Astarc Ventures’ Salil Musale on investing in startups

In a conversation with YourStory, Salil Musale, Managing Director, Astarc Ventures, talks about exploring the Indian startup ecosystem, and investing in firms like Pharmeasy, Chingari, CredR, and others.

Monday November 22, 2021 , 3 min Read

Good Morning,

According to Salil Musale, Managing Director, Astarc Ventures, the best way to choose to invest in businesses is by getting a sense of people building the businesses and technologies.

This is why he moved back to India from Africa when he kept hearing about the momentum in the Indian startup ecosystem, especially in areas like automotive and agriculture, and how the sectors were getting disrupted with new innovations.

This led him to establish Astarc Ventures, an early-stage VC fund. Apart from being an early investor in Pharmeasy, the fund has invested in the likes of Chingari, Freight Tiger, CredR, and many others.

“For us, it was about helping these founders understand the organisational building, how can they scale a business, how can they look at teams and people, and building a culture. Since we have built many businesses, it is the value-add that I wanted to bring to these companies,” Salil shares.

The Interview

Ranveer Allahbadia, popularly known as BeerBiceps, is a man of many talents. Apart from being a creator, he is also an entrepreneur and a motivational speaker.

Watch this episode of Influencers Inc by YourStory to hear his story as he delves into the nitty-gritties of being a creator.

Editor’s Pick: India’s first intimacy coordinator

The role of an intimacy coordinator is to uphold the performance consent of the actor while filming intimate scenes, and at the same time, make sure that the vision of the director is achieved.

Aastha Khanna may well be on her way to becoming India’s first intimacy coordinator, ensuring the comfort and well-being of actors who have agreed to participate in intimate scenes on sets. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Enhancing buying experience for customers

At Bombay Shaving Company, Chirag Taneja realised direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands face a lot of problems such as lower cash on delivery (CoD) conversion rates, return to origin (RTO) orders, and rising customer acquisition costs.

In 2020, he founded GoKwik that solves for ecommerce, issues like increasing cash-on-delivery and check-out conversion rates and reducing return orders for clients. Read more.

News & Updates

Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra came out in support of an indigenously-designed motorised wheelchair vehicle built by IIT Madras' TTK Center for Rehabilitation Research and Device Development (R2D2) team in collaboration with NeoMotion.

Pune-based brain stroke and neurology healthtech startup iCardin (Nuclius Health Pvt Ltd) has reportedly raised $100,000 from UK-based businessman Jitendra Patel, who operates the Grandbydale drugstore business.