Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) director Mohanjit Jolly moves from Menlo Park, California, to Bangalore this month to lead DFJ’s investments here. Jolly was earlier managing director at Garage Technology Ventures and specializes in investing in high-tech, intellectual property-based technology start-ups. DFJ will invest $75 million in India out of its global $600 million DFJ IX Fund. The firm has been investing here as an offshore investor for the past two years and already has a portfolio of four companies. It plans to add another 12-15 companies through the $75 million allocation. Jolly spoke about DFJ’s investment gameplan for India in an email interview with Mint. Excerpts:
How would you describe your personal approach to start-up investing, keeping in mind your earlier stint with Garage Technology Ventures?
Often when one is investing at the seed or early stage, none of the three “Ts”, as I call them, are available. There is typically no technology/IP, no complete team and definitely no traction. At that point, as a venture capitalist, you have to trust a combination of your gut feel as well as your belief in the core team to deliver on the vision. Usually half way through a typical early stage company presentation, there is an epiphany where the stars line up and the investor(s) nod in complete agreement with the entrepreneur. That’s the “ah ha” moment when you know the founders are on to something, which may be at the formative stage, but has the potential to be truly disruptive.
Within the technology space, what are your comfort areas/niches as an investor?
I am admittedly a generalist, and given my training as an aerospace engineer, I know enough about a lot of different technology areas to be dangerous. Also, over my eight years at Garage I worked with startups in a variety of areas ranging from enterprise software and mobility to web 2.0 and material science. If you look traditionally at what has made DFJ the top tier firm that it is today, it’s primarily consumer facing investments like Hotmail, Skype, Baidu and Focus Media. This focus will transfer to India. But, I will also be looking at areas such as retail, infrastructure, logistics/distribution, ITES, mobility/wireless, software, material science, biotech/health sciences and power infrastructure.
Have you had an opportunity to assess Indian technology start-ups yet? What are you initial impressions?