EP#37 Abhishek Goyal – The VC to founder journey, entrepreneurship lessons from the VC experience & investing in Flipkart

The VCpreneur: Startups | Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Fundraising

In this episode, Abhihshek Goyal, Co-founder @Tracxn & Serial Angel Investor, joins our host Digjay, to talk about his exciting journey as an entrepreneur, VC & an angel investor, learnings from his previous startups & scaling his latest venture – Tracxn, how being a VC & an angel investor influences his operating style as an entrepreneur, Abhishek’s investment in Flipkart, his approach to angel investing & fundraising advice for founders.

Abhishek started his career with Yahoo & Amazon and also founded two startups before joining Accel Partners. After working for 3 years at Accel, Abhishek plunged back into entrepreneurship, and launched two more startups — UrbanTouch (which was later acquired by online fashion flash sales retailer FashionAndYou), and his current venture Tracxn, an online startup discovery platform for VC funds. Tracxn is backed by angels like Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Sachin Bansal, Girish Mathrubootham & VCs like Sequoia, Accel & Prime VP. Besides being a serial entrepreneur & ex-VC, Abhishek is also a serial angel investor who has invested in 100+ startups through personal & institutional capital. You can connect with him here on Linkedin / Twitter

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Show notes –

1. (01:51) Abhishek’s journey as an entrepreneur, VC & an angel investor

2. (04:02) Tracxn - Genesis & problem statement; Starting up in US & then scaling the team in India

3. (08:37) Learnings from the previous startups that helped build a strong foundation at Tracxn

4. (09:53) How being a VC & an angel investor influences his operating style as an entrepreneur?

5. (13:13) Investing in Flipkart – The funding backstory

6. (18:23) Approach to angel investing; What motivates Abhishek to back early stage startups?

7. (26:41) Founder perspective – Pitfalls to avoid when raising funds from angels & value-add expectations

8. (30:33) Rapid fire and closing remarks

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