This week’s episode of Funding & Disrupting presented by Oura Collective takes you through the journey of Pentathlon Venture’s Lead Investor and Managing Partner Gireendra Kasmalkar. Keith Herman interviews Gireendra to gain an insight into his funding firm ‘Pentathlon Ventures.’
Keith touches on many topics, from personal to professional, and digs into the working style of Pentathlon and how it can benefit budding entrepreneurs. The comprehensive discussion covers the different aspects their organization consider before investments.
Scale Your Start-up with Pentathlon Ventures
‘Pentathlon Ventures,’ was Pune’s first early-stage B2B tech fund organization. It is built to help young entrepreneurs with funding. It is a platform that connects newer-generation entrepreneurs with experienced entrepreneurs.
The six-member team of Pentathlon has exquisite expertise in their respective fields. Gireendra introduces his partners as like-minded people with similar professional backgrounds.
They had grown their companies, scaled them globally, and got them acquired by leading groups. So, when a team of like-minded people came together with the idea to provide funding to early-stage entrepreneurs, they knew they already had the potential and expertise.
Out of the six managing partners, five of them have an extensive background in scaling their firms to a global level. This background of the core members helps Pentathlon drive customers to impart trust and to scale up their business with Pentathlon’s help.
Pentathlon also has a dedicated Investment Committee of advisors who critically analyze various factors before investing. The firm has a unique approach to deciding its investments.
In the podcast, Keith asked about Gireendra’s role in investment decisions, and his answer would astonish you. Apart from being a Managing partner, Gireendra also discusses how each of the team members plays a triple role.
The role of an investment manager, member of the investment committee, and investor as well. Gireendra discusses how they juggle these three prominent roles in their organization.
Keith also discusses the size of funds and the latest ventures that Pentathlon is helping. Keith and Gireendra talk in length about Pentathlon’s top investments and the efforts behind them. On the other hand, Gireendra opens up about how they groom budding entrepreneurs and help them if there’s a weakness they can plug.
The Tremendous Journey of Lead Investor Gireendra Kasmalkar
In the episode, Keith Herman interviews Gireendra Kasmalkar, a tech entrepreneur with 30+ years of experience. Gireendra, an engineer from the leading institute of India, IIT Bombay, started his technical journey as a Software Analyst in Tata Consultancy Services.
He later founded, ‘VeriSoft,’ one of India’s earliest and leading testing companies. VeriSoft was then acquired by SQS to form SQS India which was headed by Gireendra. His journey does not stop here. In the podcast, he discusses the different ventures he had been a part of and how his entrepreneurial journey has been to date.
Keith and Gireendra carry a candid conversation about the backstory and evolution of Pentathlon, a one of its kind start-up scaling organization. Gireendra also discusses how he met his partners and how these like-minded people started Pentathlon.
When Keith asks about the investment decision-making and challenges they have to face being a six-member team, Gireendra bluntly tells how they follow a strict decision-making process. He also discusses how they only take the cases where all six members agree, making it a hard pass.
Gireendra jokingly tells how he didn’t know they were a micro-fund company when they first began, and the story that follows is startling. You’ll be amazed to know how much funding you need to even set up a micro-fund firm!
You will get some real market insights about how Pentathlon manages 40-50 start-up investment ideas per month.
Also, grab your notepads as you’ll have to jot down the surprising strategies Pentathlon follows to assess start-ups before investing. From going through a company’s employees to customers, investors, and backstories, they have a unique way of choosing their partners. The brainy due diligence methodology followed by Pentathlon can be helpful to many organizations.
Pentathlon Story Notes:
- How the idea of Pentathlon evolved
- The backstory of the core team members
- The initial funding and starting-up
- Roles played by each partner
- Managing disagreements among team members
- How many deals does Pentathlon manage?
- The Challenges faced while making deals
- How they run competent Due Diligence before making investments
- Helping start-ups scale