Priya Ramachandran, founder and managing partner at Foster Ventures, recounts her remarkable odyssey from the tech world in India to her venture capital journey in the heart of Silicon Valley. She candidly discusses her evolution as a VC, starting as an angel investor, and passionately elaborates on the core values and principles that underpin the foundation of Foster Ventures. Priya also expresses her enthusiasm for the imminent surge of innovation poised to emerge from the dynamic cross-border US-India startup ecosystem.
Priya Ramachandran, founder and managing partner at Foster Ventures, recounts her remarkable odyssey from the tech world in India to her venture capital journey in the heart of Silicon Valley. She candidly discusses her evolution as a VC, starting as an angel investor, and passionately elaborates on the core values and principles that underpin the foundation of Foster Ventures. Priya also expresses her enthusiasm for the imminent surge of innovation poised to emerge from the dynamic cross-border US-India startup ecosystem.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
[2:42] The advantages and responsibilities of angel investing
[9:25] Key considerations when choosing an investor in the pre-seed to seed stage
[14:27] The path to achieving startup success: crafting a precise problem statement, building with integrity, and maintaining agility during implementation.
[18:58] Founder's dilemma: balancing speed with the importance of doing things right
[27:19] Fostering a robust US-India startup ecosystem will take true community building
The non-profit organization that Priya is passionate about: SaaSBOOMi
About Priya Ramachandran
Priya Priya Ramachandran is the Founder and Managing Partner of Foster Ventures. As an Operator and a GTM expert, Priya works with cross-border companies and helps entrepreneurs with product market fit, international market entry advice and introductions. Before starting Foster Ventures, Priya was with BoldCap, BetterCloud, Coupa, Intel Security and LogiGear Corporation leading various strategic operational roles with a focus on Product Strategy, Customer Strategy & Adoption and Customer Success. Priya is also an active mentor at SaaSBOOMi with a focus on enabling and empowering cross-border founders.
About Foster Ventures
Foster Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based early-stage venture capital firm with a focus on B2B Enterprise SaaS. As an operator-led VC, Foster works with early-stage startups, supporting founders building global products. Portfolio companies include vitrina, rocketlane, atomicwork, lyric, SimpliContract among others.
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We've seen a very strong US-Israel relationship that has been built. And there are like many Indian founders who come home or when we meet for a cup of coffee, we have the conversation around how can we set up US-India relationship to be as strong as US-Israel relationship has come up, and for that it takes a community.
Gopi Rangan: You are listening to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur - a podcast for founders with ambitious ideas. Venture capital investors, and other early believers tell you relatable, insightful, and authentic stories to help you realize your vision. Welcome to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Gopi Rangan. My guest today is Priya Ramachandran. She is the founder of a new venture capital firm called Foster Ventures.
Foster Ventures invests in pre-seed to Series A stage startups, mainly focused on the SaaS. sector, software as a service sector. She loves the zero to one journey with the customers. When companies are starting new companies, building new products and getting the first customer, that process is what she likes to support.
We're going to learn more about her investments. We're going to ask her questions about how she selects founders she wants to work with. Why does she say yes? When does she say no and get more information about Foster Ventures and her investment philosophy. Priya, welcome to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur.
Priya Ramachandran: Hi Gopi. Thank you so much for having me today.
Gopi Rangan: Tell us about yourself, starting with where you grew up. You were born in Bangalore, but you lived in Trichy for some time, and you came back to Bangalore, but you're not actually from either of those places. Give us a little more color on who
Priya Ramachandran: you are. And so, I'm originally from Palakkad, born in Bangalore, brought up in Trichy, which gave me an opportunity to basically, like, learn to read, write, talk three languages, Malayalam, Kannada, and Tamil, and to add on, during a couple of summers, I also learned Telugu too, since the scripts were more or less similar for Kannada and Telugu.
So, but this has given me an opportunity to be like watching movies at the original language, being actually like a hardcore movie fanatic.
Gopi Rangan: So you're a confused South Indian or a complete South Indian as you call yourself.
Priya Ramachandran: Exactly. 100% right.
Gopi Rangan: How did you come to Silicon Valley?
Priya Ramachandran: So as an early 20 year old, I was one of those who got married and moved from India to the U. S. But even before coming to the U. S., I did actually spend some time working with actually Nestle is one of the customers, and so I spent time in Switzerland working at a customer site, Nestle, and then I moved here to the Silicon Valley in 2003 of September.
Literally, it's uh, tomorrow it's going to be 20 years since I've moved to the Silicon Valley.
Gopi Rangan: Wow, congratulations. Thank you. And just like any dream come true for a techie, you came to Silicon Valley and worked at many tech companies, including Logic Gear, Intel. And later at Coupa Software, but then you took a 90 degree turn. You went into the investment world. How did that happen? Why did you become a venture capital investor?
Priya Ramachandran: Uh, that's a beautiful journey. It all started back in like 2004 when I joined LogiGear. So I had an opportunity to meet with this wonderful gentleman, Hung Nguyen and we were initially the Blue Ocean truly to be like setting up the first offshore center in Vietnam. At LogiGear, we were working with like multiple startups in doing the offshoring of their engineering services. And this gave me an opportunity to truly work with multiple startups in the valley.
And indeed couple of these relationships have come even to the day-to-day that many of those startup founders are advisors. And big supporters of me and the fund today. And so it's a beautiful journey of like 20 years relationships. And so working with the LogiGear from 2005 through 2012, I truly had an opportunity to work with like 46 plus startups in the Valley.
And that is how I got introduced to the whole concept of startup. And we did a complete bootstrapped company. And it was a wonderful journey to be like being the blue ocean. In setting up the offshore centers in Vietnam, Danang and in Saigon, hiring people, training people, doing a wonderful job, growing from like zero to 26 million in like two to three years timeframe.
And that is how the startup bug basically bit me. And I spent like 16 months in Intel security when MXLogic acquisition to McAfee happened. and MXLogic was using LogiGear for outsourcing. I was working very closely with the engineering leadership. Jamie Tischart, who's presently the CTO of BetterCloud is indeed one of my biggest mentors and coaches, and I had an opportunity to spend like 12 to 15 months with Intel. It was a great company, but working with, like, 46 plus startups and moving on to Intel, which was a great player. And amazing stuff with respect to women empowerment and everything that people talk about today. Intel was already doing that in 2012. But still I was missing out on the key concept of that adrenaline missing, you know, by working with like 46 plus startups moving into Intel. And that's when I was introduced to Coupa and Coupa was a beautiful journey. When I was in Coupa we had a successful IPO in 2016.
And they're like multiple wonderful stuff that we learned being in Coupa. Coupa started having this great startup culture and every single product that was like built one after the other. It was indeed like a startup within a startup and we had like a couple of great acquisitions that we did do.
The bug of 2003 stuck with me throughout and from 2018, we started investing as an angel from Trian Fund with a focus on cross-border India, cross-border, Vietnam, and also a couple of local companies over here. But it was a beautiful thing being an angel is awesome. I also had an opportunity to be like doing due diligence for a couple of funds in the valley, as long as it was not competing with Coupa.
Then I had an opportunity after I supported BetterCloud also, I went back and I worked with Jamie Tischart and David Politis, a great company again for a year. Then I was like thinking about what am I going to be doing next? Spending a lot of time with cross border founders from India to during COVID and post COVID.
I was like very, very sure that I want to be like working with. The startup founders, and there is so much that we can do in enabling and empowering them. I had an opportunity to either join a couple of great tier one funds or start my own. And that's when I decided to start Foster Ventures, which is indeed a startup of the VC world.
And I would love to consider myself as the Switzerland of the VC Meaning it's very important for us to be like partnering with multiple other investors. And as an investor, we're always sales people, 98 percent sales and 2 percent investing. From the perspective of, as an investor, number one, we have to be continuously selling and driving value to our portfolio companies so that they can take our money or investment.
Number two, we have to be like selling about the value that we provide to our LPs. Number three, being an early stage investor, we are indeed the salespeople for our portfolio companies too, right? How can we be helping as and when our portfolio companies need support with industry connects, buyer connects, and things like that?
