Goodwater Capital is the largest consumer-technology focussed, multi-stage venture firm in the world. Based out of the Bay Area, it has $3Bn AUM. The founders and the fund have been investors in iconic companies like Facebook, Spotify, Coupang, and TikTok.
- In the summer of 2024, I worked with Goodwater to build their India Investment Thesis, helping allocate capital in the world's fastest growing consumer market.
- Goodwater is a pioneer in data driven investing with their sourcing exclusively driven via properitary ML models. It is not structured like other traditional VC firms. It has 9 investors (including 7 partners) and 40+ data scientists and engineers. Over the last 10 years they have built an in-house platform that uses public and private data sources to track 20M+ consumer companies on a bunch of different parameters across retention, engagement, growth, and monetization.
- I worked directly with the data science team to identify hot sectors and companies in the Indian market. Goodwater had tasted early success in India with their investment in Zepto ($5b) and wanted to double down.
COOL PROJECTS I LED
📊 Leveraged proprietary platform data to map the Indian consumer tech macro landscape
Fastest Growing Large Economy
India's GDP growth outpaces most global counterparts, making it a magnet for venture capital. Combine this with a median age of just under 30, and you get a generation of digital natives shaped by smartphones and the internet.
New India = Online India
With over 1.5 billion people, India is one of the world's most diverse markets. But what unites them increasingly is digital: inexpensive data plans and smartphones are driving a consumption shift online, across everything from shopping to financial services.
India 123 Framework
To make sense of this massive audience, we used a nuanced lens coined by entrepreneur Kishore Biyani:
India1 = Mexico (~120M people, $15k/person income)
India2 = Indonesia (~300M people, $3k/person income)
India3 = Sub-Saharan Africa (~1B people, $1k/person income)
The first wave of internet startups wooed India1. The next game-changer lies in India2, where a rapidly growing middle class is becoming more comfortable transacting online.
Sectors with the Highest Potential
By drilling into our proprietary user growth data and engagement metrics, we zeroed in on three verticals set to soar - fintech, ecommerce, gaming.
🎬 Conducted due dilligence for a $10M Series B investment in STAGE - Netflix for local India
Business Model Insight:
The startup built a 1P streaming platform tailored to India2—a 300M-strong audience with $3k/person income, historically overlooked by mainstream services.
They produced hyper-local content at a fraction of typical costs ($10–20k for entire seasons) by recruiting freelancers in a marketplace-style model.
With 100+ regional languages in India, this approach resonated powerfully; few platforms truly catered to audiences speaking beyond Hindi or English.
My Role:
Market Sizing & Validation: Analyzed which states and dialects could yield high viewership. Mapped supply (content creators, regional production talent) to demand (underserved language communities).
Customer Diligence: Interviewed current viewers and potential subscribers to gauge churn risks, perceived content quality, and the price point they'd pay for truly local entertainment.
Outcome:
The platform achieved EBITDA-positive returns in Haryana—a promising sign of profitability in a highly cost-sensitive market. Our diligence helped cement a $10M investment, betting on local-language streaming as the next frontier in India's OTT landscape.
💡 Developed high-value thesis areas & built an engaged pipeline of 10+ growth deals
After zeroing in on fintech, e-commerce, and gaming as prime sectors for India's consumer-tech market, we hit the ground running. Met founders, understood their products, and mapped out where they fit within our thesis. We built a pipeline of over ten promising late stage companies, digging deep into their metrics, user feedback, and growth plans. We also spent time getting to know the people behind the companies, and tried forging genuine relationships that could turn into future opportunities in the future.
COMPANIES I ANALYZED
LEARNINGS & FAILURES
Embracing Growth-Stage Investing
I discovered that I love the sweet spot where there's enough data to form a thesis, but still plenty of room for a company to evolve. I prefer growth stage, data driven investing over super early people based investing. This motivated me to work on a public market investing strategy and write a paper about it at Stanford.
Building Founders' Trust Through Prep & Competence
At Goodwater, we never walked into a founder call blind. We leveraged our platform data to craft global benchmarks and show real, actionable insights. This flipped the script—rather than just being pitched, we met founders on equal footing, which went a long way in earning their respect and buy-in.
Learning From the World's Best Consumer-Tech Companies
Having access to Goodwater's platform meant I could dig deep into top-performing consumer companies - studying their retention curves, engagement rates, and growth tactics. Seeing patterns across different business models gave me a better intuition for what "great" looks like in consumer tech.
Narrow India Focus
Because my project centered on India, I missed out on a wave of cutting-edge AI startups emerging from the Valley in 2024. It felt like sitting on the sidelines during one of tech's most exciting moments.
Limited Deal Experience
I was involved in one major deal team, which gave me a solid grounding in due diligence. But I wish I got more experience on more deals to absorb the different nuances across different company types, stages.
