AI Alliance NCR: Funding is always available for enduring businesses, says Kunal Bahl of Titan Capital

AI Alliance NCR Chapter panel discussion on building and scaling unicorns in NCR

Funding is always available for lasting and enduring businesses built with a focus on customers, says panelists speaking at the Moneycontrol and CNBC-TV18 AI Alliance NCR Chapter in Gurugram.

The panelists for the discussion on building and scaling unicorns in NCR were Kunal Bahl, Co-founder of Snapdeal, who is also the Co-founder of seed fund Titan Capital; Ruchi Kalra, Co-founder of OfBusiness; and Varun Alagh, CEO and Co-founder of Honasa Consumer, which runs the Mamaearth brand.

“We tend to invest in companies that are not growing for growth spurts or suddenly crashing because money is not available. We invest in enduring companies. There might be risk in execution or regulations,” said Bahl, whose fund has backed companies like Honasa Consumer (Mamaearth), OfBusiness, Ola, Razorpay and Urban Company among others.

Kalra said that while there is nothing wrong in putting capital for future returns, some companies will take time to realise the returns.

“Market is a great leveller, whether public or private. Every business will have a different model. What is important is the thought process behind building the business and if the building blocks are right, there are enough pools of capital on the equity side or the debt side,” she added.

Varun Alagh of Honasa said that while founders should listen to everyone, they should have their own view on how to run the business sustainably. Critics of the venture capital model have often pointed out that VCs with big funding rounds have pushed founders to be profligate.

“Founders should not be swayed by what others think about your business. You need to realise that it is your neck on the line and you are accountable to the outcome,” said Alagh.

NCR Startups going for IPOs

Nine out of the ten startups that have gone for IPOs came from NCR, but the panellists felt that it was happenstance as all ecosystems are good without much to distinguish and does not make those ecosystems less great.

Alagh said that the talent pool for NCR is good despite the impression being that Bengaluru has better technology talent. Kalra added that businesses are built by operations, sales, finance and technology teams and not just one division. She said that leadership and job profiles make employees stay at the company. “You cannot over-index on one talent,” she said.

Bahl said that Indian businesses building for Indian customers addressing Indian problems should ideally domiciled in India. “Now everyone thinks India is a better place to list,” Bahl added.