Shanti Mohan

I have spent a decade sitting across the table from founders raising their first round. Most arrive with a pitch deck, a financial model and a number they want to raise. There is no shortage of information online to help them prepare. In fact, with AI, increasingly every founder can arrive with a polished model, an exit scenario and a deck that looks investor-ready. But fundraising is rarely about the deck and the numbers. Read the detailed post on shantimohan.com #TheFirstRaise #Fundraising #StartupIndia @lvxventures

Should you raise money at all? I spend much of my professional life around fundraising, so perhaps the most useful place for me to start this series is by saying something that sounds counterintuitive: you do not have to raise venture capital.

Thank you Hon’ble PM @narendramodi for your recognition and encouragement of #startups and #founders who are building for #bharat. When we backed @GalaxEye at @lvxventures, we believed India’s private space sector was ready to write its own chapter. Mission Drishti — the world’s first OptoSAR satellite and India’s largest privately-built satellite — is proof that the chapter has begun. Congratulations to the entire @GalaxEye team. This one belongs to the builders. @startupindia #LVXPortfolio @iitmadras @thesuyashsingh @ThePranitMehta @rakshitbhatt98

Most founders don’t fail because they couldn’t build. They fail because they started with an idea, not a problem.

Excited to start a series for #founders. Starting up always looks cleaner from the outside than it actually is. When I started @lvxventures, I did not have a clear plan. I get asked often about how we built LetsVenture. Building a marketplace is far harder than it looks — at the core, it has been first-principles thinking, a lot of conversations, some wrong turns, and a few right ones. For #founders, there is no shortage of frameworks today. But very little tells you what it actually feels like when you are in the middle of it. So I decided I will start sharing a few notes from my own journey. Not frameworks. Just what I saw, what did not work, and what stayed. Over time, I have realised this — building a startup is a masterclass about understanding people (and yourself) as it is about building a business. Starting today with this on my substack: How I found the problem I wanted to work on. Read along. shantimohan.substack.com/p/s… @startupindia #entrepreneurship #india #marketplaces

Been a while since I’ve posted on X. 2026 does promise to be an interesting year! Hope to stay more active. Wishing all of us a peaceful, stable and fun year ahead!

In this post, I write about why venture investing, at its core, is a people business — it’s always about betting on the smartest minds. To simplify this idea, I’ve created a 6-lens framework that helps look beyond numbers and understand founders better. shantimohan.substack.com/p/s…

Read the full post here - shantimohan.substack.com/p/s… Enter the Pitch Room - chat.whatsapp.com/JDnJ9AKT3O…

I also want to say that often our bets in early stage are also good timing - meeting the right people and making the decision to invest. This is a case study from my own portfolio.

In this week’s edition of The PitchRoom, I have unpacked how small markets can become large opportunities — and why founders who listen often end up building the most unexpected stories of scale.

A decade later, the same company created a 10x outcome for its early investors. Because TAM doesn’t grow by itself. Founders do.

In 2014, I met a founder whose projected TAM was just ₹10 crore. It defied venture investing rules on numbers. Having said this, the founders demonstrated clarity, conviction, and the intent to build a meaningful startup.

A 10cr TAM and 10x return? Possible? Early-stage investing is full of paradoxes. We talk about market size, scalability, and “unicorn potential” — but sometimes, the biggest outcomes come from the smallest beginnings.

I’m not gaslighting — these are real conversations with real founders over the past two weeks. A pattern is emerging, and it deserves attention.

Let’s build an ecosystem where deals are fair, intentions are clear, and conversations honour the effort behind every startup. How do we ensure we get there — together?

Can we create a culture where conversations are honest and courageous — where if things don’t move forward, founders are told so clearly, instead of being stonewalled later?