Author: Avishek Gupta

I help drive sustainable development by financing the growth of professionally managed entrepreneurial ventures that solve key social and environmental problems. Having financed and observed over 250 ventures from close quarters, I understand the challenges that such ventures face in scaling up. I have the knowledge of process, financing and technology solutions that can help overcome those challenges. Separately, I have the experience of building businesses that finance early/growth stage companies. Most recently, I was involved with growing Caspian Debt to a full-fledged operating company from an initial 3 member fund investments team.

How much equity and when?

When you judge a promoter on his interest in the business in terms of equity contribution brought into the business, what would you consider more sensible?

A. bringing in equity capital in phases

All start-ups are prone to initial setbacks but some of them can recover if further capital is pumped in to the changed business model (pivot). If the promoter spends all his money in the first attempt/business model, he would never have money to implement the pivot.

B. Bringing in equity capital in one go right at the beginning

If the promoter has brought in all his money into the business right at the beginning, it shows his dedication and indicates that come what may, he will make his business work.

From an investor perspective:

  • How do you determine which level of capital brought in is enough to prove seriousness of the promoter in the business?
  • Would the amount of personal equity brought in, indicating dedication to the business, vary from industry to industry? (My sense is yes. Tell me if I am wrong)

How would the assessment vary between the first equity investor and the first debt “investor”?

Beyond the Margin: Redirecting Asia’s Capitalism

On August 24, 2011 Avantage Ventures released a report titled ‘Beyond the Margin: Redirecting Asia’s Capitalism’, the first to analyse the Asian social finance market.

I had the opportunity share some of my insight thoughts with the Avantage Ventures staff during the preparation of this report. The report has, for the first time, made an attempt to give a number to the estimated size of the Asian Social Investments market. The report highlights six key social sectors that would benefit most from impact investments, these include:

  • Affordable housing
  • Sustainable agriculture and agribusiness
  • Water and sanitation facilities
  • Primary and special needs education
  • Rural and elderly healthcare
  • Rural access to energy

Of these, affordable housing, primary education and rural and elderly healthcare represent the three sectors with the greatest market opportunity. The report also estimates the potential market size that can be captured through impact investing in Developing Asia to be between USD52 to USD158 billion by 2020.

The report Beyond the Margin  can be found here. or here av_report_final_full_screen_version

Who can you lend money to?

What I have assimilated in the last few months:  bunch of things may be considered to decide upon who is “creditworthy”.

1.) Does the borrower have an intention to repay

  • Whether he has a past track record of taking loans and what does that track record look like. If he doesn’t have a track record you can’t tell whether he is a good borrower or a bad borrower. In other words, some history of borrowing is better than no history of borrowing when it comes to credit scoring.
  • What do people known to him say? Would he make a good borrower?
  • What does his historical track record of income and expenditure show? Is he financially cautious? Does he save money? Does he educate his children? Has he built assets over time from his income like savings, FD, property, gold, insurance, chit fund?
  • Has he repaid both secured and unsecured loans?

2.) Does the borrower have an ability to repay.

  • How much does he earn? How much is his expenditure? Does he have documented evidence? If not, what is the estimated income for somebody with similar profession in that particular geography? What do his suppliers say? What do his customers say? What do people who pay him say?
  • What do people, who know him, say his earnings are? What kind of a locality does he stay in? How are his living conditions?
  • Do the assets accumulated by him over the last 3-5 years reflect the income that he claims he has?
  • What is the maximum and minimum earning possible per month?
  • What is the residual amount of money left for the family after repayment of installment if the loan is given? Reduce loan amount or increase tenure if very little is left for the family.

Early stage investment in a start-up

A bunch of articles that talk about seed stage/pre-VC stage investments in startups. The debate is primarily between whether to do a convertible debt or to do a preferred equity. There are arguments both for and against each side.

The basic premise: convertible debt delays the conversation on valuation to the next round. It gives you the time to “set” the benchmark for your company’s valuation. Preferred equity is a simpler way of dealing with investments, if you are sure that your performances now gets you a fair valuation.

