VILLAGE CAPITAL MENTOR GUIDE
2018 Programs
Common sense is not common. All of your built up
expertise as a practitioner, investor, entrepreneur, or
industry expert will be incredibly valuable to an
entrepreneur (who is otherwise keeping his or her head
to the ground). Solutions that may seem obvious to you
could be extremely important for these entrepreneurs.
Mentors are encouraged to come into the room and
jump right in. Teams are used to having people pull up a
chair next to them, so don’t be shy! This is a very
collaborative environment.
You do not need to have an answer to everything. Know
your limitations - just share what you do know. You will
be surprised at how seemingly simple things can
drastically improve a startup’s potential and perspective.
Your role here is not to lead. Your role is to advise.
Ultimately it is the entrepreneur’s decision to make, no
matter how strongly you feel one way or the other.
Be straightforward and honest. While some
value can be gained from encouragement - motivating
entrepreneurs to change the world - the most valuable
mentoring comes from being honest. Sometimes, your
feedback may be negative or difficult, but it should
always be honest and critical.
Let the team come to its own conclusions.
Be wary of putting things forth as the answer. Do not
hesitate to point out risks, competitors or precedents
you have seen before, but make the team come to a
conclusion themselves after reviewing their learnings.
Use your network. Think about how you can
facilitate relevant and useful connections. Can you
make an introduction and get them on the phone
with someone? Are you friends with someone who
could? Some of the most valuable connections
come from mentors being generous with their
networks.
Collaborate with other mentors in the room. Ask
questions and connect with the other mentors in
the room. Do not hesitate to seek a second opinion,
or refer a team to another mentor. Share insights
and guidance, in dialogue with other mentors. This
should be a great learning experience for you, as
much as it is a time to give.
Keep your comments and advice concise.
We have a limited amount of time, so manage your
interaction so that it remains high-impact and
efficient. Do not be afraid to cut people off if they
are giving unnecessary verbiage.
Lastly, remember that start-ups get the most value
from a mentor who can add the skills they need,
industry specific expertise, managing people,
managing conflict, attracting customers,
organizational structure, raising capital etc - so
seek out teams in the room that you have not
been matched with that you feel you could assist,
and connect afterwards.
AskArvi
Headquarters in Mumbai Founded Jan 2017

AskArvi offers innovative micro-insurance CUSTOMER

products to cover small but frequent Online-savvy customers in 5 cities who own a bike or car and
lifestyle losses. regularly travel

Sushant Reddy TRACTION

Co-Founder and CEO; ● 350 transactions a month
Previously founded another fintech ● 1800 registered users
company Quantum Phinance - grew from 0 ● Gross monthly premium: 4.5 lakhs
to 1.5 million USD annual revenues
MAJOR MILESTONES
● 25000 registered users on AskArvi
Mandar Zope ● Achieve a monthly run rate of 1000 transactions by
CTO November
Former CTO of Omnikart; Software ● Signing 5 large distribution partners
Engineer at Rolls Royce
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Evolution of the product offering - horizontal or vertical
Ashwin Narkhede expansion?
Product Manager ● Entering credit underwriting?
Product guy at Omnikart; Business Analyst ● Insights on key possible partnerships
at Quantum Phinance

PROBLEM
While insurance policies typically focus on rare, big loss scenarios,
they typically neglect small, frequent loss scenarios such as cancelled
flights or property damage. These small losses add up over time and
can present a significant financial burden even for those that are
insured - not to mention those unfamiliar with existing insurance
options.

SOLUTION
AskArvi aims to leverage technology & data to design and distribute
innovative covers to protect young Indians from small & frequent
loss scenarios.
EasyPlan
Headquarters in Mumbai Founded October 2017

EasyPlan is a mobile app that helps young CUSTOMER

Indians to save simply and effectively ● Young, urban Indians. Target group - 22 to 30 years old
towards their goals in a high-interest ● Annual income of the target market - 3 lakhs per annum and
digital bank account over UPI. above

Sanjay Gandhi TRACTION

Co-Founder and CEO
5 years developing high frequency trading
software with Tower Research Capital,
New York
● Currently working with 15 employers with 4000 employees
● Online chatbot tested with 3000 users for goal-based savings
● In conversations with a banking partner to integrate into their
mobile banking app, which would give access to approx 8
million users

Manisha Pandita MAJOR MILESTONES

Co-Founder and COO
Former global deputy lead for the
financial services practice with Dalberg.
ex-Bain Boston, J-PAL, Ministry of Rural
Development
PROBLEM
Young Indians struggle to save effectively. According to the
latest Financial Inclusion Insights survey, 50% of urban youth
below the age of 30 say they are unable to save any money. 70%
of them say they don't have savings for emergencies.
● Completing the regulatory and audit process
● App to be launched in 4 to 6 weeks
● Next 12 months - 10,000 MAUs
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Venturing into mutual fund investments space
● Hiring across business functions - tech and business
● Insights into regulations and incorporating them into the
business model

SOLUTION
We help users implement some simple behavioral nudges to
save. Users set a savings goal or target. Then we send them
regular reminders to save. The only thing users need to do is
enter their 6 digit UPI PIN. The savings are transferred from
their salary accounts to a high-interest digital bank account that
we open for them in-app.
Finwego
Headquarters in Chennai Founded March 2018
Finwego is an employer-sponsored
workplace financial wellness solution,
with an emphasis on providing credit to
low-income school teachers.
Shiv Vadivelalagan
Co-Founder and CEO
8+ years of experience in microfinance,
consumer lending, and fintech. Worked in
diverse markets across Africa, Asia, North
America, and Oceania. Stanford Alumni.
Pavee Ramanisankar
Co-Founder and COO
Serial entrepreneur who has owned
companies in manufacturing and
education space. Harvard alumni.
PROBLEM
8.5 million teachers suffer from lack of access to formal financial
services for their short-term credit needs.
SOLUTION
Finwego onboards schools and caters to the short term credit
needs of the employees of each institution.
CUSTOMER
● School teachers in India via both private and government
schools
TRACTION
● Onboarded 10 schools so far
● Workshops/awareness sessions for all their staff
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Close seed round
● Procuring NBFC license
● Hiring sales and operations team members
● Launching Android app
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Establishing a cost-effective distribution channel
● Identifying a sustained competitive advantage and
building it into the business model
● Help with understanding of the future trends
(technology, data) in the industry
Jai Kisan
Headquarters in Mumbai Founded September 2017
Jai Kisan aims to improve the financial
health of smallholder farmers through an
end-to-end technology platform and
complementary offline model.
Arjun Ahluwalia
Founder and CEO
Ex. Abraaj Group, Silicon Valley Bank
Capital, Texas A&M
Adriel Maniego
Co-founder and COO
Ex. Alvarez & Marsal, PwC, Texas A&M
PROBLEM
Farmers lack access to finance due to the lack of formal credit
penetration in rural areas and, at the same time, often suffer from
high costs and low profits due to inefficiencies in their supply chain.
SOLUTION
Jai Kisan’s fintech platform analyzes the farmer better, leverages
existing distribution networks and innovative channel partnerships
to gain a physical presence in the hinterland, and monitors end use of
capital, while mitigating production risk and facilitating repayment.
CUSTOMER
● Farmers – Provide timely and significantly cheaper
capital; access to financial services digitally; better
quality, more variety, and cheaper agri-input and
equipment; increased yield; and increased selling price
● Financiers – Lower distribution and underwriting costs;
monitoring end use of capital; data collection; increasing
farmer repayment rates and penetration to other
financial products from current levels
TRACTION
4000 farmers registered on the platform, with a presence in over
250 villages through 10+ channel partner relationships. Working
with various banks and NBFCs
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Fundraise of $1.25 -$1.75M in Oct/Nov 2018
● Enabling 100 channel partner outlets through existing
channel partner relationships by mid 2019
● Establishing an NBFC to participate in co-lending
activities to increase efficiencies
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Product development
● Customer acquisition
● Hiring
● Onboarding of customers
Lima Payments
Headquarters in Bangalore Founded January 2016
Lima Payments is a platform that simplifies
the movement of goods and cash across the
food staples and FMCG supply chain.
Rohit Krishnam
Co-Founder and CEO
10 years of experience in financial services.
Family experience in wholesale and retail
sectors
Nikhil Neelakantan
Co-Founder and COO
5 years experience in financial services
including credit risk management
Vaidegi Gunadekar
Tech Lead
Full stack developer expanding the
platform’s capabilities into Machine
Learning
PROBLEM
The food staples supply chain is highly fragmented, and retailers
(i.e. kirana stores) spend considerable time searching for the
most high quality and inexpensive products from suppliers at the
APMC yard. These retailers are also excluded from formal
sources of credit and need to pay exorbitantly high rates of
interest to finance their businesses.
SOLUTION
Lima solves the supply chain problem by bringing suppliers and
buyers together on an online marketplace, ultimately providing
buyers with transparent prices. Lima also deliver the goods,
saving these retailers considerable time and helping them focus
on their core business. Lima plans on using the data we get on
our platform to build out a lending model and to offer retailers
credit from banks and NBFCs
CUSTOMER
● Kirana stores with annual revenue ranging from 5 lakhs
to 1 crore
TRACTION
● 600 retailers on our platform with about 20% of them
actively buying on the platform on a regular basis
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Daily tonnage from 2 tonnes to 30 tonnes to achieve
economies of scale by end of 2018
● Build out a lending platform tying up with a leading
NBFC by March 2019
● Establish relationships with FMCG distributors and rice
manufacturers to gain margin by March 2019
● Gain 25% market share in Bangalore and venture to
other urban markets and the hotel/restaurant/cafe
segment by end of 2019
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Identifying and pitching of value proposition
● Entry into international markets
● Fundraising
● Tech hiring
● Collaborations with financial institutions
Megdap
Headquarters in Pune Founded July 2013

Megdap offers a proprietary language CUSTOMER

extraction, translation, and analysis ● Application across industries (e.g. media, health, tech)
technology, which helps financial institutions ● Primary focus on financial services space. Trying multiple use
to streamline their processes. cases to branch out further

Meghashyam Karanam
Co-Founder and CEO
Conceptualizing, planning and executing
strategic initiatives & marketing programs in
large emerging markets. 22+ years industry
experience; 11+ years at Microsoft
Prateep Parappil
Co-Founder and CTO
Led engineering teams spread across India,
Middle East, Africa, and Oceania, building
market-relevant localized products and
services. 20+ years industry experience; 12+
years at Microsoft
TRACTION
● 15 institutional clients onboarded
● Large-scale partnerships with Barclays and Amazon
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Available on the Microsoft Azure marketplace
● Focusing on product development and B2B customer
acquisition moving forward, across BFSI and e-commerce
● Hiring technology and sales resources
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Onboarding international clients
● Fund raising
● Hiring
● Executing a digital strategy

PROBLEM
In India, there is often a digital divide that prevents native language
consumers from accessing various products and services that can
empower them for a higher standard of living. This is especially true
in financial services, where financial institutions struggle to exchange
information with potential customers in their local languages.

SOLUTION
Megdap offers a platform that enables enterprises, including financial
institutions, to communicate with their customers and partners in the
language of their choice.
MintOak
Headquarters in Mumbai Founded September 2017
MintOak is a platform for small businesses
that enables digital payments and facilitates
access to appropriate capital.
Raman Khanduja
Co-Founder
20+ years of experience. Head of business
development for Visa. Worked with
Centurion Bank, American Express and PwC
across credit cards, merchant acquisition,
and analytics
Rama Tadepalli
Co-Founder
23+ years of experience. Head of products
and innovation for Visa. Experience across
several businesses such as Reliance Retail,
Hutchison, Unilever, HDFC Bank, Tata
Capital, and United Breweries
Sanjay Nazareth
Co-founder
20+ years of experience in direct banking
operations and payment processing,
including 10+ years at HDFC. Head of Client
Support for Visa. Worked with NPCI to set
up Rupay
PROBLEM
Two of the biggest challenges for small merchants are digitisation of
their businesses and access to capital. Yet, even though digitization of
payments and other processes is a natural stepping stone towards
access to formal finance, they are often seen as separate problems
altogether.
SOLUTION
Mintoak Merchant Pay - Unified payments platform accepting Cards,
BharatQR, BHIM UPI, SMS Pay & Wallets. One view across all
payment modes. One report. Credit to the merchant's preferred bank
account
Mintoak 360: Business owner's app to keep tab on multiple stores
with real-time dashboard, reports, dispute protection
● Generates revenue for the merchant with Mintoak Rewards,
Mintoak Feedback.
● Facilitates access to capital based on full perspective of
business depth, quality of customer franchise
CUSTOMER
Small Merchants in India across 5 key segments – Drug Stores,
Salons, Restaurants, Neighborhood Grocery, Hardware Stores
TRACTION
● 100 merchants across Chennai & Mumbai
● Favourable response to intuitive design and easy tech
● 100% fee paying merchants with 90%+ active rate
● Merchants won over from competition. 20% of
merchants acquired through advocacy from existing
MintOak merchants
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Y1: 1,000+ Merchants, Mintoak 360 and Customer
Recognition platforms, Third-party integration
● Y2: 43,000 Merchants: Enhanced platforms, merchant
specific rewards, merchant marketing, merchant
gamification, recognition platform, and lending
qualification
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Fundraising
● Strengthening the partner-led distribution model
● Distribution between partner-led and in-house sales
Payso FinTech
Headquarters in Pune Founded 2015
PaySo FinTech provides simplified payment
and cash management solutions to businesses
to foster a more transparent and inclusive
payments ecosystem.
Ankit Bhatnagar
Co-founder
Experienced in payment solutions, prepaid card
products, government business, transaction
banking, & electronic banking products.
Worked with Kotak Mahindra Bank and IDBI
Bank for over 12 years
Yogesh Verma
Co-Founder
Expertise in payables and receivables
management, digital banking channels for
corporates, prepaid payment products,
aggregator and ecommerce businesses.
Experience with Standard Chartered Bank,
HDFC bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank for over
12 years
Tushar Trivedi
CEO
Senior Banker with 3 decades of experience in
managerial capacity in global environment.
Specialist in innovation, technology, product
solutioning, transaction banking, strategy and
planning. Has held senior management
positions with CITI Bank for 17 years and Kotak
Mahindra Bank for 10 years
PROBLEM
MSMEs face a wide variety of payment issues -- loose change,
loss in sales due to inability to cater to digitally active young
customers, expensive equipment cost if using swipe machines,
MIS issues, and too many payment options, to name a few.
SOLUTION
Low cost solution by QR code implementation, focused on
customer delight, ease of use for MSMEs, and a single dashboard
for all MIS report generation
CUSTOMER
Any merchant who is selling goods and services and is receiving
payment either in cash or in some digital form.
● General retail: Neighbourhood grocery/medical
store/stationary shop/apparel store/vegetable hawker.
● Travel segment: taxis, cabbies, buses
● Government offices or service center
● Food and beverages segment
● Organized and large format stores
● Entertainment: cinema/ theater/amusement park
TRACTION
● Since December’17 - Merchants Onboarded: 6000+, Avg
Transactions Per Day: 200, Avg Ticket Size Per Txn: Rs
200, App download - 2000+,
● Partnerships with multiple payments platforms - wallets,
BHIM, BharatQR
MAJOR MILESTONES
● 50k transactions
● 13 cities in 6 months, 25 cities in 12 months
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Revenue model and competitive advantage
● Unit economics vs. scale
RoadtoNaukri
Headquarters in Noida Founded January 2016
RoadtoNaukri provides an automated
recruitment system to companies,
ensuring that the right people are
matched to the right jobs.
Amit Srivastava
Founder
20+ years of experience. Lead expert on
government’s Digital India project.
Previous experience in workforce and HR
management.
Mandeep Singh
CEO
Experience in talent management with
AKS Consulting, and product
development with Courses.Ninja
Priyanka Kishore
COO
Former VP & Head HR of HSBC India.
MBA from IMT Ghaziabad
Ankit Kashyap
CTO
8+ years with Wipro, developing tech
tools for global ops. Start up experience
with Courses.Ninja
PROBLEM
Entry level recruitment for companies is a laborious, manual, and
time-consuming process. Similarly, the job search for candidates
for entry-level jobs is often long, unfocused, and stressful as they
seek appropriate employment opportunities to match their skills
and experience
SOLUTION
RoadtoNaukri’s intelligent recruitment assistant helps
companies to manage job requisition, candidate acquisition,
screening, and job matching in a seamless, automated workflow.
Candidates can use a chatbot interface integrated into everyday
applications in order to search for and apply to relevant jobs in
RoadtoNaukri’s database.
CUSTOMER
Companies that hire entry-level graduates in masses,
particularly in retail and BPO sectors.
TRACTION
● ~3000 entry-level employees placed
● 50 clients onboarded since Jan 2018
● Pipeline of 45 clients
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Signing 14 new clients
● Fundraising USD 2 MN over the next 6-9 months
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Differentiation in a highly competitive market
● Hiring
SatSure
Headquarters in London Founded October 2016

