called Life of A Junior VC. People began to notice. I began to convert the chaos of uncertainty to a fast growing community. My entire life was startups. On weekdays I helped build the firm. On weekends I wrote A Junior VC. After 4 years of building the firm and setting it up to succeed, I moved to another VC firm. Here too, the team was small. Non-linear choice, unconventional. Still chaos, though it was more established. As always, I enjoyed working with the teams. In my first 4 years, I learnt what is involved in starting a VC firm. In the next 4, I learnt what is needed to scale of a VC firm. Throughout my journey, I have lived startups. I love data. I built a big community of 500,000 people around startups, data and opinions. I supported and invested in startups. I continued my love for technology, building tools and software. Uncertainty had now become a feature of my life. Entrepreneurship was now calling. I thought about what I should build. My instincts combined with data I had been seeing for very long. Pre-seed was clearly a large, disorganized, lucrative market. But it was very hard to access. Despite that, I found myself both attracted to and well fit to do pre-seed. Data, community, technology, startups all were needed to win. Through my experiences, I had loved and learnt how to do all 4. I am putting all of my experiences together to build AJVC, aiming to be India's most approachable pre-seed firm.