E95: Abhishek Nag (Partner, Lightspeed India Partners)

The Desi VC: Indian Venture Capital | Angel Investors | Startups | VC

Abhishek Nag is a Partner at Lightspeed India where he primarily focuses on investing in consumer internet companies, media & entertainment, the creator economy, and gaming. He brings extensive experience driving strategic partnerships, business development, and corporate development for internet companies in the domains of growth, content and payments, among other areas. Previously he held operator roles at hyper-growth companies including Meta (Facebook), Hike, Uber, and most recently, Netflix.

He’s been an active angel investor since 2016, investing in over 45 startups with several first round investments turned unicorns.

When he’s not busy working with startups, Abhishek publishes a newsletter in which he writes about building, scaling, and investing in technology businesses in India.

Episode notes:

1. State of Indian venture capital in the context of today’s macroeconomic climate (3:52)

2. Fundings, valuations and funding winter: When will the market correct itself? (13:50)

3. What can Indian investors learn from the past and how can we become better investors in the future? (20:40)

4. What made Abhishek switch to VC? (25:55)

5. What has Abhishek learned from his angel investing experience that he now applies as a VC? (34:11)

6. Advice for angel investors (39:05)

7. A playbook for determining GTM and new market expansion (43:03)

8. Advantages of having feet on street (52:26)

9. Building products for different markets (56:15)

. . .

Social Links:

Lightspeed on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lightspeedvp

Abhishek Nag on Twitter: https://twitter.com/abhisheknag

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash