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How Rubrik’s IPO paid off big Greylock VC Asheem Chandna

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When Asheem Chandna arrived at Rubrik’s office in Palo Alto on a Friday evening in early 2015, he couldn’t wait to search out out what the young company that hadn’t yet created a product would show him. Greylock’s partner was not upset.

The company’s CEO, Bipul Sinha, drew on a whiteboard Rubrik’s plan to revamp the info management and recovery market. “The old and new architecture he presented was very convincing,” Chandna said. “Based on my knowledge of the industry, I knew it could be turned into a big business.”

It was a prophetic call. On Thursday, nine years after that meeting, Rubrik began its operations as a publicly traded company with: market capitalization exceeding $6 billion. Greylock owns 13% of the shares, in keeping with the newest SEC reports. By the close of trading Friday, at a share price of $38, nearly 19.9 million shares were value greater than $756 million.

But Chandna says he was motivated to steer the Rubrik team by rather more than simply a desire to tackle the arcane data recovery market. Series B for $40 million in May 2015. (According to SEC filings, the Series B round sold for $2.45 per share, adjusted for splits. Although Greylock also participated in later rounds at higher prices, Chandra’s profits from this round are enormous.)

“The longer I do what I do, the more I truly believe that venture is a people business,” said Chandna, who has been an investor for over 20 years and has an enviable track record of successful exits. He helped incubate Palo Alto Networks within the Greylock offices and until last 12 months served on the board of directors of the nearly $100 billion company. Chandna was also an early investor Application dynamics, Sumo logic and Arista Networks.

Chandna looks for individuals who are usually not only motivated and bold, but in addition aware of their weaknesses and may recruit individuals who can get things done in areas that are usually not the founder’s strong suit.

Another essential ingredient for the founder is sand. “If you had the right technology, but slightly inferior to mine, but you were very aware and persistent, you would beat me,” he said.

This is what he saw in Sinha. The founding father of Rubrik dreamed of beginning a company all his life. Chandra recalls that when he founded a knowledge management and recovery startup in 2013, he couldn’t find strong engineers willing to work there. The business he was attempting to construct wasn’t inherently sexy on the time.

Despite being an investor in Lightspeed for 4 years before founding Rubrik, recruiting talent proved to be a serious challenge for Sinha. But he didn’t quit. He called engineers on LinkedIn after which invited them to coffee breaks outside the workplace.

“The startup path is very difficult, even for the most successful companies,” Chandna said. “I want people who won’t take no for an answer.”

Perhaps it was Sinha’s resolve and ambition that forced him to take his company public despite the unfavorable IPO atmosphere.

“Rubrik has almost $800 million in annual recurring revenue,” Chandna said. “This is more than most companies that have gone public in the last many years. I think they just wanted to keep it going.”

Chandna would not say whether he expects other Greylock portfolio corporations to follow Rubrik’s lead, but added emphatically that the best-performing late-stage corporations are Abnormal Security, Cato Networks, Discord, Figma and Lyra Health.

We will follow their fate closely.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal is leaving PhonePe’s board

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Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has stepped down three-quarters from PhonePe’s board after making an identical move on the e-commerce giant.

Bengaluru-based PhonePe said it has appointed Manish Sabharwal, executive director at recruitment and human resources firm Teamlease, as an independent director and chairman of the audit committee.

Bansal played a key role in Flipkart’s acquisition of PhonePe in 2016 and has since served on the fintech’s board. The Walmart-backed startup, which operates India’s hottest mobile payment app, spun off from Flipkart in 2022 and was valued at $12 billion in funding rounds that raised about $850 million last 12 months.

Bansal still holds about 1% of PhonePe. Neither party explained why they were leaving the board.

