Prakhar Agarwal is the COO at AngelList India; Founder of Adept Ventures and co-host of AngelList India Radio (AL India’s podcast). He was the first hire responsible for AL India's 0 to 1 journey and growth to a portfolio of 300+ companies in 3+ years of launch. AngelList India is now the most active seed investor in India with an AUM of $125M+ and a community of 600+ founders; 50+ Syndicate Leads and Micro VCs.
Over the past 2 years, Prakhar has opportunistically invested in 30+ startups through Adept, of which 18 startups have gone on to raise follow-on rounds from top global VCs. A big theme in Prakhar’s investments are Indian companies that are building global products like InVideo, Plaza, Uniphi, Good Meetings, Vahdam India ++. Some of our portfolio companies serve 10M+ global customers from 150+ countries.
Prakhar leverages his network of Founders, Angels, Micro VCs and institutional VCs for dealflow and helps the portfolio companies with GTM, business connects, founder peer matching for advice and follow-on investor intro’s.
It is a great time to be a seed investor in some global companies being built out of India. More than half the Indian Unicorns are actually domiciled outside India (mostly Delaware/Singapore corps) and increasingly Indian companies are incorporating outside India because of the following:
- Accelerators like YC and Techstars make it compulsory for companies to incorporate in the US. Indian startups made up 16% of YC’s current S21 batch.
- Global nature of their business/customers, easier regulations and leaner taxes.
- Foreign investors have higher confidence investing in Delaware/Singapore companies because of the Indian regulatory environment.
- India is a tech talent powerhouse and with a deepening startup ecosystem, the more seasoned Founders are increasingly aiming to build Global companies like Postman, Freshworks, Mindtickle, Browser Stack, Zeta, Druva, Gray Orange, Zoho, Icertis, Zenoti, Loginext, Razorpay, InVideo and countless others.
Adept’s aim through Prakhar’s access and judgement will be to invest early in 15-20 such companies over the next 2 years through the Syndicate and 100+ such companies in the coming decade.