Over the last decade, I have had the privilege of meeting thousands of founders.

Some were just getting started. Some went on to build remarkable companies. Most were somewhere in between, trying to solve a problem they cared deeply about and looking for the right partners to help them on that journey.

This section is for founders who would like to pitch their startup to me.

But before you do that, I would encourage you to spend some time exploring the rest of this substack. I write a lot, and this should help you understand me better.

Know my LVX Journey

Building LetsVenture (now LVX) has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. This is my second venture, having founded, raised funding, scaled and exited my earlier venture in the embedded systems space. I was heading engineering and wrote some of the protocol stacks - so yes, I understand hardware, firmware, embedded. (when deep tech was not the trend!) I have contributed. to an IEEE paper around standalone media terminal adapters, and enjoy discussing tech and product.

At LVX, like most startups, it did not begin with a grand plan. It began with curiosity, conversations and a problem that felt worth solving.

In the LVX Journey section, I write openly about building the platform, finding the problem, finding a co-founder, fundraising, making mistakes and learning along the way.

If you are a founder, I suspect many of those lessons will feel familiar.

Visit The Pitchroom

I also write regularly in The Pitchroom, where I share how investors evaluate startups, what makes founders stand out and how capital actually works.

Many founders spend weeks perfecting their pitch deck without fully understanding what investors are trying to assess.

The Pitchroom is my attempt to make that process a little more transparent.

One article I would strongly recommend is:

The Angel Investing Canvas

It is a simple framework that helps founders understand how investors think about opportunities. It may also help you build a stronger fundraising narrative and a better deck. As a founder, going into an investor meeting prepared almost always leads to deeper and more meaningful conversations.

What I look for in founders

People often ask about my investment thesis.

The truth is that I spend more time evaluating founders than evaluating sectors.

I am drawn to founders who have a deep understanding of the problem they are solving.

I like founders who are curious.

I like founders who are learning continuously.

I like founders who can balance ambition with humility. I like when conversations are authentic and genuine. I don’t like name dropping, and being shallow - its just a deal breaker for me.

Most importantly, I like founders who are building for customers rather than building for headlines.

A few things that catch my attention:

• Strong founder-market fit

• A problem that is real and meaningful

• Evidence that customers care

• Clarity of thought

• Ability to execute

• Long-term commitment to the problem

• Honesty in conversations

I care less about polished presentations and more about genuine insight.

My investing journey

I have personally invested in 61+ startups, primarily at the early stage.

Some of the companies I have backed include:

• Giva

• Jar

• Online RTI (10x exit)

• BotLabs

• BatX

• CureSkin

• Sensemei

• Kissan Konnect

• Cherry

• hBits

I am also an LP in a few venture funds.

Like every investor, I have had successes, mistakes and surprises. Investing has taught me that outcomes are often less predictable than they appear in hindsight.

What matters is finding founders who are resilient, thoughtful and committed to solving a real problem.

Beyond investing

Outside of startups and investing, a significant part of my time and personal capital goes into MyPragati, the non-profit initiative that is very close to my heart.

Working with communities through MyPragati has shaped how I think about impact, privilege and long-term change.

It has also reminded me that while businesses create value, not all value is measured in financial returns.

Before you pitch

Before you send me your deck, ask yourself three questions:

Why this problem?

Why now?

Why are you the right person to solve it?

If you have thoughtful answers to those questions, we already have a good starting point.

Pitch To Me

If you would like me to review your startup, share these details at startupai@lvxventures.com (make sure you put the subject as PitchRoom: <Startup Name>) - it will become easier for me to engage.

• A short note about what you are building

• The problem you are solving

• Your pitch deck

• Any traction or customer insights

I cannot promise I will invest. I cannot promise I will respond to every pitch.

But I do promise that I respect the courage it takes to build. And I genuinely enjoy meeting founders early in their journey. Some of the most interesting companies start as a simple conversation.

I look forward to hearing your story.

Have fun building.

Shanti

This is a short case study on why I invested in Zwende. Very relevant to The PitchRoom series.

Early-stage investing is often described as pattern recognition. But in reality, it is closer to pattern imagination. Investors do not see what exists today. They try to imagine what the world might look like if a particular founder is right. What Steve Jobs said about being able to connect the dots looking back hold true in angel investing

Zwende was one such bet for me.

I first invested in the company around 2020, when the thesis was still forming and the category itself was not clearly defined. At that time, the idea sounded almost simple: help independent creators and artisans sell personalized products online. But beneath that simplicity was a deeper question about the future of commerce itself.

