Gukesh win historic, India will dominate chess for many years like Russia: WestBridge Capital’s Sandeep Singhal

Four years ago, Singhal added chess to his rich portfolio, by partnering with former World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand to launch the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA), to nurture talent in India.

The aim was to provide mentoring by Anand and training by world renowned trainers to nurture young talent who could crack the top level. The first few inductees include names who are dominating the chess world today – from Praggnanandhaa to Vaishali to Gukesh to Nihal Sarin and Raunak Sadhwani.

Apart from mentoring Gukesh at WACA, WestBridge is also his sponsor for the next five years.

Singhal believes chess is on a big upswing in India, a trend that will only continue in the years to come. He spoke to Moneycontrol over phone from Toronto reacting to Gukesh’s historic win.

EDITED EXCERPTS:

As Gukesh’s main sponsor, what was going through your mind as you watched him play?

Exhilarating is the best way to describe it. He has made all Indians and us proud. It’s a phenomenal achievement. If he does indeed become a world champion, it will be unbelievable.

I was there for Gukesh’s match. I had come earlier for two, three days in the middle of the tournament. And I was in New York for the last few days. And I got up in the morning and just felt like I should come. And it was a great day of chess.

Take us through your association with Gukesh and your broader association with chess, through the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy.

It all started about five years ago when (Viswanathan) Anand and I started talking. There’s a groundswell of good chess talent in India who make it to the top of the junior league but sometimes don’t find it easy to transition to the senior and the actual sort of open leagues in various sports. We felt we must put together a set of resources that are required for this young talent to make that transition. And that’s how Anand and I put together WACA, which picked a set of elite young players, not players who are already in their prime, but players who had some potential for the future in the age bracket of 12-15. The idea was to mentor them.

Also read: Garry Kasparov reacts to Gukesh D's Candidates win: 'Indian earthquake in Toronto'

And the target was to take them to first top 50 and then top 20. And then hope that in 5, 7, 10 years, we will have potential Candidates participation in there. And then one day we will be world champions. Now all of this happened too quickly.

In the past four years, we've had two or three of our WACA mentees—Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, and Vaishali—in the Candidates, which is just unprecedented. I was there in Toronto, and it was amazing to see the five boards with an Indian flag, if you include Humpy and Vidith.

So WACA achieved its objective of identifying and nurturing young talent.

We have another 10 next-level talents like Gukesh, Pragg, and Vaishali, who are in the academy and are working through their routines with respect to classes. So, hopefully, that will bring forth another set of promising new champions. And then with Gukesh and with Vaishali, we basically decided to sponsor them.

Also read: Who is Gukesh D, youngest winner of Candidates tournament and the youngest World Championships challenger?

Gukesh is sponsored for the next five years by WestBridge, which is over and beyond WACA.

It is not about trying to monopolize them; rather, we expect more sponsors to come forward and support these players.

Where is this interest in chess coming from? Do you play?

I play a little bit of chess, nothing that I would flaunt. I am just interested in all sports in general.

And Indian sports, particularly, I love watching cricket, but I also love lots of other sports, particularly chess, field hockey, lots of other sports.

And it’s fun to work and provide some insights, some direction, and resources to push forward Indian sports.

Is this a broader trend, Sandeep? Because, we’ve had startup founders backing sports like volleyball, business families like the Jindals too are active backers of sports?

Certainly. Because there are so many dimensions on which India will make rapid strides. And it is a part of a broader trend to see more and more of the Indian society backing its talent in art, culture, sports, and other areas.

You signed this sponsorship deal with Gukesh barely a few days ago. In hindsight, did you get the timing right?

No, no. It was signed 9 months ago. We just never announced it. We never announced it because we always keep it low profile. Since I was there (for the tournament), we ended up announcing it that way.

What kind of diligence did you have to do to sign this deal compared to all the other deals that you do in the world of venture capital and private equity?

I’ll think of WACA as a seed stage investment, which we had already made in all these young champions. And consider the investment in Gukesh as Series A if you want to make a comparison. We knew Gukesh and his surroundings, as well as his father and mother's great support, a very important and loving supporting system.

So, you’ve minted a unicorn with Series A.

If you were to draw a comparison, this is not a unicorn, this is a Decacorn. I mean, not even a Decacorn. Look, there are 100 unicorns in India. There has never been a 17-year-old Candidates champion anywhere in the world. Like it’s never happened before. So, I think his achievements are historic.

What qualities about Gukesh strike you the most? Because you have seen him evolve over the last five years and he’s only 17.

I think one is just a clear determination to be the world champion from a young age. And he’s young, but this is talking about even younger, 12, 13, 14 years. He always wanted to be the youngest world champion. And then unbelievable amount of perseverance to back it up.

Also read: Viswanathan Anand reacts to Gukesh D winning Candidates tournament: 'Enjoy the moment'

I’ve seen him in some classes where some classes were organised for physical fitness. He would be the first one who would show up. You would see that he would turn up with the same intensity as he turns up for other classes. And the final thing I’d say is that he’s got just such a calm mind. It’s just a joy to watch.

How will you expand on your relationship with chess and partnership with some of these elite players?

WACA is an ongoing lead academy. It continues to find new talent. And it continues to get them into the academy. So, you can call them more seed-stage investments. And out of that, a few will show a lot more promise. And then we’ll back them up again like we’ve done here. So, it’s a continuous process now. It’s a funnel that will keep growing at the top.

I hope we’ll throw up a woman world champion. Vaishali was already there. She missed them out by a little bit. But we’ll have more like Vaishali.

Chess is on a big upswing in India. I won’t be surprised if India dominates chess. Like the Russians did for many, many, many years. I won’t be surprised if India does that over the next decade.