“I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Binny Bansal for being one of the first and staunchest supporters of PhonePe,” Sameer Nigam, co-founder and CEO of PhonePe, said in a press release. His lively involvement, strategic advice and private mentoring have profoundly enriched our discussions. We will miss Binny!”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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The company is currently developing washing machines for humans

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Forget about cold baths. Washing machines for people may soon be a brand new solution.

According to at least one Japanese the oldest newspapersOsaka-based shower head maker Science has developed a cockpit-shaped device that fills with water when a bather sits on a seat in the center and measures an individual’s heart rate and other biological data using sensors to make sure the temperature is good. “It also projects images onto the inside of the transparent cover to make the person feel refreshed,” the power says.

The device, dubbed “Mirai Ningen Sentakuki” (the human washing machine of the longer term), may never go on sale. Indeed, for now the company’s plans are limited to the Osaka trade fair in April, where as much as eight people will have the option to experience a 15-minute “wash and dry” every day after first booking.

Apparently a version for home use is within the works.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Zepto raises another $350 million amid retail upheaval in India

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Zepto, snagging $1 billion in 90 days, projects 150% annual growth

Zepto has secured $350 million in latest financing, its third round of financing in six months, because the Indian high-speed trading startup strengthens its position against competitors ahead of a planned public offering next yr.

Indian family offices, high-net-worth individuals and asset manager Motilal Oswal invested in the round, maintaining Zepto’s $5 billion valuation. Motilal co-founder Raamdeo Agrawal, family offices Mankind Pharma, RP-Sanjiv Goenka, Cello, Haldiram’s, Sekhsaria and Kalyan, in addition to stars Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar are amongst those backing the brand new enterprise, which is India’s largest fully national primary round.

The funding push comes as Zepto rushes so as to add Indian investors to its capitalization table, with foreign ownership now exceeding two-thirds. TechCrunch first reported on the brand new round’s deliberations last month. The Mumbai-based startup has raised over $1.35 billion since June.

Fast commerce sales – delivering groceries and other items to customers’ doors in 10 minutes – will exceed $6 billion this yr in India. Morgan Stanley predicts that this market shall be value $42 billion by 2030, accounting for 18.4% of total e-commerce and a pair of.5% of retail sales. These strong growth prospects have forced established players including Flipkart, Myntra and Nykaa to cut back delivery times as they lose touch with specialized delivery apps.

While high-speed commerce has not taken off in many of the world, the model seems to work particularly well in India, where unorganized retail stores are ever-present.

High-speed trading platforms are creating “parallel trading for consumers seeking convenience” in India, Morgan Stanley wrote in a note this month.

Zepto and its rivals – Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy-owned Instamart and Tata-owned BigBasket – currently operate on lower margins than traditional retail, and Morgan Stanley expects market leaders to realize contribution margins of 7-8% and adjusted EBITDA margins to greater than 5% by 2030. (Zepto currently spends about 35 million dollars monthly).

An investor presentation reviewed by TechCrunch shows that Zepto, which handles greater than 7 million total orders every day in greater than 17 cities, is heading in the right direction to realize annual sales of $2 billion. It anticipates 150% growth over the following 12 months, CEO Aadit Palicha told investors in August. The startup plans to go public in India next yr.

However, the rapid growth of high-speed trading has had a devastating impact on the mom-and-pop stores that dot hundreds of Indian cities, towns and villages.

According to the All India Federation of Consumer Products Distributors, about 200,000 local stores closed last yr, with 90,000 in major cities where high-speed trading is more prevalent.

The federation has warned that without regulatory intervention, more local shops shall be vulnerable to closure as fast trading platforms prioritize growth over sustainable practices.

Zepto said it has created job opportunities for tons of of hundreds of gig employees. “From day one, our vision has been to play a small role in nation building, create millions of jobs and offer better services to Indian consumers,” Palicha said in an announcement.

Regulatory challenges arise. Unless an e-commerce company is a majority shareholder of an Indian company or person, current regulations prevent it from operating on a listing model. Fast trading corporations don’t currently follow these rules.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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