Unpacking Gemba Capital’s playbook

Adith Podhar says his Mumbai-based micro VC firm Gemba Capital focuses on pre-seed and seed investments in consumer internet, SaaS, fintech, and deeptech sectors. The VC has invested in 33 startups till now and takes a ‘bottoms-up approach to investment’.

Wednesday December 01, 2021 , 4 min Read

Good Morning,

In September this year, micro venture capital firm, Gemba Capital, announced the launch of its $10 million fund. The firm, which has received commitments of around $4.5 million from domestic limited partners (LPs), plans to invest in around 24 startups over the next few years.

Its founder Adith Podhar likes to call himself “an entrepreneur by heart” and “an investor by profession”. His varied experiences – as a financial services professional, an investment banker, and a food entrepreneur – continue to play a critical role in shaping the micro VC fund’s investment philosophy.

Founded in 2017, Gemba Capital has so far invested in 33 startups across consumer internet, SaaS (software-as-a-service) fintech, and deeptech sectors, with a typical funding value of around $200k per company. It usually gets involved in the pre-seed and seed stages. Few of its portfolio companies include insuretechs Plum and Verak, alternative investing platform Grip Invest, agritech Unnati, workforce management firm Zuper and cloud kitchen Hoi Foods.

Adith says he was always interested in the world of finance, which led him to gain work experience at institutions such as ICICI Bank and Motilal Oswal Private Equity, and a boutique investment bank. Along the way, he also ran his own QSR chain, Crepeteria, in Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Pune for four years.

The Interview

Watch Vivek Bhargava, Co-founder of ProfitWheel, and Chairman of the IAMAI Startup Committee, as he talks to YourStory about how IAMAI Circle aims to support startups in their growth journey with an unbiased and transparent mentoring framework.

Editor’s Pick: Product Roadmap

Open, a neo-banking platform, is helping SMEs address their banking pain points. The startup helps small businesses automate their business finances by integrating banking with tools used to collect, send and reconcile payments, manage payroll and expense, automate accounting and get access to credit. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Helping companies hire quickly

With hiring in the IT sector heating up, as India recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, companies now have to make the onboarding process quicker, including document verification which has an important role to play in the hiring process and requires more time.

This is where talent management startup Repyute is helping companies while also keeping a tab on competing offers the candidate might be pursuing and other HR-related services. Read more.

Startup snapshot of Repyute — Snapshot of Repute

News & Updates

Bessemer Venture Partners has announced its first India-dedicated fund of $220 million. The fund, which previously deployed capital from its global fund in India, will back early-stage companies from the India fund, investing in seed and Series A rounds.

Zomato has launched Zomato Wings, a platform to connect investors with restaurants. As a facilitator of fundraising for restaurants, Zomato will help restaurants position their story and metrics in the right manner and connect them with the right investors.

Simplilearn has announced the conclusion of its first Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) buyback plan of Rs 48.74 crore. All active employees who held vested shares as part of the ESOP plan were eligible for the buyback, though only 65 percent of them participated.

WhatsApp has been granted permission to double its user base for the payments service to 40 million by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). WhatsApp has a total user base of 400 million.

Fintech startup Cashfree Payments has acquired a majority stake worth $15 million in UAE and Saudi Arabia-based digital payments service provider Telr as part of its plans to expand internationally.