Rahul Mathur

On Saturday, I began my “10,000 hours of AI” journey in earnest So far, I’ve been a fringe observer / user but reality has hit: A large % of our portfolio is Enterprise AI (count & $ amount), the founder quality in AI continues to remain top notch. My naive take is that in the next 10 yrs, the majority of net new MCap creation will come from AI (infrastructure, vertical agents, model providers, service vendors etc) Therefore, I’ve decided to really double down on 5 activities ⤵️

I cannot understate how valuable the offline signals & in-person interactions are for making any judgement or decision. AI makes a lot of the desk work redundant (because you can OpenClaw anything on WhatsApp from your mobile) But, Relationships Rule The World.

This is my 3rd trip to SF in the past 6 months - my key learning remains that: The best research in a post Claude world will still be done by stepping out of our virtual office to have the in-person coffee conversation or to attend a curated offline event AI agents in most fields are rate limited by human prompts & availability of proprietary signals (latter of which can only be gathered by human effort in the physical world) While prompting, agents & tools continue to get better - you'll find the real business decisions being made by human beings based on offline signals in the physical world.

OpenAI’s upcoming partnership with TCS will be a major inflection point in BFSI & other regulated sectors! It suffices to say that the 5.4 release blew my mind last week & it was incredible to see the clarity which the OpenAI team has regarding this “Teammate” vision for their business solutions! Our team is very grateful to Thomas & OpenAI for their partnership since 2025 - they’ve supported 30+ of our portfolio companies! ➡️We will aim to host at least one Office Hour session each quarter - please keep your eyes out on socials by following @DeVC_Global

The big one: OpenAI has unveiled “Frontier” OpenAI has been using the FDE motion to deploy its models & products in complex Enterprises for 2 years now. In the process of doing so - they built an internal suite of tools. These tools have been packed as a platform called “Frontier” - launched last month. This platform manages shared context across various Enterprise systems to build, deploy & manage AI co-workers Think of Frontier as a complete wrapper: Shared context, systems integration, deployment scaffolding, and enterprise controls. This platform is used by OpenAI’s own FDEs & by Frontier Partners such as Sierra, Clay & Harvey to deploy custom AI solutions for Enterprises. Frontier is being used at US & EU based Enterprises such as State Farm, Thermo Fisher, BBVA, T-Mobile etc. I’m personally keen to see when OpenAI makes this platform available to Indian startups & ISVs!

OpenAI had one message for founders last week: AI is moving from chatbot → tool → teammate This was the central theme at the Office Hours session hosted at our BLR office by the OpenAI team with 50+ CTOs & technical founders in attendance. Here’s what you need to know ⤵️

40% IRR, 42 companies across 5 funds with only 6 new investments per year - Manu Chandra is the GOAT of consumer investing in India Sauce Consumer Fund I (2019) was a ₹60 crore vehicle with Manu as the solo GP - the returns are staggering: Realized = ₹79.1 crore Unrealized = ₹377.2 crore Therefore, Fund I is a 7.6x over 7 years 🤯 The XIRR (to investors) is well above 40% which makes it one of the BEST performing VC funds in India Manu’s approach is that of a Private Equity investor: (a) Deep conviction (b) Concentrated positions (c) Disciplined capital allocation Lets look at his playbook ⤵️

Manu & team Sauce have also done something remarkable: Kept their core fund size under control despite the tremendous success - Sauce Fund III was ₹365 crore which is 6 times larger than Fund I but 3-4 times smaller than peers. I think what sets Manu apart from all of us in Venture is that he brings the PE rigour from a 11 year stint at 3i Capital - my mother worked as VP Sales at one of their legacy portfolio companies (OOH Media) - she always recalls their discipline, eye for detail & structured approach (which she remembers from interactions with Mahesh, Nikhil & other 3i staff) It was bold of him to step up at the peak of his career to start a new fund in the untested CPG space in India but it seems like he will be richly rewarded for his risk - more power to him, Yash & team Sauce 🙏 Discl: Views are my own. Above information has been gathered from public sources. I am not affiliated or an investor in any Sauce VC fund scheme. DeVC, Z47 & its affiliates are co-investors in companies with Sauce VC such as TWT. Shared for informational purposes only; DYOR.