Would consumers continue buying standardized, mass-produced goods? Or would they increasingly seek products that reflected identity, individuality, and personal stories?

Zwende was built around the belief that the second future was already emerging.

Five years later, the company offers an interesting lens into how that thesis has evolved.

The Insight Behind Zwende

2020. This was about 2 years after the biggest acquisition in e-commerce globally by Walmart of Flipkart. Meesho had started to establish the social commerce narrative. When we think about commerce in India (e-commerce or social commerce), we often focus on scale — large marketplaces, logistics networks, standardized supply chains. Yet parallel to that system, there has always existed another economy, far more fragmented but equally powerful: the maker economy.

Across India, millions of artists, artisans, hobbyists and independent creators produce objects that are deeply personal — handcrafted lamps, embroidered textiles, painted home décor, personalized gifts, and dozens of other forms of creative expression.

The problem has never been creativity. The problem has been distribution.

Very similar to what we saw in FarmDidi.

Most creators sell through informal channels: Instagram pages, weekend flea markets, WhatsApp groups, or word-of-mouth communities. These channels work, but they do not scale easily. Discovery remains difficult, trust is fragmented, and creators spend a surprising amount of time managing tasks that have little to do with their craft — photography, marketing, logistics, payments, and customer support.

Zwende began with a simple premise:

What if technology could unlock the creative economy in the same way that Shopify unlocked independent brands or Etsy unlocked global craft sellers?

From Marketplace to “Makerplace”

In its early days, Zwende looked like a specialized marketplace for handcrafted and personalized products. But over time the founders realised that the opportunity was larger than simply listing products online.

The company began evolving toward what it now describes as a “makerplace.”

Instead of a traditional marketplace where sellers merely upload catalogues, Zwende enables creators to:

• sell products

• teach workshops

• build communities

• showcase their craft

This combination of commerce, learning and storytelling changes the relationship between buyer and creator.

A customer purchasing a handcrafted lamp or nameplate is not simply buying a product. They are buying a story — about the maker, the craft, and the cultural tradition behind it.

That emotional layer is what the company refers to as “emotion-commerce.”

The Long Tail of Creative Demand

One of the insights that attracted me to the company early on was the long-tail nature of creative demand.

Mass retail works well when millions of customers want the same product. Creative commerce behaves differently. Each buyer may want something slightly unique — a customized nameplate, a personalized gift, a handmade decorative item that reflects their personality.

Platforms built for scale often struggle with this long tail.

But technology, particularly personalization engines and modular product design, can unlock it.

Zwende built systems that allow customers to customize products in real time while enabling creators to manufacture on demand. Instead of holding inventory, the platform operates largely through virtual SKUs, allowing an enormous catalog of possible designs without the burden of traditional stock.

Today, the platform supports:

• 20 billion+ possible SKUs

• 10,000 new SKUs created daily

• 800+ brands and creators

• 8000+ artisans on the platform

Five Years of Progress

Looking back at the original investment thesis in 2020 and comparing it to the company’s trajectory today reveals something interesting: the core idea has remained remarkably consistent, even though the execution has evolved.

In 2020, the company was still experimenting with workshops, customization tools, and creator discovery models. Today, revenue has grown to 5x with strong improvements in unit economics.

The platform has also built a sizeable community that reduces dependence on paid acquisition. Zwende’s organic ecosystem now includes:

• 500,000 community members

• 353,000 Instagram followers

• 200,000 WhatsApp subscribers

• 275,000 email subscribers

Around 30% of revenue is driven organically through this community, which is a meaningful advantage in a world where customer acquisition costs continue to rise.

My 5Cs Framework

When I look back at the original decision to invest, it is helpful to revisit it through the framework I often use when evaluating early-stage startups.

C1: Clarity — Founder and Problem

I met the founders, Sujay and Innu, via a referral from a friend. As investors referrals are the strongest endorsement for founders. If you are a founder, there is a lesson to learn from the Zwende founders – they research, find the investors they think would be relevant and then relentlessly chase for a warm introduction. If you want to get your early investors. referrals work like magic.

On the business side, the team demonstrated early clarity about the structural problem they wanted to solve. They recognised that the challenge for creators was not lack of talent or even lack of demand. The real constraint was infrastructure — the systems required to turn creative output into scalable businesses. This infrastructure would be the key to build distribution.

That clarity shaped the platform’s model: creators focus on making, while Zwende provides the surrounding services that enable commerce.

