2. 2/13/2016 2
IIT KGP, 06; Cofounder & CEO @ Capillary
Couch potato till 2013
Never ran more than 0.5 km / No yoga / meditation
Done a few treks earlier
Luckily in the last 18 months
10 half marathons
Oxfam 100km trail walk
Back to trekking again
Spend 2-3 hours a week at the gym or on yoga
Long runs or a meditation session on weekends
Attempting my first full marathon @ Mumbai in Jan
QUICK INTRO
3. Major FocusOmni-channel customer engagement and commerce solution suite
Enterprise SaaS focus in Asia and GCC region
At the intersection of Cloud, Digital, Mobile, Social and Big Data
Global Expertise
2/13/2016
ABOUT CAPILLARY
RAISED $80 MILLION+
IN FUNDING TILL
DATE ($60mn in last
18 months)
Ruaha
What We Do
Funding
Acquisitions
and
Investments
4. Enterprise Customers
Stores powered
Countries, through 10 offices
Shoppers on Platform
Employees Worldwide
of startup ups and downs
WHERE WE ARE KEY CUSTOMERS
200+
20,000+
30+
150
Million
600+
7 Years
5. THE TERRIFIC START: 2009 TO 2012
2/13/2016 5
Capillary was started in 2008
by 3 founders (+Krishna
Mehra +Ajay Modani)
Released our First product and
Acquired first Customer after 5
months.
$1.5mn in angel funding over 3
rounds over 3 years - $500k each
- 17 angel investors
$2mn in ARR - $100K Annual
burn; 120 member team;
Revenue Split: 90% India /
10% SEA; 4 folks outside India
Growth was 300% YoY
2008
2009
Dec 2011
Raised a $16mn Series A from
Sequoia, NVP, Qualcomm – Jan
2012
Got married Feb 2012
2012
6. 2/13/2016 6
THE SPRINT THAT WENT WRONG: 2012+2013
Scaled to 400 people across 10 countries
Offices in US, UK, Singapore, Middle East, Australia, HK, South Africa
35 folks internationally, Founders in India (Ajay), US (KK), Jet Plane(me)
Massive loss of focus -> slow down of growth
Burning ~$1mn a month! 4 months of cash in bank!
5 years now as a company – massive amounts of burn out
More than half of the early rock stars are in burn out mode
One of my cofounders had burnt out and wanted to move on
I went from 75kgs in Jan 2012 to 90kgs in Dec 2013
7. 2/13/2016 7
PERSONAL JOURNEY TOWARDS FITNESS: The START
10k steps a day Intake of atleast 1200 calories a day
Investing in yourself has a terrific positive reinforcement loop
8. PERSPIRATION: Early 2014
String of exits in all teams - some due to burnout, some due to bad times!
One of the cofounder moves out
A small bridge round fell through… Nearly out of cash!
No option but to pull out of a few markets… Do you do that before a fundraise?
Needed something to keep me sane and
prevent the spiral of doom!
Started replacing my morning walk with a run
(1km, 2km, 5km on a weekend)
Positive reinforcement
2/13/2016 8
9. 2/13/2016 9
Hit the market with 2 months of cash in bank
Got 2 term sheet from inbound investors in 3-4 weeks; Survived to tell
the story
Took a lot of hard calls: Shut markets, product lines, refocused on
developing markets
Another co-founder moves out
Long runs on weekends (12 km - 20 km) @ Cubbon Park
I couldn’t find time on weekdays ………. Best start to a weekend
Small running group in office
Signed up for the Bengaluru Full Marathon
Building the Tempo back: SERIES B/HARD CALLS
10. 2/13/2016 10
WHAT PROBABLY WORKED FOR ME?
Running was probably my meditation
An average 2 hours run where you are
yourself in your world – no distractions
Where you are by yourself – no distractions
An outsider/ dispassionate view of things
super close to you
Running with the mind of Meditation
When you are positive, your team will be
positive!
11. 2/13/2016 11
Does CEO Fitness matter?
Marathon running CEO’s delivered 8%
better results in the years they ran a
marathon than the market controlling for
other factors (S&P 500 companies)
*Does CEO Fitness matter? Peter Limbach &
Florian Sonnenburg Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology
12. 2/13/2016 12
There are 20 half marathoners
in the company today (5% of
the company)
Running is a big culture - All
the main folks run - Burn out
problem solved!
Run even on travel now –
Great way to see a city
RUNNING AS A CULTURE
[RUNS END RUNNING DOESN’T]
13. 2/13/2016 13
Whats next?
Two founders gone – what should
you do next?
Prepare the company for an exit?
Build more?
How do you break through? Can
this ever be a sizeable play? Few
sizeable enterprise software
product plays in India?
14. 2/13/2016 14
My wife is a big yoga enthusiast
2 week yoga holiday in Rishikesh – Dec end
Longest holiday in 9 years!
A great book for company: Good to Great!
Rishikesh Yogapeeth – Beginners course!
Liked Yoga.
For the first time in my life probably meditated!
Making peace with yourself!
A NEW BEGINNING: RISHIKESH & YOGA
15. 2/13/2016 15
Decide to build more!
Multi product SaaS company is the only way to hit $100mn revenues in
Asia in a shorter timeframe!
Go out and acquire products which fit the current customer base and
sales team comfort!
Sign a term sheet with MartJack to acquire them in Feb
Decide to raise a Series C - $40mn+
Fund the acquisition
Next 24 months - build a large Asia focused sales team; multi product play
Liquidity for old employees / founders
A NEW YEAR AND A NEW START
16. 2/13/2016 16
Large fundraise
No PE has invested in a India/ Asia focused SaaS play
Not riding a consumer wave!
Very few understand SaaS – a lot of time spent educating investors
No GMV to speak of, just good margins :)
Discounts don’t work for our customers, real value does :|
35 investors pitched to in 10 weeks – Didn’t get a banker
Need my daily dose of sanity – start hitting the Gym or Yoga 3 to 4 days a
week
Get to 2 terms sheets finally – Decide to go with Warburg Pincus
FUNDRAISE: A tough head stand!
17. 2/13/2016 17
Do a long trek or a reading-holiday - once an year
– Its very important that you take time away from the action to think
I take a long weekend Yoga Retreat every quarter now
– Shreyas (Tumkur road) is a good yoga retreat near Bangalore
Invest in yourself and your team
– A long run/ cycling trip on weekends – a terrific start to a weekend
– 3 to 4 days in a week – hit the gym, workout, go for a run
– Investing 6 - 8 hours per week for a healthy body and mind will go a long way for
your startup and you
– Start a weekend running / cycling group or yoga / Zumba sessions in office
QUICK TIPS
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No email, social media, browser on my phone
Restrict snacking of news/ information - FB/ Twitter etc to 30 mins in the
evening
Avoid the laptop/ mail for the first 60 - 90 minutes of the day
Some Small personal experiments!
19. 2/13/2016 19
HARUKI MURAKAMI ON RUNNING
“In long-distance running the
only opponent you have to beat
is yourself, the way you used to
be”