E150 - "Build Companies Not Products" | Pramod Gosavi (Blumberg Capital)

The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

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Pramod is a Senior Principal at Blumberg Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm specializing in leading Seed and Series A rounds. The firm is based in Tel Aviv (Israel) and San Francisco.

Before joining Blumberg Capital, Pramod was a Principal at 11.2 Capital, where he focused on investing in early-stage cybersecurity, data, dev-tools, and AI. He led seed rounds in Coalesce, Permiso, StrikeReady, Surf Security, MightyMeld, Leen, and Collinear AI.

Previously, Pramod was Director of Corporate Strategy/Venture Capital at VMware, advising senior leadership on product, growth, and M&A while investing in startups such as JFrog (IPO), CloudEndure (acq. by AWS), Armis (acq. by Insight), GuardiCore (acq. by Akamai), Wavefront, VeloCloud (acq. by VMware), and Affirmed Networks (acq. by Microsoft).

In today's episode, we discuss his journey from an operator to corporate venture capital and then to traditional venture capital, as well as investing in AI. This is a unique episode—you'll find very few VCs with a career trajectory like Pramod’s.

⌛ Timestamps:

Trailer + Intro (0:00)
CVC vs. traditional VC: key similarities (3:45)
How CVCs are structured & incentivized (6:39)
The mandates & investment thesis of CVCs (12:45)
Investing for today vs. the future (14:45)
How CVCs make investment decisions (18:25)
The role of a ‘sponsor’ in CVC investments (22:44)
Why should early-stage startups take CVC money? (25:00)
How CVCs add value to later-stage companies (30:25)
Maximizing value from CVC investors (34:10)
Transitioning from CVC to traditional VC (37:50)
How Pramod has helped his portfolio startups (42:00)
What investors look for in AI startups (49:00)
Can founders be taught to sell better? (56:15)
GTM strategies for selling to enterprises (59:45)
Understanding enterprise customers as a founder (1:04:27)
How investors can build a personal brand (like Pramod) (1:09:15)
The “so what” philosophy for founders & investors (1:13:50)
Advice to younger self (1:16:03)
Why being 10x is attractive to investors (1:20:35)

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