C2: Category — Market and Timing

Creative commerce has quietly become one of the most interesting segments of the global internet economy. Platforms like Etsy, Shopify and Patreon have demonstrated that independent creators can build meaningful businesses when the right infrastructure exists.

Estimates today suggest that the global creative commerce market exceeds $110 billion, while the Indian opportunity alone could reach $30 billion as personalization and premium gifting become mainstream.

Zwende sits at the intersection of these trends.

C3: Capability — Technology and Operations

What differentiates the company from a simple marketplace is the technology layer behind supply creation.

The platform uses data and AI to identify emerging consumer demand, curate creator supply, and expand product categories. This allows the catalog to evolve continuously while remaining differentiated.

Equally important is the operational infrastructure that supports creators — enabling them to handle logistics, pricing, customization and customer experience without needing enterprise-level capabilities themselves.

Watching the founders build Zwende over the last 5 years has been a huge learning for me too. Innu as a founder is hands-on, operationally focused and ensures every data point is monitored and managed. For any business to build a predictable outcome, data in today’s world lies at the core. As a founder, if you have blind spots to the levers that can impact your business, the business is bound to surprise you when external factors change.

C4: Cost to Build — Moat

In creative marketplaces, the moat is rarely technology alone. It is built through community, supply relationships and brand trust.

Zwende’s defensibility emerges from several reinforcing layers:

• a growing community of creators and buyers

• a vast catalog of unique designs

• strong storytelling around creators and crafts

• customer feedback loops that refine supply

Together these elements create network effects that are difficult for competitors to replicate quickly.

I understand this deeply as I have designed and built LetsVenture as a marketplace. The moat is most often time, and capital cannot fast track the path.

C5: Conviction — My Personal Thesis

For me, the appeal of Zwende lies in the convergence of several long-term shifts.

Consumers increasingly want products that feel personal rather than generic.

Creators increasingly want independence rather than employment.

And technology increasingly allows small producers to operate at a scale that was once available only to large companies.

Platforms that connect these forces have the potential to reshape how entire categories of commerce operate.

Zwende is still early in that journey, but the direction is promising. Time and trust will become the moat that cannot be replicated.

Going forward

As the company continues to grow, several factors will determine its long-term trajectory. The first is category expansion. Creative commerce is inherently fragmented, and new product segments can unlock significant growth.

The second is creator success. Platforms become durable when the creators on them build meaningful livelihoods.

And the third is community-driven discovery. If Zwende continues strengthening its organic ecosystem, it can maintain efficient customer acquisition even as the market becomes more competitive.

Taking a page from Quick commerce models, the monetisation to allow creators to get discovered has not yet seen relevance in creator platforms. Almost think of this like a personalised Amazon where you can discover, engage, learn and transact with creators.

A Closing Thought

Startups are often described as technology companies, but sometimes the most interesting innovations are social rather than technical.

Zwende is not simply building a marketplace. It is experimenting with a new way of organising creative labour — where thousands of independent makers can collectively serve a national market while retaining their individuality. The impact that has been created is mind boggling in terms of numbers. Revenues for individual creators have gone up from 10-15x. Imagine – in a country like India that thrives on creativity, personalisation and the absolute depth of history and culture.

If that system continues to evolve successfully, it could quietly redefine how creative businesses scale in India. And that was the possibility we believed in when we first invested.

PS: This article reflects my personal perspective as an investor and is not investment advice. Every investment decision should be made independently based on one’s own analysis and risk appetite.

I first met Manjari during the curation process for LetsIgnite, our annual investor conclave at LetsVenture where a handful of startups pitch to a room of active angel investors. Some founders stand out because of traction, some because of storytelling. Manjari stood out for something far simpler — clarity about the problem she wanted to solve.

That conversation eventually led to SamVed investing in FarmDidi.

Before going deeper, it helps to understand the core idea behind FarmDidi.

The company sources, manufactures and distributes what it describes as “home-made pickles at scale.” I deliberately put those two words — home-made and scale — together because they rarely sit comfortably in the same sentence.

When we think of homemade food businesses in India, we often imagine small neighbourhood networks, informal distribution and boutique production. Those businesses are important because they create micro-entrepreneurs. But as investors we also look for the possibility of scale, where a model can expand beyond small communities and become a large, durable business.

FarmDidi is attempting to bridge exactly that gap.

The story behind Farmdidi

I met Manjari in Pune again, when we were doing the due diligence for the investment. What struck me was the clarity and purpose in her conversation. The origin of FarmDidi goes back to Manjari’s time at IIM Calcutta, where she worked on a development project in Bihar. That experience exposed her to a structural shift that is slowly reshaping rural India

The feminisation of agriculture, women’s loyalty in elections, and male migration pushing women into new economic roles.

She began by offering micro-loans but ran into the problem, “loan to mil jata hai, marketing nahin milti” (Credit may be available. Markets are not)

That insight became the foundation for FarmDidi.

Why Pickle?

FarmDidi emerged at the intersection of two observations.

First, millions of women across Self Help Groups already possess the capability to produce food products with remarkable consistency.

Second, the missing layer in that ecosystem is not production but distribution and brand aggregation.

The founders chose pickles as the first category almost accidentally. After the pandemic, when they experimented with selling products in Pune’s weekly markets, mixed flour saw limited repeat demand while pickles consistently sold out.

That behaviour revealed something important: pickles were not just a product category; they were a daily consumption habit deeply embedded in Indian households.

How big can this market be?

At first glance the pickle market appears small and fragmented, but that assumption disappears quickly once one begins to look at the underlying production ecosystem.

Across rural India, Self Help Groups already produce a wide range of food products. Most of these products never travel beyond the village or weekly market: lack of a brand and access to organised distribution beyond local networks.

What FarmDidi is attempting to solve for exactly this.

The closest historical parallel is Lijjat Papad, which demonstrated decades ago that decentralised production could scale if supported by a strong central brand. The difference today is that digital commerce, logistics infrastructure and direct-to-consumer distribution create the possibility of compressing that journey into a much shorter time frame.

Besides the scale, the impact was visible. We met a few Didis - and it goes back to my first post around women and financial independence. The respect and the recognition they receive from their family, their in-laws and their village is what blends purpose with value and wealth creation.

Besides, pickles were always homemade, but the current breed of consumers and the next generation of women don’t have time to home make it. There is a clear market opportunity for clean labels and an authentic brand in this space.

Problem or Opportunity?

As investors, we often differentiate between businesses that solve a problem and those that unlock an opportunity.

A problem-led business addresses something customers urgently need fixed. An opportunity-led business identifies a structural gap and builds a system around it before others recognise its potential.

FarmDidi sits closer to the second category.

The opportunity lies in the 90 million women connected through Self Help Groups in India, many of whom are gradually moving toward micro-enterprises as agriculture alone becomes economically insufficient. Access to small loans has improved, government schemes provide some support and production capability already exists. What is missing is an organised layer that connects these producers to markets.

FarmDidi attempts to build exactly that layer.

The story of Manisha Didi

One of the Didis we met was Manisha, who leads a Self Help Group called Shivai Bachat Ghat in Shivri village. Over time, her home has gradually become both a workplace and a storage point for raw materials, with containers of mango chunda, avakaya and karela pickle neatly stacked and labelled with manufacturing dates. She works roughly from late morning until early evening and now earns close to ₹25,000 a month, a meaningful shift in income for her household.

But the economic impact is only one part of the story.

During the conversations, her husband remarked that the village now casually refers to the area as “Manisha’s village,” a small but powerful signal of how participation in economic activity slowly changes social standing within rural communities.

The Business Model Behind It

Operationally, FarmDidi works through what the team describes as an Input–Transformation–Output model, which connects decentralised village production with centralised quality control and distribution.

Demand forecasting happens at the company level, after which purchase orders are issued to Self Help Groups. Production itself takes place inside village kitchens but follows tightly defined Standard Operating Procedures so that batches produced across different locations remain consistent in flavour and quality. Once prepared, the pickles are collected in large containers and transported to a central warehouse, where samples are tested before the products are packaged and sent out through the distribution network.

What emerges is a hybrid system: village-level food preparation combined with structured industrial quality control. Profits also directly go back to the Didis.

The operational complexity is significant, but if executed well, it creates something difficult to replicate — a distributed manufacturing network built on thousands of small kitchens.

My 5Cs Framework

C1: Clarity — Founder and Problem

What stands out most in FarmDidi’s origin story is how clearly the founders understood the structural gap in the ecosystem.

The founders realised that rural India does not lack productive capacity. Women across Self Help Groups have been producing food items for decades. The real gap lies in aggregation, standardisation and brand creation.

C2: Category — Market and Timing

The pickle category may look simple, but it sits at the intersection of culture, regional taste and daily consumption.

What makes the market particularly complex is the extraordinary variation in regional taste preferences. The oil used in pickles alone varies dramatically across India — mustard oil in the north, groundnut or sesame oil in parts of the south, coconut oil in Kerala and sunflower or soybean oil in Maharashtra.

Because of this diversity, a single “national pickle product” rarely works. FarmDidi’s response has been to design multiple regional variants so that customers encounter flavours that feel familiar rather than generic.

Mother’s recipe, a well known brand is one among the largest exporters of pickle. The opportunity to build localisation and go global is open today.

C3: Capability — Systems and Operations

Scaling decentralised food production requires strong operational discipline, and FarmDidi has begun building systems that support this structure.

The company uses technology to centralise data, while also running its own onboarding application called the Didi Business app, through which Self Help Groups register, submit information and eventually receive purchase orders.

New groups are trained, and production volumes initially start small until quality consistency is demonstrated. Over time, those partners receive larger orders.

What is emerging is less a traditional food factory and more a coordinated network of micro-manufacturing units.

C4: Cost to Build — Moat

In many consumer brands the moat eventually becomes marketing spend or retail distribution.

FarmDidi’s moat, if it develops successfully, may lie somewhere else entirely.

The company worked with around 14 Self Help Groups comprising roughly 140 women producers, but the ambition was to scale that network significantly over time.

If the company can build trust, training systems and operational discipline across hundreds or thousands of such groups, it will create a supply network that is not easily replicated by competitors who are used to factory-based production models.

C5: Conviction — My Personal Thesis

Businesses like FarmDidi sit at an interesting intersection of multiple long-term trends.

Rural women are increasingly entering the workforce as male migration shifts economic responsibility within households. At the same time, urban consumers are showing growing interest in products perceived as authentic, regional and homemade. Meanwhile, digital commerce platforms allow niche food brands to reach customers far beyond their original geography.

FarmDidi touches all three of these shifts.

For me, the ability to create impact, support women entrepreneurs and building a global brand from India is very appealing. Besides, Manjari demonstrates a rare will to persevere, deep understanding of the space and the ability to listen to feedback as she leads Farmdidi.

Yet the operational challenges remain significant.

For example, after the company’s appearance on Shark Tank, demand for one particular product — mango chunda — spiked rapidly. Production scaled in response, but demand later softened, leaving nearly four tonnes of inventory sitting unsold, a reminder of how fragile supply chains can be when production is decentralised and demand forecasting is still evolving.

How this has scaled

Since we invested a year back, the company has grown from 14 SHG to 30 SHG, with impact growing from 140 to 400 women livelihoods.

(2) On market dynamics of pickle - we can add that pickles were always homemade, but next generation of women today don’t have time to make it and yet looking for clean label and authentic food for family, which makes the timing also correct to build Pickles category

Looking ahead, the trajectory of FarmDidi will depend on a few important developments.

The first is distribution expansion. The company has begun exploring quick commerce platforms such as Zepto and Instamart, which could introduce the products to a much wider urban consumer base. They are today #1 on Amazon US in the pickle category.

The second is product expansion. The founders envision a roadmap that moves beyond pickles into premixes, spice blends and eventually condiments and snacks, effectively transforming the brand into a broader Indian pantry platform.

And finally there is the scale of the production network itself. The long-term vision of empowering one million rural women producers is ambitious, but if even part of that network materialises, the economic and social implications would be substantial.

A Closing Thought

When we talk about startups, the conversation often revolves around technology breakthroughs or venture-scale markets.

But sometimes the most interesting innovations are organisational rather than technological.

FarmDidi is experimenting with a different way of building supply chains — one in which thousands of small kitchens become production units and rural women become micro-entrepreneurs connected through a common brand.

Scaling this system will require patience, discipline and careful operational design. But if it succeeds, it will quietly reshape how distributed manufacturing can work in India.

I hope you enjoyed reading and learning on how as an investor, there are many ways to evaluate startups.

PS: This is not investment advice. Your decision to invest should be made independently, based on your own thesis and analysis. This series is a learning tool — using real pitch room experience to help all of us think better about early stage investing. Also all opinions are mine, and not influenced by the founders.

Today I will share about Craste - I was the only tycoon who committed at Bharat Ke Super Founders. Watch the video there.

Honestly, there is a particular kind of frustration I have carried for a while now as an investor. You sit across a founder. The technology is real. The credentials are serious. The problem they are solving is not small — it touches climate, construction, the future of how we build things. BUT it is probably a bit early to show traction. Ask any founder their fundraising challenges and you will know what I am saying.

