00:58:39 · Akshay Chaturvedi
And that's when we kind of get DSG consumer partners, Chaturvedi, who back then was their India head now is the Chief Operating Officer of Sula. He came in. He told me that as long as you're not doing that, I'll kind of give you the money. And so that's when... Just to kind of close that thought loop, it's a very interesting one. We've got in DSG consumer partners. We've got two more BCs, two more BCs term sheets. None of that was Blume. But I really wanted to work with Kartik. So I remember giving Kartik a call at 09:30PM, one late evening. This is I think late August. And I told him that, hey, you know what? I have the money now. But today, gonna come and work with you. Because by the time he had also gonna build out that brand of being very founder friendly, and he had put out a long Twitter thread for Kabir of Tanzu when Kabir was kind of going through a very hard time after this. Just before his series and before Google came in. And I realized for the first time, Anirudh, that if a VC really wants to do a deal, they can make it happen in hours. It does not take months, months, and months. And 09:30 was at call by 12:50AM. Kartik gave me a confirmation saying that I was like, okay. Fuck. That's all it took. This would have taken essentially three to four months and I'm kind of following up with an analyst and that which is how it essentially flows in for a new entrepreneur. And that's how Blume came in. And I think life was much better with having VCs on the capital to guide you and kind of help you structure the company as well.
01:00:12 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[01:00:12] S0: I mean, truly, man, if there's somebody that truly deserved every success and I'm looking forward to this news in seven days, I'd have also make sure we repost the videos at that time. Right? [01:00:22] S1: But it it it only is [01:00:24] S0: a story. I mean, in hindsight, I I was also just starting out of my fundraiser. 2017 was when we incubated the idea of Artificent Fund. I was writing personal checks and for me, you know, if I'd known the story, I think we're definitely invested, but we didn't get enough time, right? To discuss such a long, such a interesting story, but I'm, I'm still truly, truly grateful because, know, I think there is so much to learn, right? Just even the fact, like, you know, in fact, I was just talking to my principal when we're in Delhi, and was like, you know, I've had conversations where I've said... Where founders are like, you know what? We're... We we need to meet you. And I'm like and I'm like, I'm I'm reaching Bangalore. It's gonna take me two hours to get from the airport to wherever the heck I'm going to going to. You wanna come pick me up at the airport? Let's sit in the car together. We'll have a chat. Right? And we've I've actually done one where from the airport to a midpoint, I dropped the founder off, took a foot, picked up another founder, took him to took him to the hotel. Right? And I didn't... And but you know that that you, as a VC when I was starting out, I had to be that shameless. Right? There's this weight that was going on.
01:01:24 · Akshay Chaturvedi, Anirudh A Damani
[01:01:24] S1: No. I know that you had you had fantastic reputation. And, of course, you've you've become a much bigger celebrity now. But even in 2017, I remember when I had... I just come after meeting you. We briefly met for five minutes. I think you... Had a super busy day. But I went down to get a drink after and I I was sitting on a table by myself, and somebody just behind me... This is Kalagoda Kinicheck Cafe. I can't remember which cafe, but it was very fancy cafe. But this guy asked me that because I was dressed in a suit and all of those things, and I was... Had my laptop open and crunching Excel. He's like, [01:02:14] S0: Oh man, I didn't know this story because there is a, actually, just held all these stories for this this moment. Glad. But but let's talk about this. I know I know there's a big event, big, big moment coming up, but but quickly saying where do you see Leverage... Leverage Edu in five years? Sorry. Keep saying Leverage. I know why, but Leverage Edu.
01:02:36 · Akshay Chaturvedi
[01:02:36] S1: Totally fine. The five years is long time. Of course, in the next three years, we see ourselves we see our business in flight routes. We ourselves monopolizing at least a few flight routes and ensuring that we build a great brand, great word-of-mouth for certain segments. We had a lot of students coming in from... In the first two and a half years of two and a half years of a journey, we had a lot of students coming in from the top cities, Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, user services to kind of go to The US. Over the last, I think, one and a half years, we have had... By the way, now we recruit students from over 700 plus cities and towns every single month. He said, we look into the platform and user services. And we have very, very long tail as well. And the first... The top 40% of business comes in from the top 50 or 60 cities. So of course, the larger focus in the next two to three years is that can we really build a very strong brand word-of-mouth and come across as a student first company, which is kind of really helping people get to certain destinations like the... In the last one and a half years between The UK, maybe expand into another region soon. For example, early next year, we want to get a start doing this for Canada. At summer and then towards the next year, we want to start doing Australia. So those are slightly more short term targets of how can we kind of get to more students, expand onto our add of services. Later towards this year, we're also launching something called Leverage Finance as part of which we'll be helping with Forex and education loan. And the larger lens
01:04:05 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[01:04:05] S0: Is that gonna be is that gonna be NDA or you're doing it off your own platform? I mean, if you don't... If that's something So [01:04:09] S1: right now, we have applied... On the forex bit, we applied for an FFMC license. We are awaiting RBI note. You're the first one. I'm sharing this publicly. But on the educational, we've right now partnered with a couple of banks, some abroad and some in India, and we are largely the front face for a lot of stuff that they are kind of underwriting or they're essentially using the credit algorithms to define whether this person can be given a loan or not, what percentage do they need to be given a loan at, and a lot of those terms and conditions are
01:04:35 · Anirudh A Damani
[01:04:35] S0: I think that's gonna be a game changer. I I I truly believe that consumer finance and and and unlocking consumer finance is gonna be a game changer for the Indian economy. But but specifically in this vertical, like, whoever realizing that the way to get your customer is also to provide a line of credit or a finance bit. I think any D to C entrepreneur, they have to realize that, mean, if you look at The US consumer boom, it it household debt to GDP boomed, and that's when consumer boomed. Right? And I think Label said. In India in India, we're at 11% of GDP in terms of household debt. US is at 70%. China's at 45. That's... You ask me, that's the missing key. Fix that, and I think in in the consumer economy is gonna be at another level altogether. So I completely agree. And mean, I truly, think at some point, I'm gonna talk to you about a couple of our startups also reaching scale, but I think there could be a really good partnership there on the finance and on the other angle. So that's definitely something to talk about. But in between, you know, interestingly, like I said, I don't think you can really, really keep one role for yourself. You've also become an angel, right? And a very interesting set of companies there, right? Catalyze X, Easy E, Beema Pay, Maven, Stage OTT for Bharat, Ashwatat Therapeutics, ProEase, and all in different areas, right? I mean, I, some of these companies have actually met. What's the what's the theme here? Right? What what's got what's got your agency going?