Hemant Mohapatra, Lightspeed Venture Partners

After completing his graduation from IIT Bombay, Hemant worked at AMD during his early career. In 2012, after completing his MBA from Cambridge University, he joined Google, where he worked in New Partnerships & Development for 5 years, post which he joined Andreessen Horowitz in 2017.Lastly, after seeing a huge potential in the growing Indian Startup Ecosystem, he ended up moving to India in 2018 and joining Lightspeed India.Some of Lightspeed India portfolio companies are Udaan, Darwinbox, OKCredit, and Shuttl among others.In this podcast, Hemant shares his learnings of building a Tech company in India, he also shares his Venture Investing experiences in India & the US. Notes - 00:46 - Growing up in Middle of Himalayas to joining Lightspeed India05:38 - Joining Corporate Development at Google after MBA06:26 - Choosing Lightspeed India vs any other VC firm in the US12:10 - Is it necessary to raise a Venture Capital to build a big company?15:38 - Is it the right time to build a Tech company in India?18:16 - Looking after Enterprise, Fintech & Logistics focused deals19:59 - Big wins for Lightspeed in India - Byju’s, OKCredit, Udaan, OYO25:25 - Difference b/w Venture Investing in US & India (Andreessen Horowitz vs Lightspeed)30:42 - What Indian Entrepreneurs can learn from their US counterparts?33:22 - “Most problems are solvable if you immerse yourself deep within”38:33 - Best Founders know much better about a Market than a VC

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