As part of our quest to get you meaningful stories and insights from the startup ecosystem, we invited seasoned investor and entrepreneur – Chandrashekar Kupperi for an exclusive interview with BrilliantRead Media. He is an Angel Investor, Mentor and Founder at ANOVA Corporate Services Private Limited. Through ANOVA, he works closely with entrepreneurs and business owners for their requirements on acquisition of businesses or brands, sale of businesses for strategic reasons, besides helping with fundraising. ANOVA in 2016, was awarded the First place by the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of India for SME Services category.
Let’s read more about his journey as an Angel Investor and his advice for entrepreneurs!
Excerpts from our exclusive conversation with him:
We are aware of your contribution to the startup ecosystem, talk us through your journey, please;
I have almost two decades of experience in various multinationals with diversified sector experience – FMCG, Life Insurance, Audit & Assurance and Oil & Gas sectors. My last stint was as Group Finance Director with Lornamead Group, a UK-based multinational in the FMCG space which owns well-known personal care brands (such as Yardley of London, Finesse, etc.). My prior stints include various finance and related positions with MNCs such as ExxonMobil, KPMG and Henkel India.
With rich experience in the FMCG/Consumer space, I have led/been part of over 11 Acquisitions and 6 Divestments, besides re-structuring and re-financing transactions in North America, Europe and India.
Having gained knowledge and expertise in M&A, I established Investment Banking and Advisory Firm ‘ANOVA Corporate Services Private Limited’. ANOVA offers M&A Advisory and Fundraise services, besides Strategic CFO services to empower Entrepreneurs and Business Owners with financial/commercial acumen and support in strategic areas.
Being Sector-Agnostic, ANOVA has completed assignments across various sectors including Manufacturing, FMCG, Luxury Brands, Healthcare, Hospitality and Technology-led / Tech-Enabled businesses.
Select Recent Transactions advised by ANOVA include:
1) Divestment of Novascotia Boutique Homes to OYO Rooms, India’s largest Hospitality company
2) Divestment of majority stake in Helicord Transmissions, India, to Megadyne Group, an Italian manufacturing major
3) Recent successful fundraise assignments include Fin-tech start-up Hotfoot Technology Solutions, early-stage Diagnostic company Acculi Labs (Lyfas), Business Intelligence start-up Veratech Intelligence
I am also an active Angel Investor (investments made in start-ups across segments including HealthTech, FMCG, ConsumerTech, Media, Logitech and FinTech) and serve as a non-executive director in mid-size companies, both in India and abroad. Besides this, I have also invested through institutional angel funds including 1Crowd, LetsVenture and IvyCap and recently became a member of The Chennai Angels (TCA).“
What key factors do you look at before investing in a startup?
To me, the two crucial factors are:
1) Quality of Earnings and
2) Quality of Management
To facilitate greater confidence as to whether a Start-up has these, I have coined an acronym SCREAM which stands for:
Scalability– This simply means the greater understanding of the market size that the Start-up has the confidence to service. Scalability is not only assessed based on penetration, but also by capturing the market share of other players.
Capable Team – The skillsets and cohesiveness among the Co-Founders as well as mutual respect amongst themselves truly determine the capabilities and the aspirations.
Resilience – The attitude to understand and appreciate competition as well as exhibit emotional balance when facing the highs and lows helps gauge the resilience factor. To me, this shows the true integrity levels towards the team and the combined purpose.
Energy – This is the X-Factor I am looking for always! High Energy levels are contagious within the organization…
Anticipate Success – This factor purely demonstrates winning attitude. I always seek to understand whether the business has set realistic goals and whether it is right-structured to seek investment.
Metrics– Tracking performance, focusing on milestones are paramount factors for a successful business, and I am a big fan of metrics!
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
As entrepreneurs, the journey is to seek Success and Success is always relative! Therefore, Success to me is a temporary milestone, upon achieving which, one should find peace of mind. If the same Success takes away peace, then it is not Success to me. I would love to Succeed and remain peaceful, and not seek Success at the cost of my peace! This has helped me remain positive and enthusiastic. In fact, it has led me to believe in my potential, accept failures as feedback and develop an attitude to unlearn, learn and re-learn.
What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/investor?
I am a firm believer in this statement that ‘there is a better way’. I always keep telling myself that ‘things could be different, and that the different can be better’ and this has helped me to evolve constantly. This one strategy pushes me to strive and invest significant time and effort with the Founders/Senior Management of Start-ups and Early-stage businesses and work closely, without impacting their independence and focus on day-to-day operations. This has led to an enlargement of trust and a strong association, eventually resulting in mutual growth.
In your opinion what are the keys to startup success?
To me, the single most critical element for startup success is ‘Continued Ability to Anticipate Success’.
I have seen Entrepreneurs with Scalable Ideas, Amazing Team and Information System, but what truly sustains the success as the business grows is their continued ability to ‘Anticipate Success’.
It’s always about the preparation to win than winning itself. It’s about the powerful mind ‘seeing’ progress rather than just ‘desiring’ progress, and that’s why I always look for this key ingredient – ‘Continued Ability to Anticipate Success’.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
I have always adopted a 3-pronged approach to encourage Entrepreneurs and their ideas:
1) Be Different – How does the idea lead to a positive impact?
2) Be Committed – How does the idea delight customers, ensure continuous improvement and customer connectedness?
3) Be Strong – How well is the ability of the idea to respond to changing circumstances and offer actionable solutions?
There is a dearth of women entrepreneurs in the startup ecosystem, what advice would you give to aspiring women entrepreneurs?
Equality of men and women is to be cherished always. As it is rightly said that behind a Successful man there is a woman, I firmly believe that women entrepreneurs by themselves can create rock-solid and profitable businesses. I get so elated when I hear of women entrepreneur-centric funds such as Saha Fund, Sogal Ventures, Sequoia Spark, another plethora of Indian Government schemes to support women entrepreneurs. In fact, women have always demonstrated better resilience and perseverance in tough business conditions. Therefore, my suggestion to aspiring women entrepreneurs is to strengthen self-belief and get started with the faith that support such as funding, strategic support, etc., will come as they progress. Just continue to embark upon the venture with faith, patience and perseverance, the rest will be history!
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