Kae Capital's Sasha Mirchandani does not regret exiting investment in Myntra

Early stage investors bet not just on the idea, but also on the people behind the idea. Sometimes, it’s even people first. Sasha Mirchandani, MD, Kae Capital, says that he’d rather get the size of the market wrong, but not the entrepreneur.

Mirchandani , who hails from the promoter family of Onida (Gulu Mirchandani, founder, Onida, is his father), was one of the early backers of Mukesh Bansal and Myntra. At a time when it was still a gifting business, not an apparel one. Investors came in later and pivoted it to apparel. The rest is history.

Mirchandani, who counts Bansal among some of the smartest minds he has encountered till date, got the entrepreneur right. So, with Bansal quitting Flipkart-Myntra and announcing plans to launch another startup, will the duo pair up again? “If they (founders we have invested in before) come back to us and need capital, we’d be more than happy to put money in people like Mukesh.

But the ones who do well, don’t need the money. The ones who don’t do well need it,” Mirchandani says. And a fai led venture is not necessarily cause to write off an entrepreneur. As long as there is determination, aptitude and good intent, there is cause to back the person, feels Mirchandani.


Mukesh Bansal

The failure could have been an opportunity missed. Speaking of missed opportunities, he exited his investment in Myntra just before the company merged with Flipkart. Any regrets? “In our business you can’t think about the past. And I made such a good return, that there is no point in crying about it,” he says.