After Covid outbreak, venture capital firms rely more on blogs, podcasts, webinar sessions for brand building
Oct 16, 2020
New Delhi [India], October 16 : After the Covid pandemic broke out, venture capital firms are relying to a greater extent on blogs, podcasts and webinar sessions to build their brand.
A well-executed content programme can help venture capital firms (VCs) attract high-quality entrepreneurs. This marks a shift towards more of a "marketing" as opposed to a "sales" approach in attracting entrepreneurs, said Managing Director of Kalaari Capital, Vani Kola, in a blog post.
Leading venture capital (VCs) firms VCs like Sequoia, Accel and Kalaari Capital have ramped up their efforts on this. Vani Kola-led Kalaari Capital, an investor in Dream 11 and Curefit, launched Kalaari Video Podcast, a platform that comprises interviews with startup executives and videos.
One of the formats, Behind the Scenes, looks at early-stage employees apart from founders and the role they played in the startup's success. Another format, Leadership in Crisis imparted lessons to entrepreneurs on how to respond to a crisis due to the current pandemic by looking at historical examples of companies when faced with a crisis.
In the blog Kola said, "When it comes to start-ups, there is no fast track to success. Having been part of many startup journeys over the last decade at Kalaari Capital, we believe that there are valuable lessons to be learnt from the journeys of others. Kalaari Podcast is an initiative that comes from our continued commitment to empower and encourage entrepreneurs."
Kalaari Capital had onboarded investment banker turned election strategist Animesh Pandey as an advisor to conceptualise their content strategy and roll-out content formats. "While there was a plethora of content on 'what' Indian startups are doing, there was a dearth of content on 'how' startups are doing it. The top VCs like Kalaari Capital have immense experience and insights on how to build a great company in India. This shift in the strategy of few VCs to enable entrepreneurs and go beyond just writing check gives additional impetus to the Indian startup ecosystem and provides relevant lessons for any budding entrepreneur," the blog said.
Sequoia, an investor in startups like Byju's, Zomato and DailyHunt launched a community programme to bring founders of their portfolio companies together on a regular basis to share their experiences.
Accel, an investor in Swiggy and Ola launched Seed to Scale, a learning platform for entrepreneurs comprising blogs, podcasts and videos. Accel Insights is a podcast that looks at the journeys of entrepreneurs from the beginning of the startup. Other VCs like Matrix India, Lightspeed India, Nexus Venture Partners too have jumped on the content bandwagon.
