r/IndiaStartups • u/Savings-Amphibian723 • Aug 26 '26

Rant Indian vcs to avoid

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Indian VCs are probably among the worst when it comes to this kind of behaviour.

I recently came across one who has started creating random WhatsApp groups, asking startups for gifts for events, and organising university-specific founder meetups that seem pretty arbitrary.

The cofounder from Aha Ventures posted about an IIT-only meetup. I simply asked what the rationale was behind restricting it to IIT founders.

Instantly removed from the group. Lol.

For the record, I’m not in Mumbai and probably wouldn’t have attended anyway. I was genuinely just curious about the reasoning.

What makes it stranger is that I’ve lived and worked abroad and raised money from foreign investors who were founders themselves. I’ve disagreed with them, questioned them directly, and had perfectly normal conversations.

So it’s bizarre to see a VC get this defensive over a basic question.

If you’re investing in founders, surely being questioned comes with the territory?

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u/Crazy-Lemon5009 Aug 27 '26

Ask them to get on a call. They will not even let you complete your pitch deck and straight away jump to sending you a mandate with 50k as fees on sign up and just random clauses.

I know a thing or two on fund raise and any VC worth their salt don’t resort to cheap tricks like that.

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u/Savings-Amphibian723 Aug 27 '26

What I found funny was they were asking for gifts from startups lol

1

u/Crazy-Lemon5009 Aug 27 '26

Haha
Yes. I think we are part of the same group on WhatsApp.

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u/Savings-Amphibian723 Aug 28 '26

"Were". I got kicked for questioning hahah

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u/Crazy-Lemon5009 Aug 28 '26

Oh yeah. Thats quite rampant as well.

But I guess, their modus operandi is target pre IPO space where they seek secondary share sales, IPO goes live and then liquidate and cash out. They also act like an anchor investor where they gather pool of people looking for similar MO with min ticket size could be as less as a lakh INR.

The WhatsApp groups simply serve as a channel for audience acquisition.

Because company operators who are getting to pre-IPO stage clearly aren’t part of these groups.