SatSure combines satellite, financial, and

socioeconomic data using machine learning to CUSTOMER
derive risk profiles for agriculture lending and Government and financial institutions focusing on energy,
insurance providers. agriculture, and infrastructure sectors

Abhishek Raju
Founder and CEO
14 years experience in international business
development. Previously founded Dhruva Space
and Jivana Vitality
Prateep Basu
Founder and Global Head - Strategy
8 years of experience, Master of Science in Space
Systems Engineering, ex-ISRO scientist and
space industry consultant.
Rashmit Singh Sukhmani
Co-Founder and Global Head - Products
8 years of experience. Master of Science in Space
Systems Engineering, ex-ISRO scientist, space
industry consultant
TRACTION
● 17 enterprise clients onboarded
● 67 companies in pipeline
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Launching analytical credit risk assessment product in
December 2018
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Scaling technology products on cloud infrastructure in
cost-effective manner
● Hiring key management personnel
● Strategies for growing the business geographically
● Optimizing collection processes

PROBLEM
Outdated credit rating models prevent access to credit for
farmers.

SOLUTION
SatSure analyses satellite imagery, weather data, and
socio-economic datasets to identify trends in crop behaviour,
cropping pattern, and price fluctuation, which provides risk
management solutions and business intelligence to banks,
insurers, commodities traders, and governments.
Swipez
Headquarters in Mumbai Founded October 2014
Swipez sells a platform with a suite of
payment tools for service businesses to
manage their billing, collections, and
customer engagement.
Vivek Iyer
Co-Founder and COO
15 yrs in digital media. VP Media @
Interactive Avenues (IPG Company)
Shuhaid Lambe
Co-Founder and CTO
15 yrs in software development, System
Architect & VP @ Barclays Capital
PROBLEM
SMEs today have to work with accounting, e-commerce & CRM
tools separately to manage their business online.
SOLUTION
Swipez is an ERP for small businesses that offers all these
services under one roof, helping them to go digital without any
custom development, manpower, or high technology costs.
CUSTOMER
Target market - Approx 5 million SMEs in India
● Feet-on-street collection businesses (e.g. cable
operators, newspaper vendors, ISPs, etc.)
● Businesses that manage multiple franchisees (e.g. travel
agents, small hotels, etc.)
● Businesses that require payment splitting/custom
settlement processes & reporting (e.g. e-commerce
services, subscription businesses)
TRACTION
● 450 + merchants onboarded
● Managing data of nearly 70K customers through these
merchants
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Acquiring 10 paying merchants a day
● A complete online sale with CAC under 1st year fee
● International product launch
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Online customer acquisition
● Fundraising
● Sales - international and enterprise
WonderLend Hubs
Headquarters in Mumbai Founded May 2016
WonderLend powers a network of digital loan
processing hubs for financial institutions that
give underserved customers frictionless
access to loans.
Dr. Ram Ramdas
Founder
32+ years experience across academia,
applied research leadership roles, consulting,
tech R&D leadership, and SW platforms. 16+
years as Founder of SaaS business Herald
Logic, which was incubated at IIT-B
Rajesh Iyer
Co-founder
30 years of experience across sales, business
development, product & marketing including
senior leadership positions with leading
global banks like HSBC, Barclays, National
Australian Bank and Tata Finance
Anusha Jathanna
Co-founder
17+ years of work experience. Joined Herald
Logic as a founding member.
PROBLEM
Financial institutions spend a large amount of manual effort,
cost, and time in acquiring, processing, and underwriting of
underserved customers, both individuals and small businesses.
SOLUTION
The WonderLend Hub solution is a B2B2C digital loan processing
hub that combine seamless acquisition & aggregation of data with
rapid assessment & decisioning of retail and small business loans, in
traditional as well as new-age evaluation scenarios, with a focus on
New-to-Credit segments.
CUSTOMER
● Supply side - Financial Institutions
● Demand Side - Merchant aggregators, payment banks,
other intermediaries
TRACTION
● 100k 2-wheeler loans per month being processed within
15 - 16 seconds
● Deployment for major financial institutions
MAJOR MILESTONES
● Market rollout of new digital loan product
● Multiple deployments of digital lending hub
MAJOR STRATEGIC/TACTICAL CHALLENGES
● Accelerating customer acquisition
● Fundraising
● Pricing
● Hiring - sales and tech talent