E133: Navin Honagudi (Managing Partner, Elev8 Venture Partners)

Navin Honagudi is the Managing Partner at Elev8 Venture Partners, an India-focused $200M Growth-stage fund. Elev8 focuses on Series B and C rounds of financing in hyper growth companies. He bring 18+ years of experience investing in early and growth stage technology firms and also held the positions of Co-founder and Partner at Kae Capital. . . . Episode Notes: Introduction (1:48) How Naveen entered venture capital (2:24) Comparing entrepreneurs: 2000s vs. today (4:45) Indian VC landscape & expected exits/returns in the 2000s (8:38) What Elev8 looks for in founders (11:45) Why India is exciting today (18:01) Opportunities in offline to online transition in India (25:30) Emerging sectors like faith-tech (28:15) Next billion dollar opportunities: alcohol, sex-tech, betting, gaming (32:25) Summarizing investment experiences: CVC, consumer VC, and growth-stage VC (37:25) Investing in early-stage vs. growth-stage (42:15) Advice Naveen would give his younger self (45:28) . . . Social Links: Follow ⁠⁠⁠Navin on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠Navin on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Desi VC on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow ⁠⁠⁠Akash Bhat on LinkedIn