While I was listening to Craste on BKSF, somewhere in the back of my mind, a quiet thought was forming when I saw Himansha and Shubham pitch on stage:

”If this team was sitting in a room in San Francisco right now, this round would probably already be closed”. This is not an attempt to draw comparisons among investors in India. Having met so many founders who are brilliant but have not aced the funding mechanics, I am convinced that investing will continue to be risky and tough. Our deep tech investing space is growing, and getting mature. But it is still difficult to close funding. But who said contrarian ideas ever found easy consensus? I might still be wrong. Only time will tell.

What Craste Is Building

India's construction and interior industry runs on boards — plywood, MDF, particle board. Most of it is wood-based, formaldehyde-heavy, and environmentally costly. The industry knows this. It has known this for years. But alternatives have been expensive, unproven, or too early.

Craste is building NAF-grade boards — No Added Formaldehyde — that are tree-free and zero emissions. Not as a premium niche but as a scalable, manufacturable product that can replace conventional boards in the mainstream market. The product they demoed to us was not a concept. The product existed and samples had been shipped. It was obvious that with the right messaging the market would find it. And we were on stage on Bharat Ke Super Founders!

What I Saw Inside the Room

The ask was 6 crore at a 100 crore valuation. We finally agreed to 1cr at 50cr. The only reason - I was thinking that we would have some progress before we raise a larger round together.
I had just written an entire post on how to evaluate deep tech — the TRL framework, the three lenses, the question of whether a founder can cross the deep tech chasm from scientist to builder to commercial operator. If you haven't read it, I'd suggest going back to that post before reading further. Because Craste is almost a case study for everything I described there. (Attached link here)

At the time of the pitch, Craste was at TRL 7. To reiterate— that means the technology has been demonstrated, and is now ready to be at commercial space, ready to scale. It is beyond proof of concept, and beyond commercial experiments - a gap where most deep tech companies struggle.

What the founders, Himansha and her brother Shubham showed us was not just a product. It was a team who understood technology deeply, spoke about manufacturing with clarity, and had already started winning in a market that is notoriously difficult to crack.

The Problem that struck a chord

In winter, India talks endlessly about air pollution, especially in Delhi where crop burning worsens the crisis. What I heard during the pitch was probably a solution.

Craste manufactures the high-performance boards using agricultural crop residue — material that would otherwise be burned in fields, contributing to the severe air pollution every year. By converting this waste into durable engineered boards, the company was not only creating a high-value material, but also turning crop waste into a viable industrial raw material — one that could increase farmer income while reducing dependence on timber.

Yet none of this impact was priced into the product.

For the first time in India, crop waste was being transformed into a high-quality, high-value industrial material capable of competing with timber itself. There was no premium pricing for being tree-free, for being zero-formaldehyde. No premium for using waste instead of wood. It seemed “India-ready”.

The narrative was beyond being a sustainability story, to the beginning of a healthier, cleaner and priced-in materials industry for India.

On Bharat Ke Super Founders, it was clear this wasn’t just another startup moment. It felt like the early signal of a material transition India has been waiting for.

My 5Cs — Mapped

C1: Clarity — Founder and Problem

Himansha and Shubham are founders who have worked at the core of the problem — the chemistry, the manufacturing, and the realities of bringing a new industrial material to market.

Both are scientists trained at leading global universities like Cambridge and ICL, who chose to return to India to solve a scientific challenge, not just build a business. Inside the pitch room, clarity under pressure is the signal I watch most. As a team they had it. When questioned, they did not deflect. The team went deeper.

C2: Category — Market and Timing

India's construction and interiors industry is one of the largest in the world. The shift away from formaldehyde-based, wood-heavy materials is not a preference — it is a regulatory and environmental inevitability. The question was never *if* this market moves. The question was *who* would be positioned when it does.

Craste is building the category before the mandate arrives. That is the right time to invest. I also know of similar businesses who are at a 400cr revenue, building in the sustainability space.

C3: Capability — Technology Readiness

This is where deep tech evaluation diverges from everything else. One doesn’t just ask about customers. But rather you estimate *where does the technology sit on the TRL scale?*

At the time of the pitch, Craste was at TRL 7. A stage where patient angel capital could potentially create disproportionate value.

They had received grants from DST (that is a superb validation for me), and had been part of Tech Stars cohort.