That is indeed selling too. And last but not the least, as an early stage investor, it is very important for us to be like bridging and creating relationship and brand building for our portfolio companies to be like successful And so keeping this in mind, Foster Ventures is truly focusing on fostering innovation and growth from the city of Foster City.
Gopi Rangan: Beautiful journey through all the tech companies you've worked at over the years and you're bringing all that experience as a VC to your founders now. And like you said, the way you are thinking about Foster Ventures is you are a Switzerland and right in the middle between founders, limited partners, other venture capital firms, you're a collaborative setup to make sure that everybody kind of comes together.
How is Foster Ventures different other VC firms?
Priya Ramachandran: So every single VC firm will bring in value, right? And that's where everyone is existing in the world. But with respect to Foster Ventures, I would love to bring in a couple of differentiating factors. Number one, if you're truly looking at someone who can pick up the phone call, have a conversation with you as a founder.
Morning afternoon or night, whether it is about hiring a person or firing a person or setting up relationship, people know that I'm here. Because it's the approachability, which is the 1st step. The 2nd differentiating factor is working together with other folks.
Having that collaborative approach makes this actually like truly different; from the perspective that either bringing in a co investor or on day zero for my B2B enterprise startups, right? It's all about getting those design partners in or two angel investors in. Because now as an institutional or a micro VC, I'm no more an angel, but I still wear the angel hat being a part of Foster Venture s. Because as an angel, I wasn't worried so much about the due diligence and things like that. I'll just write a check from my own personal money, but be actually a Foster Ventures VC, I have to do all of these things, but indeed also like get my portfolio companies introduced to differentiating angel investors, right?
Which is very key and important because if we look at most of our cap tables. It'll be the same bunch of angels in many cases. And one of the key things that I work with my portfolio companies is to help them think about, Hey, why are you bringing in this particular angel investor? Is it for the sake of brand? Is it for the sake of Industry experience or like complimenting the skills that you or your existing co founding team might not have? So having those kind of conversations and getting them introduced to the right angel investors is the second thing. The third differentiating factor that I can actually like say is about industry connect.
Being part of INSEAD, being in the industry for the past, like, 20 years, you know, scaling companies, working with SMBs, mid market, enterprise customers, in different parts of the world, in different segments. Bringing in the direct connect makes a huge lot of difference, and I would love to thank many of the advisors of my fund who are ready to pick up the phone call to basically have a conversation with my portfolio companies too.
So overall, the three differentiating factors are number one, approachability, number two, thinking out of the box. With respect to getting co investors or angel investors, number three, the power of industry connect, right? And again, others do this too, but at the same time, having the culture as a piece, working with cross border India, cross border Vietnam, that makes a huge lot of difference for me and Foster Ventures.
Gopi Rangan: I see that you've really thought through what Foster means and how you want to build foster. You've built the firm on these three pillars of approachability and helping founders find the right kind of investors and use your industry network to help the company grow.
And you have the angel investor experience before you started Foster Ventures. So you know how other angels behave and how to pick the right kind of investors. I want to ask you more questions about your startups, but before we do that, a few high level questions.
How many companies do you typically invest in? What kind of sectors excite you? Can you give a little bit of detail on how you think about your investments? And then we'll talk about startups.
Priya Ramachandran: One of the key things for Foster Ventures, you know, being like the startup of the VC world, on day zero, we created three core values for the fund.
Number one is actually like investing with respect. Number two is ensuring stakeholder success. And number three is building with integrity. And all of these three things are basically to be like creating a great community behind, right? As the core platform.
And so if someone would love to know about Foster Ventures, we are the startup with these three core values in place. And so we would love to work with our founders. With having the diligence and actually like, you know, building with integrity is a key focus. And we focus on that and we will also help our founders to think in the same way and help them build a great company too.
Gopi Rangan: You've established your cultural values also very early with the firm. Many VC firms would say something similar, like we care about our LPs, we care about our founders, we care about integrity. Can you give an example of a company you've recently invested in? What got you excited about the company?
Priya Ramachandran: So, I can talk about K N O W as one of the first investments.
KNOW is founded by Krish Sridhar, ex McKinsey alum, and also LBS alum. And KNOW is on a mission to turn frontline workers into superheroes, literally. if you think about the traditional brick and mortar businesses, there are a lot of manual work. Like managing daily operational tasks or training of staffs, et cetera, which no one knows as to what is happening, where it is happening and things like that.
So KNOW has got a super app, which has got a collection of tools that streamlines all of these and gets rid of all the whatsapp and external tools and things like that. Why did we choose KNOW as a product? Number one is founder conviction. What the founder is bringing in from building a product integrity and the value proposition.
Number 2 is basically the problem statement and the focus on that particular problem solving approach, It's a good example. Caution is key in no or building a product to bring in the digitization and operational. I see the frontline workers in the retail industry and the industry.
Having that kind of a focus and having actually like design partners from day 0, when you are building a B2B enterprise product, you have to know the field, the problems that's happening in that particular field so that we can actually have at least like 2 design partners from day 0 who can be understanding the problem that we are solving. And so KNOW came in with that kind of like clear problem conviction and the way in which they can actually like solve that particular problem.
And the third thing, none of us can plan and execute in the same way, like three years, five years, six years, because no one knew that generative AI is going to be like becoming like such a big thing like six months ago. So adapting to changes and knowing how to implement those changes is very important for founders, the agility. And so these are the three reasons as to why we've gone ahead and we've partnered with KNOW. And I loved the product. I loved the founder, the team. I was able to get like great value addition from the customers that they had recently that even it was very happy to bring in my fellow investors to co write the check with me too. Neon is a fund also joined in to be investing alongside with Foster Ventures in KNOW too.
Gopi Rangan: KNOW it's a very interesting company indeed. It's the super app for frontline teams; using technology to amplify the ability for frontline workers to get productive with their jobs.
You talked about founder market fit. What can founders do to make it easy for you? What's your advice to them so that the founder market fit is clear to you?
Priya Ramachandran: a) What have they set up their company to be from the value perspective?
b) Having values from day zero.
We look for what are the values that the founders and the co founders have set for the company? And many times it is not like meeting the first time and writing the check.
And so I like to spend time, usually my first meeting with them, it's about like knowing about them, caring about me. And actually letting them know as to how I like to work and also like knowing as to how they like to work too, right. It's basically going to be eight years relationship at least and I look forward to seeing them being successful and starting the next thing so that we can reinvest in back then them even after eight years too, right. Keeping that in mind, I started an initial meeting of like just meeting over a cup of coffee or like going for a walk, getting to know about each other and just understanding at a high level as to what they are building, why they are building, and why do they think that they are solving a problem? And after this first meeting, we also like connect back a couple of other times or over a phone call. And I usually like ask for the deck at this particular time. So that I can also do my homework before I can actually like, take up any more time of this particular founder. Along,
Gopi Rangan: How long does that take like from the first meeting to the point where you say, 'I want to invest'?
Priya Ramachandran: I f it's going to be at the white paper troubleshooting kind of stage, it's going to be like, at least know, 3 to 4 weeks timeframe.
(EXAMPLE) there is actually 1 of the companies, Lyric. Ganesh and I had been talking from last August and I wrote the check in February of this year. That was indeed the 1st check that I wrote from the fund. It's in the supply chain AI space, but it's about like understanding and working with them as they are thinking about the product, you know, as they are thinking about pivoting, as they are talking to what prospective customers or like list of people in the industry to analyze the problem.
I usually like to keep in touch with them right from the day they're even thinking about starting a company. So that way, we're also like developing the trust because it's a two way relationship. Just like how I would love to do my analysis and writing a check for them, they should also know me equally well before taking actually money from the fund or bringing me in as their investor.
In the case of KNOW, we initiated the conversation in like September of last year and Krish was basically building a great product.
We were like understanding what he was building, what kind of support that we need to give. And when he decided that he's going to be raising money in December, he was happy to come and reach out to me, asking if I can be a part of the journey. And so these conversations that we started having earlier helps us to a trust and a relationship. But At the same time, I've even written a check for one of the founders whom I've known for the past, like, eight years. Still, for them, it's not about, like, knowing the founder. It is about understanding the product perspective, right?
