Show Proof of Value Before You Build for Scale

Rohini Chakravarthy (0:02)

My dad, sometimes, his coaching was, just because you know how to solve a problem doesn't mean you're the right person to solve it. So also additionally, like, apply that test on, is this the right founder market fit, right? Are you the right person to solve this problem, or otherwise, now, how do you expand that team to also bring in the expertise you need to go solve that problem? So I think it really does start with the first set of people, the founders, and them choosing this market.

Gopi Rangan (0:37)

You are listening to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur, a podcast for founders with ambitious ideas. Venture capital investors and other early believers tell you relatable, insightful, and authentic stories to help you realize your vision.

Welcome to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Gopi Rangan. My guest today for this episode is Rohini Chakravarthy. Rohini is the managing partner at NewBuild Venture Capital.

NewBuild is a Silicon Valley based venture capital firm that focuses on early stage founders transforming the physical enterprise. So we're going to learn more about what physical enterprise includes, what does it constitute of, what kind of startups does she like to invest in, what's a good stage and what is a good topic for a founder that would be interesting and in the zone for NewBuild. We're going to learn more about Rohini and talk more about her investments. Rohini, welcome to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur.

Rohini Chakravarthy (1:41)

Thank you, Gopi. Pleasure to be here.

Gopi Rangan (1:43)

So you live in Silicon Valley. You've lived here for a long time, but you're originally from India. You grew up in Bangalore and you studied in India, and later you came to the US. You were an engineer early part of your career and later switched to Venture Capital. Can you talk a little bit about that journey?

Rohini Chakravarthy (2:01)

Yeah, I'm happy to very much the immigrant journey into the US and to Venture Capital. So I grew up in Bangalore, South Bangalore. So went to kind of local schools in Bangalore, Sudarshan Vidya Mandir, Vidya High School, National College for people who might know South Bangalore institutions. And I went to IIT Madras, so that's how I got to Chennai. I did my bachelors in electrical engineering and then came to the US as a grad student. So I did a masters in electrical engineering and worked as an engineer here in Silicon Valley in the 90s.

I worked on chip design, board design, so hardware stuff. And at that time, actually in the 90s, hardware was still hot. Networking was the AI of the 90s. So really had an opportunity to see startup activity, although from a very kind of an engineering perspective. And I worked at Bay Networks. We did ethernet systems at that time. So just to give you a sense of how far we have come, the first product I worked on was a 100 megabit fiber optical board. And both the fiber and the 100 megabit, that was hot technology at that time. So I did get to work on some cutting edge stuff at that time. But I decided to go to business school fairly early on in my career. So I had this idea of wanting to see a little bit more of the business. And I had decided that at that time, this would give me a really good grounding, as well as a network that was different and unique. So I had the opportunity to go to MIT Sloan. And I graduated from MIT in 99 I almost directly went into venture. So I did a few things along the way at MIT and happy to share if that's of interest. But initially, my entry into venture capital was through corporate. So I was at Intel Capital for seven years. And really what drew me to Intel was this opportunity to apply both the tech side as well as learning the venture business, if you will. That's where I started. Invested in networking in the beginning, and then Wi-Fi, WiMAX, so a lot of the technologies there. And that's where I learned really how to invest. So over seven years, I got to invest in everything from chips to subsystems to software spectrum, service providers, and really see the business model aspect of it. And that's where I really learned the business.

And then after Intel, I went to NEA, which is a very large institutional venture firm, where I again, got to invest in the full stack, right? So everything from chips and photonics, all the way to application software, across three funds and been in the venture world for 20 plus years now. So that's been a really fun ride to see the evolution of venture.