3️⃣Disciplined capital allocation Let us see this from the lens of the ₹60 crore Fund I You will observe a few things: (a) ₹54 crore (or, 90% of AUM) is invested in the “top” 4 companies - this means that Manu is recycling proceeds from other companies back into his top performers (b) ₹80 crore (gross of taxes & fees) has been taken out by Year 6 - Manu has hit the “gold” standard in Venture of delivering 1x DPI (i.e. “return of principal sum”) which now gives him another 4-6 years to let these positions compound while being able to raise subsequent (larger funds) (c) Fund I invested ₹7 crore into TWT which is a small fraction of the ₹150 crore total invested into the company by Sauce i.e. they are buying ownership over time as they see signals of business traction & founder compounding If you nudge any fund manager to go through the above - they would tell you that this is top notch fund management at play!

I've spent the last hour in this section of the lounge (this is the Globetrotter’s Study) which is my favorite! Now, time to fly to SFO!

📍The Maharaja Lounge, DEL Air India opened this lounge on 17th Feb - interiors are truly spectacular! The highlight is the Globetrotter’s Study area which feels like walking into a 19th century palace library - it is quiet, full of books & has lovely lounge chairs. This lounge is a HUGE upgrade to the previous Encalm lounges which AI used to operate for international travelers

I can't complain, Rohan. I'm flying business class all the way and with the Delhi stopover on BLR-SFO the jet lag is minimal. In addition to this the cost delta on Air India vs the nearest commercial carrier is ₹2 lakh, which makes the headache quite worth it in terms of the cost saving for the company.

@Rahul_J_Mathur air india to sf is brutal!

All ready for the long-haul to SF ✅ Approx. 40 hours of flying without WiFi on this round trip Will try to complete all 3 books - half way through Apple In China so far (excellent read!)

One line said by Aman Gupta stood out to me: “Hum Bhi Bana Lenge” - 4 unsuccessful companies before starting boAt & now he’s on to his 6th venture OffBeat Studios! I would highly recommend you watch Aman’s interview - this is part of a series called Unstarted in which @avnish invites entrepreneurs who’ve been through hell & beyond to share some of their war stories (Avi has his own set of these from Baazee’s journey) youtu.be/k5DjB4-XDbY?si…

In fact, several people affiliated with Baazee have done remarkably well in their careers: (1) Avnish Bajaj (Co-Founder) - is managing partner of Z47 ($3.5bn+ AUM) (2) Suvir Sujan (Co-Founder) - is co-founder of Nexus Venture Partners ($3.2bn+ AUM) (3) Jiby Thomas (Ops head) - is co-Founder of Quikr ($1.6bn+ valuation) (4) Rajan Mehra (early hire) - is GP @ March Capital ($1.6bn+ AUM) (5) Niren Shah (founding team) - is India MD @ Norwest ($1.2bn+ invested in India) (6) Ashish Shah (B2B procurement) - co-founded Pepperfry ($360m+ peak valuation) Aman Gupta saw the success of India’s Web 1.0 companies - Baazee ($50m acquisition by eBay), Jobsahead ($10m acquisition by Monster), IndiaWorld ($$115m acquisition by Sify) & India Abroad ($10m acquisition by Rediff)

On a cold morning in January 2000, a young Aman Gupta walked into a tiny office in Safdarjung Enclave in Delhi He was an articled accountant at Luthra & Luthra who was helping complete the incorporation paperwork for a new company started by 2 HBS alumni called “Baazee India Pvt Ltd” 4 years later, Baazee would be acquired by eBay for $50M 12 years after that, the same Aman Gupta would go on to found boAt (last valued at $1bn+) & become the Shark Tank superstar we all know today Last month I watched my boss at Z47 Avnish (Baazee’s co-founder) interview Aman Gupta live at our Gurgaon office - it was incredible to hear how their backstory intertwined so deeply: