Adam Torres and Dr. Arvind Gupta discuss FII PRIORITY.
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Show Notes:
Listen to FII PRIORITY coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Dr. Arvind Gupta, Founder of Digital India Foundation, explore fund of funds for startups and FII PRIORITY.
About Dr. Arvind Gupta
Arvind has over 30 years of experience in leadership, policy & entrepreneurial roles, both in Silicon Valley & in India. He is an Eisenhower fellow for Innovation and an active member of Industry Forums NASSCOM, TiE and Founding Member of ISPiRT. He is a member of #WEF Digital Futures Council, and OECD Initiative on Global Value Chains. He is on the Board of IIT – BHU Alumni Association, PAN-IIT Alumni Association. He also mentors many start-ups and is a Guest Speaker at Global B-Schools and CxO events. He tweets at @buzzindelhi.
His expertise includes Digital Transformation, Open Innovation, Platform Governance, Technology Policy, New Media, Citizen Engagement, Startups, Data Analytics, Fintech, CivicTech & GuvTech.
About Digital India Foundation
Digital India Foundation (DIF) is a not-for-profit think-tank aiming to foster digital inclusion and adoption, and the use of the Internet and related technologies for the developmental process.
In India, and in the Indian social and socio-economic process, it aims to further and foster discussions on options and opportunities under the rubric of the entire ecosystem formulated by the Indian government and its Digital India programme (the name is coincidental; there is no direct connection between DIF and the government programme).
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s guest is Dr. Arvind Gupta, and he is the founder over at Digital India Foundation.
Arvin, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Adam. Alright, so Arvin, so this interview, as our audience has been listening to for quite some time, is part of the FII Priority Summit series that we’ve been doing for the conference. I’ll tell you this was my first time attending an event. I went to the Miami event and I was just completely blown away.
I mean, the, the people I met obviously the, the sessions, the networking, like all, around. It was just a great experience. Arvin, was this your, have you been to, I know you were at the Miami one, is it, how long have you been or I should say, how were you introduced to the FII Institute And how’d you start getting involved?
So Adam first of all, I kind of not only agree, but I conquer more than a hundred percent with you on the quality of people that attended the Miami event. The selection was superb, the curation was superb, the topics were amazing. And I think to me frankly FI summits now present, probably the, it is the go to summit right now if you wanna be at the intersection of technology. Mm-hmm. Startups and venture capital and what’s going to shape the future of humankind. , and I, to answer your real question, I, this was my second FII, I attended the, the big one in Riyadh last year, in October last year.
And I’ve been never so, so impressed. And I’ve been attending summits for the last 35 years of my life and last five years, which are at the intersection of venture capital, futurist thinking technology policy. But probably FIS stands out in the top two or three summits. I would like to attend, at any point in time annually. Yeah. , ? And thank you for sharing that. ’cause I, attend a lot of conferences too. I cover a lot of conferences nationally, internationally. So I do a lot of this but I did, this did stick out to me.
What do you think makes it so special? Like what do you think makes it unique? Yeah, I think let’s see. Convening power of the FII, which is now, which is non diluted number one, two. it is backed by a lot of actual action. Yeah. So let me explain that. if you meet technology companies, if you meet nation states, you know, here there is the National Wealth Funds of many countries also putting money into these ventures.
there is money, there is. There is talent, there is, futuristic thinking, there is policy. And that’s highly curated. You don’t have the rip, right? you don’t have people selling services to you or selling products to you. People are at peer level discussing what is correct, what is appropriate, and of course the networking then becomes very.
Very appropriate and very correct. And so to me it was a meeting of the minds of the like-minded folks. And it is something that , either you are there because of your talent, your merit mm-hmm. Or, or your ability to understand and then invest in that future. So it makes a very, very good audience and a very good set of peer group that you wanna meet with.
let’s switch it up a bit. Arvin. I wanna learn a little bit more about what you’re doing over at Digital India Foundation. I see you’re the founder. Maybe tell us a little bit more about the organization. Adam, we are a policy think tank. I. But via this policy think tank, we participate in you know at the national, the India’s national Fund of Fund.
Mm-hmm. Scheme, which is like a fund of fund which invest in all domestic capital in India, which further then invest. So we basically I’m one of the board members of the national Fund of fund schemes, which which invest in in the venture capital funds that operate in India, and then are further investing in.
startups and innovators and, you know, growth companies new, new age growth companies. So we also look at policy to help the startups help the technology space looking at, so, you know, we wear all the three hats mm-hmm. The, the funding hat as a, as a board seat, as a then two policy angles for which enable the industry, which ensure that is responsible technology.
Mm-hmm. And three, we also are on the boards of. We represent the boards at which are building technology of the future. We are building what is in India, we call digital public infrastructure. Mm-hmm. So, you know, me and my team are really the catalyst as we like to see for the digital ecosystem in India providing the technical platforms, the policy inputs, as well as the, the financial capital required to enable the ecosystem.
Yeah. Can you maybe give, , for the audience that is listening to this, that maybe is not quite so familiar with the ecosystem attack in India and startups, maybe can you give us a little bit of an overview ’cause you have a unique vantage point, especially from the fund to fund angles and really looking and curating , funds and, investments that you like to participate in.
So can you give us a little bit of what you see? That’s an excellent question, Adam, let me, explain. Mm-hmm. India launched a startup India movement nine years ago. Mm-hmm. On the 16th of January, 2016. by the Prime Minister of India Sharin, Modi that time. India had a 400 or so startups in India, and his call was that we need to build.
The nation makers the nation, builders of the future, people who will become job givers and not job seekers. Mm-hmm. And people. And, and the government should then enable the ecosystem, which basically provides you know better access to markets, both government and otherwise, to provide capital to the industry, to the startups.
And three, provides mentorship and, support throughout. So this was the starting of the ecosystem. So what did, what did, we do today? About nine years later, we have 160,000 startups. We have perhaps the highest number of growth in startups over the last, how many ways was the original again, though?
You said like 400. Four. Okay. $400. 400, 260,000 startups in nine years. The math on, that’s outstanding. Go ahead please. And then to enable that is what we, you know what, as the Prime Minister said, we all work as the ecosystem to do, we have, insured the capital, which is something I explained through the fund of funds.
We, also build what is called digital public infrastructure, Adam. Mm-hmm. Which is very unlike anywhere else in the world. This is common foundational infrastructure that is available to the government, to startups, to large companies, small companies to be available at no rent seeking. So basically the dollar went a long way in building startups, payments, identity, KYC.
There are a lot of e-commerce DPIs, which are available to people at large, to startups at large. So, you know, it basically spurned a startup movement in India. We have, equal into multiple Silicon Valleys operating in India, certainly. And nine years later we have, you know, about 50% of the startups are operating in small tier, tier two, tier three towns.
About 48% of them are women led. So, wow. This is a, this has been a transformational thing for India and, and these are the kind of experiences, how this happened that we are able to share at a global stage using summits like FII, that mm-hmm. Not only we learn from, but we also are able to help and give back to the global community of peers, as I explained.
Hmm. So what’s next for the fund? What’s next for Digital India Foundation? Like, we’re 20, 25, we’re in April. What kind of things, trends, and or things are you following now? Well, that’s a, that’s another excellent futuristic thing. Number one, with the success of the fund of funds 1.0.
Always in the technology industry, you’re not done till the time you do 2.0 and 3.0 and 4.0 and so on. So we are on 2.0 and in 2.0 what we are doing both for the Startup India movement, and I’ll explain to you and for the fund of funds we are number one going to now, you know, we have solved as we believe India is a very large country.
Yeah. And in a large country I always say we live in an and world, which means we have to do so many things. In 160,000 startups, we are not satisfied yet. Mm-hmm. We now need to also build we have about four or 5,000 deep tech startups. Mm-hmm. What we also aim in, in the startup India 2.01 fund of fund 2.0 is to now take this four or 5,000 deep tech startups, 200,000 startups.
Mm-hmm. For deep tech, which will be the largest anywhere in the world. So, if you ask me, that’s where we are headed. We will continue to build on the success of startup India 1.0, which is consumer tech, FinTech, health tech, agritech, you know? Mm-hmm. All, all the things we have done, but we wanna now solve for certain deeper challenges, societal challenges, and that is deep tech.
The world looks up to, you know, democracy like India, to not only just provide talent, but also to solve certain hard problems. Yeah. And that’s really what the vision is. That’s great. What are some of the, what are, obviously there’s gonna be many, but in any, you know, and from that standpoint of going from, I, let me not get the word, the numbers a little off, but maybe let’s say 400 plus startups to, you know, over 200,000.
Like what were some of the challenges along the way to scaling that? And the reason I asked. That question, by the way, is ’cause I feel like if I was a fly on the wall listening to some of your conversations at FI, I, like, that’s probably what some other individuals wanted to know so that they could then, you know, take some of that learning to implement either in their countries or companies or funds like or otherwise.
So what are some of the maybe learning lessons that you’ve, you learned along the way in terms of that scaling of startups? See, I, I, I, again, it’s a very important learning to share. Number one, we had to believe in ourselves, so we put our own money. India is still runs a hugely deficit budget and to put you know allocate a significant amount of money to that.
Yeah. That, that whole ecosystem was a significant move. But two, Adam, we opened up the procurement of the government. Which is in anywhere, in any country is one of the highest procured of all things. Yeah. We opened it up in a preferential manner to the startups and that that actually gave the confidence to the ecosystem, to other industries, to large corporates that see, hey, this will be a startup selling to the government that references the government.
And, and so they started procuring. So that increased their market. They could then not only sell domestically, but go overseas and say we have government of India as our, as our, as our client, as a customer. So and three to the funds, you know, when they were backed up by a seven national fund, they could go back and say, Hey, you know, we are, the government of India has funded us, so they could raise more capital.
To give you a perspective, if we put you know, about. You know, $2 billion of government money into the, into about 150 venture capital funds. Mm-hmm. They went ahead and raised almost six x of the same themselves. So, so that is the kind of successes, the processes. But there were challenges.
Challenges have been, you know, challenges have been to change the mindset of, of youngsters that, you know, while job markets is important, you need to go out there, go do a job. To also then become an entrepreneur. It’s okay to fail. Yeah. And to set up a culture that failure is okay. You know? In fact, I mean, we, that’s not easy.
That’s not easy to change a culture, like ancient culture. That is not easy. Yeah. So we, we’ve been, those were, those have been the challenges and to tell people that failure is okay. Fail, you know, fail soon. Fail, fail early. Yeah. So you can start building second, second round of startups, third round of startups.
Also to, to motivate the successful entrepreneurs from the first round of, you know, the first wave of startups, if I can call them to, yeah. Now mentor and provide money to the next wave. It has been something that we have worked very hard on, and that has been a learning that, you know, you need to create these role models so that they inspire the others.
So overall it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s a nothing story, but, you know, this story is not written yet. It’s not the end of it. It’s still going on. As I said, we have just finished one chapter of the story. We are now onto the second chapter. Man, or who knows, you might be, you might just be done with the preface.
Now you’re going into the introduction. I feel like it’s just getting just beginning, right? Just starting out. Just starting out there. It’s very exciting times. Yeah. Very exciting. Well well, Arvin, I’ll tell you man, this has been great having you on the show today. And learning a little bit more about, you know, your participation in FII, of course, but then also all the, all the great work.
That you’re doing as well. If people wanna follow along with the journey and if they want to connect either with yourself or with your team or learn more about Digital India Foundation, how do they do that? I’m pretty active on Twitter. Look me up at at the rate buzz in Deli. That’s B-U-Z-Z-N-D-E-L-H-I.
That’s buzz in Delhi. That’s me, Dr. Arvin Gupta. And digital India foundation.org is the website. Just, just the name, digital India foundation.org. So look us up connect with us and you know, we are happy to share our experiences talk to you mm-hmm. Tell you what we, we could have done better or what we intend to do in the future.
So thank you for the shootout. Adam. Thank you. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes so you can just click on ’em and head right on over and and check out Arvin and speaking to the audience. If this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow up button. And Arvin, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you for having us add up.