And this particular founder had worked in the same field that they'd seen the problem. They were developing the problem. So all we did was met twice and the third meeting we had with like two of their prospective customers. You know, I like to do my due diligence with their prospective customers because it's like picking two mangoes with one stone.
And so, you know, I like to bring in actually like leaders from the industry who can be prospective customers, and I get the due diligence done through them, which also helps us out to quickly write a check. And so this is the approach that we usually take, Gopi.
Gopi Rangan: A lot of what you say makes sense. It's a lifelong relationship, often much longer than seven or eight years, and even further beyond that. When you start a relationship like that, it helps to take your time, both from the founder side and from the investor side to spend a few weeks, maybe a few months if necessary. And you really like to meet founders early so you can spend that time without having to rush to make these decisions. Are founders making a mistake when they optimize for speed?
Priya Ramachandran: You know, it depends upon what and why they are doing it. Say, For example, the companies I write the pre seed and the seed check for now, I already get them introduced to the series A investors, and they're already talking with a couple of those series A investors mainly because of the perspective that they need to know the kind of founders that they like to work with.
It's a two way relationship, and so investors need to like the founders. Founders need to like the investors that they like to work with too. So that in mind, speed comes into a position only when there is no money in the bank, you know, doing like a last minute check writing, and so I need to go with someone who's just going to be like writing me a check.
But if you think about very strategic and mature founders, this is something that I would love to work with my founders to on is, it's always important to know, how are we going to be thinking for the next one year, three years and the five years perspective. And just like how we have the complete actually like forecasting or the opportunity list for our future customers in the sales pipeline, it is also equally important for us to be like having the fundraising pipeline and the cash inflow pipeline. Without that, we cannot truly run a good company and so any checks that's being written very fast and things like that it happened in like 2020 and 2021 as you and I both know. But many of these relationships have been like building over months in the background. The last minute it might be looking like truly a rushing thing because three VCs that this founder has been like working with might be interested and the founder might also like all the three of them. And so the speed is important at that particular time as to who's going to be like coming in first. But we need to be like spending time before we take the money. That's my two cents.
Gopi Rangan: Speed is important. But when we speed up because of situations like we're going to run out of money, those kind of situations can push the founder to make some mistakes and bring on investors who might not have the same kind of alignment with the vision or long term interests. And that's a risk that they take. Also for the investors, it's not fair to just keep taking follow up meeting after follow up meeting to do due diligence. Speed is important. Once the relationship is established and you can see that as an investor, that this is a relationship you can hold for many, many years, then you form the conviction. It becomes a lot easier. That is the kind of investor founders should desire.
Priya Ramachandran: Yes. And even for the investor side too, we have to look at the corporate governance and the financial diligence and all of these. Things, which is like very important in today's world.
Gopi Rangan: But you act like an angel. There is no corporate governance.
Priya Ramachandran: Yes, you know, that's weird, right? As I already mentioned to you, it's about bringing in the positivity of an angel. But when I am actually institutional VC now, and so I have to look for those things when I'm doing the check writing, not just for the sake of the fund, but even for the sake of the founders too, right?
Because even at the pre seed stage, when I started doing due diligence, even on their corporate structures, how they've set up their companies and things like that, I literally sometimes frustrate the founders because they say that, "Hey, Priya, there are other investors who write a check in safe note without asking, without doing any due diligence, right?"
Even as to how a company is being set up in the U. S., how actually the EINs are being created, how basically the subsidiary is being set up back in India and things like that. But then the key reason as to why I spend like four to six weeks is to ensure that you're not getting into trouble at the last minute when they're going to be going in for a pre-seed raise or like a series A raise, you know, I was just talking with an amazing actually like legal person. And, uh, she was just quoting to me about one of these companies, which had raised actually like pre seed in the past. It's been like four months. They've gotten the funding, but just because this company has not been like set up properly in a legal way.
And it has not been like set up in the right way for the subsidiaries back in India, the core Delaware corp over here and things like that. The final check has not been wired. It has been taking like five and a half months because now they have to fix it because it's like tier one funds for coming in and writing the check too.