Brad Feld lays out the difference between convertible debt and preferred equity and points out that both routes have support. However, he does point out that if you do not intend to raise a big VC round next and hope to continue with small angel rounds, it is more sensible for you to do a preferred equity to be fair to your investors: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2006/02/whats-the-best-structure-for-a-pre-vc-investment.html

Josh Kopleman has a clear favourite in preferred equity because it aligns both the investor and entrepreneurs interest i.e. both with be interested in increasing the valuation of the company in the next round! However, he also says that a convertible note could be useful when you are already expecting a round of equity in a few weeks/months. He does give a few other reasons, read on… http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/04/bridge_loans_vs_1.html

Just in case you are suddenly confused about what Preferred stock is, here is a primer from the good old Investopedia to help you. Just go through the basics and come back for the remaining interesting stuff. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/06/preferredstock.asp#axzz1STNUO900

Seth Levine talks about the two options and clearly spells out the fact that though this seems to have a near term benefits for the startups he is not sure if it is sustainable in the long term. Great explanation of the context! http://www.sethlevine.com/wp/2010/08/has-convertible-debt-won-and-if-it-has-is-that-a-good-thing

Mark Suster clearly believes that convertible debt without cap is not here to stay for long. A nice write-up on how convertible debts came about and how the entrepreneurs should look at the option of convertible debt. http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/08/30/is-convertible-debt-preferable-to-equity/

Ok, the verdict is clear in the post title, Furqaan Nazeeri lists out reasons why he thinks convertible debt “sucks”. http://altgate.typepad.com/blog/2008/06/5-reasons-conve.html

Bill Payne explains the mechanics of convertible debt.  The graphs are missing but worth a read. http://www.matr.net/article-29148.html

A list of articles by Bill Payne on convertible debt and preferred stock. Great stuff in one place. http://billpayne.com/category/convertible-debt

Human Resource: Could be a complete drain on resources

One out of the three first employees that I recruited, turned out to be a rogue! He forged reimbursement bills, made issues about the work that he was supposed to do, tried to “poison” other team members. The fact that we are start-up, complicated things a bit more for us. I was ready to take his fussy attitude in my stride because these three people were amongst the first few in the entire history of their college to join a private sector job. Understandably, the change in attitude required would take some time. They were freshers.

Well, frankly speaking that reasoning is just a superficial reasoning. The real reason is that these youngsters have an academic qualification which is a basic legal requirement for our work and they were in short supply! The Govt seemed to offer jobs to all of them and let them have a job where pay was guaranteed but without any serious expectation of work!

It had taken us about 6 months to locate people, with the required academic qualification, who could be ready to join a non-Govt job! Once they did join, I was ready to treat them like kings. We had a great business model to operationalise and it was necessary that they  co-operate.

However, within no time I found out that this candidate was more than fussy. Much against the “rules” of a startup, I continued to “tolerate” this person for close to about a month. Incidentally, other than the difficulty of finding another replacement, the worry was that if he is chucked out, the academic institution will see my organisation as a  perfect example of the big bad private sector where people are chucked out at will and that would have killed the organisation because of the basic requirement of the academic qualification. Moreover, since our work was in the rural areas, students from one state could not be placed into another state due to language issues.

I started hoping that he leaves on his own. But when?

After a month of his being with us, he seemed to have been offered a job at another “private” organisation and at double the salary. It was a ridiculous amount. I somehow remebered those times when he was bothered about even the smallest of components in his salary. I had initially taken them as the widely held apprehensions in India about the “private” sector but later I realised that it is slightly more.

Anyhow, he decided to leave but not before claiming that a senior consultant, who was working with us, knew nothing. Moreover, he had rudely spoke to our HR person. Interestingly the consultant had had operational experience of 25 years including the top job at a semi-govt organisation and the HR person was possibly was one of the friendliest sort that I have ever seen.

The story does not end here because one of my worst fears became a reality 15 days later. More about that in the next post.

Learning: If your gut feel says that somebody is a bad guy, in all possibility he IS a bad guy.  Addendum to this learning in the next post.

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows”

Possibly the best motivational speech in the history of cinema: Courtesy – Rocky Balboa.

The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody!