Bhavin Turakhia

Unlock access to a curated list of 850 #B2B #Enterprise venture capital firms. Check out the leading #B2B #Enterprise VC firms now! https://lnkd.in/da3VRDrE #startups #privateequity #globalvc #digitaltransformation #fundingopportunities

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Venture Capital Contact Compilation. Explore a detailed list of 1,250+ VC firms, 7,400+ professionals in the VC space (including partners and principals), and 6,400 email contacts. https://payhip.com/b/cs7UQ #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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View our curated list of startups that have received #Payment funding. Access the #Payment Funded Startups list at your convenience. Link to the list https://lnkd.in/dk4yDuGc #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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Optimize for the best “money to stress” ratio. Basically what will make you the most money per unit of stress.

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Goldcast's startup journey has perfectly mapped the last 4 crazy years of SaaS. Palash Soni and his cofounders first started the company in 2021 to build great, customizable virtual event solutions for enterprise marketers. While their business kept growing past the pandemic, it was clear that overall spend was shifting back to IRL events fast. However, video consumption continued to rise and quickly became the best way to build your brand and an audience in software - if you knew how to operationalize video marketing. Goldcast's product evolution from a virtual events platform to an AI-native video marketing solution has been incredible to watch. The company had its best quarter yet, adding customers like OpenAI and Coupa Software and I couldn't be more proud. Here's Palash talking about their product evolution and the future of video marketing in an AI-native world.

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📊 The Future of Payment Orchestration: Merchant Effort & Cross-Border Focus 📊 A few updates around payment orchestration came out last month ✅ PhonePe announced that it won't be a part of Juspay’s payment orchestrator (Hyperswitch) anymore, and focus on direct integration with merchants. This is significant as 15% of PhonePe volumes are routed through Hyperswitch ✅ PayU onboarded on Boxpay, a xborder payment orchestrator ❗So, one top PA is moving away from an orchestrator, and another has onboarded on one. But lets unpack it: 1️⃣ Juspay earlier was purely an infra player. It got a PA license in Feb ‘24. So from an agnostic tech player, it became a competitor to the existing PA’s, which had onboarded on Hyperswitch. And this is probably what led to PhonePe stepping back. I expect other top PA’s in India to follow suit 2️⃣ Boxpay was founded in ‘22. Doesn’t have a PA license (yet). Which is probably why PayU onboarded. The challenge is when the standalone orchestrators expand into full stack payment services, and start competing with their “clients” ✅ Orchestration is not a standalone play anymore. Most PA’s have their own orchestrators now. Only newer players; Ex: INAI (Founded ‘21), Boxpay (‘22), and Primer (‘20) are standalone. Others: 👉 Razorpay -> Optimizer 👉 Cashfree -> Flowwise 👉 Stripe -> Stripe Connect 👉 PayU -> acquired Zooz in ‘18 👉 Juspay: OG orchestrator, now has a PA license ❓So if everyone has their own orchestrator, and players don’t want to integrate with competitors, what then? 💡🎯 Currently orchestration is maintained and hosted by the 3rd party. Globally, Spreedly, and Payoneer offer this: a plug & play model. But now PA’s don’t want to onboard on a competitor platform. So 2 options: 1️⃣ Merchant builds it: Unlikely 2️⃣ Orchestrators build the tech, but the merchant integrates and deploys it within their own infra. This model exists: Primer and WhenThen offer “no code” solutions to make it easier for the merchant to build and deploy orchestrators. More likely 💡🎯 But these options require more effort from merchants vs plug & play. So while merchants may use orchestration its current form (to aggregate the long tail PAs), the value will diminish. Also revenues will be hit: Reportedly 88% of Juspay revenues are from Hyperswitch 💡🎯 The orchestration opportunity may lie in Xborder. It is more complex: region specific regulations & data laws, CX preferences and fraud mechanisms require significant investment to maintain. And thus my view: xborder orchestration will be region focused to make the complexity easier to deal with (similar regulations). Ex: Boxpay, INAI in SEA. Others could come up. Ex: LATAM / Europe focused. 💡🎯 The Xborder payments TAM is projected be > $200B by FY30. It’s nascent. Certain merchants / corridors will contribute to max volumes, and they only need 1 orchestrator per region. And thats why the time to build is now To read the deep dive, click here: https://lnkd.in/gqDPdJAP

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Truly inspiring to listen to Dax Dasilva tell the story of Lightspeed Commerce on 20VC. With $900M in ARR I was thrilled to learn that Dax bootstrapped the company for 7 years to get to $10M in ARR. I hope it doesn't take us 7 years to get Liquid360 there but it makes me feel better about the 3.5 years we've put in to date. For me these stories are deeply encouraging. When you're building something very big it can take time to get to launch. A couple of weeks ago we met with a global player in the VC world. They were looking to invest $5M - $10M and we said we weren't there yet. We'll get there but it wouldn't be the right move today. They then jumped to another conclusion. The wrong one. I get it. They have a multi-billion dollar fund and capital to deploy. We have a company to grow and too much cash will not help us do it right. We've made good decisions being lean. Our customers are starting at $500K. This is an enterprise/gov't product. We have to satisfy a very discerning customer. No bugs, no glitches. A dependable and reliable product. We are excited by the feedback. We are making the world safer. Harry Stebbings suggested that Lightspeed is one of the most misunderstood companies. It's market cap is $2.6B which seems really low relative to the ARR. Very interesting episode.

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Startup decks vs Business plans. It's accepted that a startup needs a deck. Dax Dasilva of Lightspeed Commerce made an important point on 20VC. Writing a business plan - including financial projections - is an important step. It requires discipline. It provides a rigorous framework for thinking deeply about the problem you're trying to solve. Harry Stebbings countered that he doesn't even want to see a deck since it's all dreams. We spent a lot of time and energy on our business plan with the expectation that we would show it to no one ever. The business plan was part of our roadmap for the company. We researched customers - including having 50+ conversations. We wanted to understand them: their background, their interests, their presence on social media. We also wanted to understand how they were evaluated by leadership and how integrated they were with the business of the company they were protecting. We researched pricing both with potential customers and other products in our industry to find out if OpEx or CapEx was a better fit. How did they buy today? How would they like to buy? We did market research to understand the verticals and map the right entry point - we were wrong but that doesn't reduce the value of the research. We looked at competitors in depth to understand what they were seeing that we weren't. Dax is right. This is an invaluable document that should be updated every year - the company is changing, the market is changing, there's more feedback about price and ICP. It's not for sharing with the outside world. It's a map for driving forward. Decks won't get you investment - VCs invest in people. We make decks but we know they don't tell our story. The deck is a calling card. Dax and Harry are both right. https://lnkd.in/e25M82xY

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Cross border payment acceptance rates are not what you might think - here's what we've heard from finance leads and remittance experts: 🇺🇲 USA (benchmark): ~70% acceptance rate (suprisingly low) 🇲🇽 Mexico: ~50% acceptance rate 🇧🇷 Brazil: ~35% acceptance rate There are obviously many factors that impact these rates (i.e. currency conversion, incomplete payment info etc) but one of the main reasons for cross-border transaction failures is that local payment rails (used by the customer) have trouble verifying USD payment requests (from the vendor) via processors like Stripe. If the market is big enough for a vendor, they'll setup a local entity/bank account to offer local payment methods (e.g. PIX in Brazil) to improve conversion but this is obviously a huge administrative burden. Stripe does offer different payment currencies - but without being paid into a local account, you still need to process the transaction via local and international payment rails (which increases steps in the chain and likelihood of failure). Additionally, you still need to deal with all the tax compliance obligations of the transaction (where something like Sphere comes in). Many finance leads don't really concern themselves too much on this unless there's a noticeable issue in rejection rates. But what if there's significant pent up demand in these regions that these companies don't even know about? For example, Brazil is a monstrous market but has terrible cross border acceptance rates and arguably one of the most complex tax regimes in the world (which is currently undergoing significant reform). It's as though US software companies have just accepted that these countries are often not worth the hassle until they get to significant scale - but could unlock huge revenue streams for companies if the whole process of billing was simplified / abstracted.

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40 questions for pre-PMF founders

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Discover #FinTech-Funded Startups. Access the complete list of startups funded in the #FinTech sector at any time. View the list here https://lnkd.in/dz2rptfc #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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Discover #FinTech-Funded Startups. Access the complete list of startups funded in the #FinTech sector at any time. View the list here https://lnkd.in/d662Jpew #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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VCs rate STARTUPS, should the SBA or BBB (Better Business Bureaus do the SAME? Often a complicated and lengthy process for complaints reduces feedback. By Providing a RATING (like RESTAURANTS receive from the health department (ABCD)) that provides a clear metric 📊 on our local SERVICE PROVIDERS who too often can hide 🙈 TRUE results behind SEO (Search engine optimization) or (PPC) pay-per-click that many seniors and homeowners mistake for objective reviews? Whether raising future FUNDING from investors or calculating VALUE, how can consumers better understand and reward great service? How can COMSUMER PROTECTION learn from and mimic VCs IDEA: Dept of Due Diligence ?

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Zepto raises $665 million at a $3.6 billion valuation. Here's why this raise is exciting for the Qcommerce space and startup ecosystem: Zepto's repeated fundraising success is impressive. > Pioneered the 10-minute commerce game. > Reached $1 billion GMV in under 2 years. > Founders are among the youngest in the startup world. > Built an exceptional team quickly. > Raised significant funds despite strong competition from Swiggy, Blinkit, BBNow, and others. > India is leading in aggressive Qcommerce growth. Reflecting on my TinyOwl days in the early FoodTech space, competition was fierce, and investors were cautious. However, things are different now: > Markets have scaled, unlocking multi-billion dollar opportunities. > IPOs are now viable, even for third or fourth ranked players with strong financials. Investors may feel relieved, but the Qcommerce space will remain highly competitive for the next few years. Consumers, meanwhile, are spoiled for choice. Interesting times ahead.

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🚗 Lendbuzz is an AI-powered auto finance platform using technology to broaden access to credit. 🚙 It's W10 / Q2 / 2024 & this week in our MGMT Boston startup series we’ve got Lendbuzz, a late stage fintech startup helping “thin file” customers get fast, fair auto financing when they’re buying a vehicle to fill a gap in our financial system and allow car dealerships to close more business. According to Experian, 60M+ Americans have thin credit files. That means they have fewer than 5 accounts on a credit report with the major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax & TransUnion). Credit bureaus have been around since the 1800s. Lendbuzz is using the power of data science and AI to redefine lending, beginning with auto financing. Better yet, they’ve partnered with car dealerships to create more sales opportunities and grow their bottom lines. That’s a win-win. Today Lendbuzz provides auto loans to deserving borrowers, including those without a social security number, no credit history or thin credit. Lendbuzz’s secret sauce is pulling in thousands of data points from various sources like bank records, education, employment, and spending patterns to evaluate an applicant's creditworthiness with a proprietary risk score. Their technology first approach, focus on underserved markets, partnerships with auto dealerships, and balance sheet helps underscore their credibility and stability. They have completed over $1.2B of asset backed securitizations and have still delivered growth in a challenging consumer credit cycle over the past 24 months. In October 2023 Lendbuzz announced a $45M Series D financing with an additional $300M in a forward flow debt facility led by Group 1001 with participation from existing investors including 83NORTH, O.G. Venture Partners, and MUFG Innovation Partners. Lendbuzz’s business continues to grow - registering ten consecutive profitable quarters (as of Q4 ‘23), 135% revenue growth in 2022, 80%+ growth in 1H 2023, and the team has exceeded a $200M annual revenue run-rate. They are actively hiring across functions in 2024 in Boston, Tel Aviv & throughout the U.S. Operators to Know: -Niveditha Bharadwaj, QA Engineering Manager -Sammi Cheung, HR Manager -Timothy Corcoran, Senior Credit Officer and Product Expert -Gaurang Davda, Machine Learning Engineering Manager -Mariana Gattis, Director of Underwriting -Roy Heh, Director of Engineering Operations -Ita Montalvão, Regional Sales Director -Abhinay Parvathaneni, Director of Engineering -Bhavesh Poddar, Backend Team Lead -Priyanka Prabhu, IT Team Lead -Shir Sadan, VP of Operations -Pranjal Singi, Director of Engineering  -Alex Wagenheim, Director, Corporate Strategy If you're interested in learning more, including the key roles Lendbuzz is hiring for, the full post is linked in the comments! And sign up for the newsletter to see who we bring you next week, will you?? #bostontech #startups #fintech

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COMING SOON 1-Cash2 Cofounder matching platform, with 2-Cash2 Cofounder Playbook Why? To plug the hemmorage of the high failure rate of startups. Who needs it? Startups, Accelerators, Incubators, Startup Studios, Venture Builders & Smart Investors How to create alingment with cofounders, no matter where you land. How to be the best cofounding partner and pull them out of the Road rage/rabbit hole they fell into. COMING SOON

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Why a Stellar Landing Page is Non-Negotiable for Startups: Wisdom from YC Experts and a Digital CFO Link : https://lnkd.in/d89VPZdn In the startup world, making a memorable first impression is essential. Your landing page is often the first handshake between your startup and the world. Y Combinator (YC) experts like Katie Dill and Aaron Epstein have long championed the power of an effective landing page, and as a Digital CFO who's guided numerous startups, I couldn't agree more. First Impressions Are Everything Imagine walking into a cluttered store where nothing makes sense—you'd probably walk right out. The same goes for your landing page. @Katie Dill, YC's Director of Product Design, emphasizes that within seconds, a visitor decides whether to stay or leave. A clean, engaging design invites them in; confusion sends them packing. Simplicity Is Key What does your startup offer, and why should anyone care? Aaron Epstein, a YC Partner, advises keeping your message clear and straightforward. In an overloaded world, simplicity cuts through the noise. An Unmissable Call to Action What do you want your visitors to do? Sign up? Make a purchase? Share their email? Make it obvious. A compelling call to action tells your audience, "Here's how you can benefit right now." Insights from a Digital CFO From my experience as a Digital CFO for startups, a robust landing page isn't just about looks—it's a strategic asset. Aligning Design with Financial Goals: A well-crafted landing page boosts conversion rates, directly impacting revenue. It's an investment that pays off. Data Is Your Friend: Continuously test and tweak your landing page. Use analytics to understand what's working. Informed decisions lead to better outcomes. Trust Is Business Currency: Include testimonials and success stories. People do business with those they trust, and trust is built through authenticity. Mobile Matters YC experts point out that much web traffic comes from mobile devices. If your landing page isn't optimized for mobile, you're turning away potential customers. Katie Dill highlights designing with a mobile-first mindset. Speed Is Crucial In our fast-paced world, patience is thin. If your landing page takes too long to load, you've likely lost a visitor. Optimize for speed to keep the door open. Stay Compliant Ensure your landing page complies with regulations, especially concerning privacy and data protection. It's about showing your audience that you respect them. Final Thoughts In the competitive startup arena, your landing page is your frontline warrior. Equip it well. Often, the difference between a good startup and a great one boils down to the details. Remember, entrepreneurship is a journey filled with challenges and triumphs. With the right tools and a dash of daring, there's no limit to what you can achieve. Eager to propel your startup to new heights? Let's connect. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, and let's turn your vision into reality.

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