And so it's important, as Foster Ventures and being an angel in that particular way, bringing in these kind of corporate governance and rules is an initial thing at the pre seed level itself, helping them to be truly successful when they raise for seed and Series A and things like that.
Gopi Rangan: You spend a lot of time in the cross border between US and India.
You mentioned Vietnam as well. Let's talk about India. That has been a corridor of interest for a lot of people for many, many years. But it hasn't really taken off as much as some of the other corridors, like Israel-US corridor or other types of avenues like that. Why is now the best time? What do you see that excites you?
Priya Ramachandran: That's a beautiful question. And indeed, being a fellow Insead, as you write, you know, we've seen a very strong US-Israel relationship that has been built. And there are many Indian founders who come home or when we meet for a cup of coffee, we have the conversation around how can we set up US-India relationship to be like as strong as US-israel relationship has come up. And for that, it takes a community. It cannot be. One person like you or me who can make that kind of a relationship successful. So this is where building a true community takes the highest priority, how we can empower and enable the next generation founders who are starting up from India to be like building true global product.
If we can come in together as a community, that is something that we can focus on, and that is the change that is happening now. We've gotten like at least like 20 to 21 unicorns from India today. Freshworks has gone IPO. The first ever SaaS company that was started from India for the global world. It went public just like actually like a year and a half ago.
Which is a great story, and people like Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks are not only actually like set that example, but they're also paying it forward to create Israel U. S. Equivalent for U. S. India, right? And Zoho has crossed like a billion dollar in revenue being a bootstrapped company. And we've got in companies like MindTickle, we've got DarwinBox, we've got many of these companies from India with the focus on B2B, SaaS, and with an enterprise focus, which is actually giving a lot of encouragement for our founders in India to build global products. And the second thing is today we've got, you know, this is something that I'm very proud of from the nonprofit perspective. The one thing that I love to do besides Foster Ventures today is SaaSBOOMi.
As one of the core team members of North America, we are truly working on creating that platform for our Indian origin founders to come in, settle and truly build the global product. We are going to be hosting the SaaSBOOMi caravan for the second consecutive year from September 8th through the 15th.
And the key thing that we are doing is we have created like an industry connect. Last year, after we completed the first SaaSBOOMi Caravan, I had this wonderful conversation with Avinash Raghava, who truly builds. Communities right about creating a platform where our Indian origin founders can have an opportunity to meet with potential buyers, industry leaders.
And we have actually brought that into reality this year. And as a part of me, next week, we've already gotten like, 306 industry Connect scheduled for our Indian origin founders who have come from India meeting with true leaders, C level or the other buyers from the different part of industries.
so With the amount of manpower and the intelligence that we have in India, SaaSBOOMi has basically like brought out the dream of starting a startup or becoming an entrepreneur, even to the satellite towns, you know, in different parts of India. And that is actually one of the key things that we need to think about, right?
Of creating equity and equality, even in the startup world. Number one, how are we going to be like making sure that a startup which is coming out of India is having the same kind of accessibilities that anyone else in the U. S. might be starting about?
How can we have that soft landing that our wonderful Israeli friends have created so well for our Indian friends, you know, starting from India, coming down here, a soft landing pad to be like successful. And number three, making the dream of a startup as a reality, even in the satellite towns back in India.
Gopi Rangan: India and the. Two of the most successful democracies. So at the high level of the political level and the economic level, I see changes happening where there's more collaboration and at the ground level of the community level and talent level, there is a groundswell of support for this. I'm very excited about the future as well.
Priya, thank you very much for spending time with me. Thank you for sharing your experiences, your journey as a techie coming to Silicon Valley and your way into venture capital and how you choose your investments, your transition from being an angel investor and, and the values that you take with you now, as you build Foster Ventures, the excitement that you have shared for the upcoming big wave of innovation coming from that India. U. S. Corridor is very exciting as well. I look forward to sharing your nuggets of wisdom with the world.
Priya Ramachandran: Thank you so much. And let's build this together.
Gopi Rangan: Thank you for listening to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur.
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