C4: Cost to Build — Moat

Proprietary chemistry is hard to copy. NAF-grade, tree-free board formulation built over years of R&D is not something a well-funded competitor can replicate in a product cycle.

The moat here is not brand or distribution — it is the science itself.

C5: Conviction — Personal Thesis

Tech and sustainability are not competing priorities. They are the same direction.

Himansha is a woman founder building deep tech in India. That combination is rare. It is also, in my experience, systematically undervalued. Not because the work is weaker — but because the ecosystem around it is thinner. Less patient capital. Fewer champions. Slower pilots.

With a founder who has clarity and a product the market is already moving toward — it was a clear decision for me.

What Happened After the Show

Craste has won multiple awards post the show. They have progressed beyond TRL 7 to the next category of TRL 8-9. They have also signed the biggest distributor in South India, Navdurga — someone currently working directly with Century and Greenlam — who has already moved 20 tonnes. When someone with those relationships chooses the brand, the moat is showing itself in the market.

Craste has also received international recognition through platforms such as the Seoul Design Award and the Make It Circular Challenge in Amsterdam.

More recently, its material was featured in the Parsons Healthy Materials Lab at the New School in New York, one of the world’s leading platforms evaluating healthy building materials — a strong validation of its commitment to non-toxic construction materials.

What To Track

As with any deep tech investment at this stage, the work is not done at the cheque. What I will be watching:

Certification adoption — and whether NAF-grade becomes a buying criterion at scale. Manufacturing cost curve — can unit economics improve as volume grows? Strategic partnerships — the conversations with potential customers are signals, not outcomes yet. And regional expansion — how efficiently can they move beyond Bangalore?

A Closing Thought

I want to clarify. I did not invest in Craste because it was a good story or it was led by a woman. If I am not convinced, I would have become a mentor and waited to see the progress.
I invested because the technology felt real, the founders committed, and O believed India was ready and more environmental friendly that we like to believe. The new generation is already very sustainability conscious.

I wish to see Craste build into a successful business, at the intersection of technology, sustainability and scale.

PS: This is not investment advice. Your decision to invest should be made independently, based on your own thesis and analysis. This series is a learning tool — using real pitch room experience to help all of us think better about early stage investing. Also all opinions are mine, and not influenced by the founders.

The last two months have been busy — the good kind of busy. I was part of Bharat Ke Super Founders (BKSF). With every episode launch, I received messages from friends asking the same question: Why did you invest? How did you decide on the amount and what does the amount and valuation mean?

That is when I realised we now have an unfair advantage.

Earlier, when I wrote for The PitchRoom, I often used Shark Tank examples to explain investment thinking. I was speculating with the limited information I had from the outside. They were useful — but incomplete. What we see publicly is edited storytelling.

During BKSF, I saw the full founder conversation — problem depth, numbers, behaviour under pressure, and conviction. That changes how you evaluate a startup.

This series will use my Angel Canvas to explain exactly why I invested — and why I passed — based on what actually happened inside the pitch room.

Let us start with Digital Labour Chowk.

The Pitch — What I Saw Inside the Room

I had known Chandrashekhar for almost two years. I first met him at a conference when the company was still discovering its core value proposition and understanding what customers truly valued.

The founder who presented during BKSF was different from the early version I had met. He was clear, grounded, and confident — not performative confidence, but the kind that comes from time of building from the inside, deep engagement with customers and a real understanding of the problem.

What I also liked is he represents a true Indian founder - someone who speaks Hindi (beyond the validation we seek in English) and presents his view with confidence. It is easy to watch as investors, but not easy when you are the founder presenting to a room with lights, cameras and investors seated in front. If you watched the pitch - Chandra presented the demo of his product and the growth numbers. The conversation also focused more on behaviour — how daily-wage workers actually find jobs, how contractors make hiring decisions, and where trust breaks down.

The Problem From The Ground

Construction is India’s second-largest employer. Yet most labour operates in an informal, cash-based ecosystem.

Workers struggle with:

• inconsistent income

• no verifiable work history

• no certification

• lack of insurance or access to formal credit

Contractors struggle with:

• discovering reliable labour

• verifying skill levels

• managing project uncertainty

Assignments are project-based, with unclear timelines and locations. Both sides operate with incomplete information. Decisions are inefficient because there is no structured discovery layer.

The Structural Opportunity

Digital Labour Chowk is building infrastructure around:

• worker identity and certification

• job discovery

• trust between workers and contractors

• skill tracking

• access to financial services

In future, a certification layer could help governments deliver benefits accurately and help contractors identify skilled labour more reliably.

