E21: Sushma Kaushik (Partner, Aavishkaar Capital)

Sushma Kaushik is a Partner at Aavishkaar Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm currently deploying out of its 6th fund and has close to half a billion dollars in AUM. She has over 18 years of diverse experience in the field of early stage investing, small business incubation and consulting across sectors.

She is an engineering graduate from RVCE, Bangalore and has an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Follow Sushma Kaushik (@sushmakaushik1), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and the podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

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In this episode you will learn:

1. Sushma’s background (3:58)

2. What Sushma loves about her job as a Partner (6:21)

3. What does a Partner do at a VC firm? (7:20)

4. First check written by Sushma (9:55)

5. How do you convince fellow Partners to invest in an under-performing sector and justify the investment? (12:06)

6. Learnings from investing (13:36)

7. Aavishkaar Capital and their thesis (15:45)

8. Challenges within the Impact Investment space (21:15)

9. Should seed-stage investors also consider growth-stage investments? (24:34)

10. How do you measure impact? (26:47)

11. How often do investors track the metrics? (29:54)

12. What is corporate governance for startups? (32:35)

13. What is the relationship between investors, board members and executive leadership within a startup and who calls the shots once investors’ share in the business exceeds the founders? (41: 32)

14. How do we solve for diversity within venture capital? (44:38)

15. Rapid fire (49:00)