Really enjoyed this interview (a little dated; from Jan26) of @Kanwal_fireside w @madhavchanchani of @thearc_hq - the whole interview is worth a read, especially useful to understand how they have built the fund to deliver returns (and amongst the highest in the Indian fundscape) without adopting a power law approach. V interesting points (useful to consumer brands founders) on what acquirers look for: one key point is that they dont like companies w high SKU sprawl. They love companies w 1-2 hero SKUs (easier to integrate into their sales machine + supply chain). The other one was on how Marico has housed its acquisitions under a diff division, to ensure they dont lose the insurgent energy. Marico is a great example of how a FMCG major has cleverly used M&A to grow. Claude tells me "The acquired businesses (Beardo, 4700BC, Cosmix, True Elements, Plix) brought in a combined ₹2,375 crore in FY26, against total revenue of ₹13,611 crore. That works out to about 17.5% of consolidated revenue." Definitely the synergies w @sharrpventures and Rishabh's deep understanding of the consumer brands / DTC startup space helps Marico.

This was an interesting @uncapped_pod episode by @jaltma featuring Mel Williams of @TrueBridgeCP Strangely there hasn't been any public tweet (or I couldnt find it) abt this episode though I didnt find anything controversial in the episode. My notes 1/ The froth is stage-inverted as compared to 2021. In 2021, seed rounds were rational, and growth rounds were irrational, while public markets were also irrational. Today, it's inverted. It's growth rounds that are arguably seen as more allied to public comps, and it's early-stage rounds, which are not as small as they used to be, which are much more frothy. AI is 50-60% of deal flow, and demand exceeds supply, which is what is behind the irrational pricing. 2/ Why Tier 2 or 3 venture firms keep raising: a) It's hard to distinguish luck from skill for an LP. The GP has a good story for every co - success or failure - in their portfolio. b) The number of LPs is growing, so even if a few of your present set of LPs are unhappy, there are always newer LPs. c) Because the feedback loops are extremely long, it can take over a decade for some of your stories to play out. By the time the true results become known, you could have raised two or three funds. 3/ Fascinating point on research on fund size versus valuation returns by Joshua Leonard at the University of Chicago. His finding is that absolute size matters much less than the shift or the change from one fund to the other, if the size more than doubles, then it's an issue. I found this interesting because Blume's Fund 4 nearly tripled from the previous fund (we were not the only guilty ones). Let's hope the founders of Fund 4 can prove this wrong:) 4/ Mel Williams described the two characteristics of the best GPs he's met: - Their ability to approach the market from a contrarian standpoint, such as Thiel during the Airbnb round when nobody else wanted to do it, he says. Over time, these managers' contrarian conviction itself creates the investment signal for others to follow. - The ability to concentrate deeply into the winners. Concentration into winners is how the highest performing funds in the industry have generated their returns, he says, and it is a distinct skill from picking them. He says that the latter is harder because it's difficult to sleep easily with this level of concentration. 5/ Interesting points made on concentration: a) He says that he's beginning to see elite GPs raising larger funds but with fewer checks planned (11-13 vs prev fund sizes of 25), and these GPs are not folks who struggle for access. b) TrueBridge themselves are choosing to concentrate more on the GPs they back. He says when their flagship grew from 500 to eventually 900 million, the growth, he said, came from increasing allocations into the existing top managers. They reduced the number of managers they back from 18 or so in their first fund to 11 or 12 in fund 8. He says they force-rank the portfolio every year, and the managers in the bottom three slots are always at risk of leaving. 6/ The 3 criteria he looks for in seed managers: - Solid track record - A distinctive angle / approach / right to win / proprietary deal flow for a certain network of founders - Personal brand given at seed your firm brand is not as strong as say a Sequoia