The platform could also enable insurance, health checkups, and credit — benefits largely absent in today’s cash-driven system.

There is also a skilling opportunity. The construction ecosystem still operates through informal apprenticeship models — the ustad–shagird structure. A digital platform can formalise and scale this learning pathway.

The Data Shared During The Pitch

What cameras do not show

Inside the room, the most important signals were:

• clarity when questioned on monetisation

• honesty about operational challenges

• deep familiarity with worker behaviour

• comfort discussing failures and pivots

These are signals rarely visible in edited formats. Also what we witnessed was a deep connect to the problem, with some of the tycoons having lived this, and struggled with no access. I think in our busy lives we forget the class of people who are ‘invisible’ to us, and who don’t have systems to enforce equality and labour dignity. This is the India we live in today, even in the 21st century with all the advancements in technology.

Why I Invested

Digital Labour Chowk is Building India’s Labour Backbone 🇮🇳.

Thesis: India wants to be a $55T economy by 2047. But growth depends on the people who build our cities. Construction is India’s second-largest employer.

Yet labour remains informal, invisible, and unverified.

The Problem:
In today’s system, we have the following challenges:

• No verified work history

• No structured discovery

• Cash-based “deehadee” economy

• No benefits

• Contractors struggle to find skilled labour

• Workers struggle to find consistent work

This results in inefficiency on both sides.

My 5 lens mapped: (refer to this post if you want a refresher)

Lens 1: Founder Clarity

This is lived experience. The founder has worked closely with daily-wage workers. The team reflects ground reality — not consulting assumptions. This is not a deck problem.

It is a lived problem.

Lens 2: Category : Fit (India Stack + OCEN)

This is a reflection of market size. India has built digital infrastructure for identity and payments; We see the impact of Aadhar, UPI and the digital infrastructure. Now with new protocols like OCEN, we will see livelihoods as the next layer.India built identity and payments:

DLC adds the missing layer: Identity + Work + Wages + Trust

Lens 3: Capability (Traction)

The platform is beyond proof of concept and there is strong early adoption and engagement. It has 2 lakh+ workers with 93% full profiles, 53% job match rate. They have 12,000+ customers with 5,500+ live jobs and presence across 31 states. This is a reflection of the team’s ability to execute and DLC is clearly beyond POC into product market fit.

This is early product–market fit.

Lens 4: Cost to Build = Trust

I have built LetsVenture and understand marketplaces deeply It is one of the toughest spaces to build in, but once built, very difficult to copy. At the core, marketplaces are build on trust. DLC shows trust through 5.5 lakh+ worker activities with 21% job conversion rate. This means fundamentals are working.

Capital now scales growth.

Lens 5: Scalability + Personal Lens

Jobs are universal. Each new worker strengthens the network.

There was also a personal layer. Growing up around industrial India of Jamshedpur shaped my understanding of labour dignity and economic mobility. While growing up in small towns has the best advantages in terms of the quality of life, it also comes with the challenge of lack of exposure for anyone wanting to be an entrepreneur. That perspective influences how I evaluate such opportunities.

This investment is both economic and deeply personal. I love it when businesses can create impact AND deliver value.

Impact and outcomes can coexist.

Structural Opportunity and TAM

What was missing in the pitch and what was unsaid is the huge structural opportunity that DLC unlocks. There is an opportunity to organise this space and offer worker certification, access to insurance + loans, verified skill tracking, enable government aid targeting, improve contractor quality on jobs.

This is infrastructure for livelihoods.

Why Now?

With the booming growth we are seeing in India’s construction, the country needs skilled labour, verified credentials, transparent discovery and workforce mobility.

Without labour infrastructure, growth slows.

What To Watch Going Forward

While I committed, we need to continue to watch for contractor retention, repeat hiring behaviour, certification adoption, financial services integration and regional expansion efficiency. Thats why building companies is always work-in-progress.

Closing Reflection

This is the first note in my Inside the Pitch series — where I write from the actual founder room, not from edited television narratives.

Angel investing is not about dramatic moments. It is about pattern recognition, behaviour observation, and structured thinking.

The Angel Canvas is how I bring clarity to those decisions. Sharing the summary here. Hopefully the learnings will help us all refine our skills and help us understand risk and investing better.

PS: This should not be considered as investment advice. This should purely be seen as a learning process. Your decision to invest should be made independently, based on your own thesis and analysis.

Signing off. Have a great weekend!

Regards,

Shanti