E94: Rahul Chowdhri (Managing Partner, Stellaris Venture Partners)

Rahul Chowdhri is the Managing Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, an early-stage tech-focused venture capital firm based in Bangalore with investments in companies such as Mamaearth, MFine, Whatfix, Vogo, among many others.

Rahul is an industry veteran, having been in Indian venture for over 15 years. He started his investing career at Helion where he was a Partner and led investments in companies such as BigBasket, Simplilearn and Livspace. At Stellaris, he focuses on B2B & B2C Commerce, Consumer Brands, Content/Social, Agri-Tech, Recruitment and Gaming.

Prior to getting into venture, Rahul had stints in product management and consulting roles at Microsoft, MarketRx, i2 Technologies, and BCG. He holds a B. Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.

Episode notes:

Current market sentiment and the state of the industry (3:03)
What have Stellaris' top-performing companies and founders done really well in the last few years? (7:25)
How does Rahul view investments, both cash-efficient and capital-intensive? (13:45)
The evolution of Indian investors' risk appetite (18:30)
What attracts investors to founders in both bear and bull markets, and what characteristics do they share? 23:26)
How does Stellaris view market corrections in today's context? (28:26)
What do the best operators do to take their businesses to the next level? (32:45)
How far into the future do funds look when developing their investment thesis? (37:15)
Fund culture, metrics, and metrics (41:07)
What has Rahul learned about himself as a fund manager over the course of his investing career? (45:48)
What is Rahul's decision-making framework? (50:10)