WEBVTT

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Raj, welcome.

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What does the venture capital
landscape look like at the

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moment?

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I think it's really been the
last few years, VC has been in a

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period of slow down.

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It's a cyclical business.

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We tend to have these kind of
seven-year booms and then a few

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years where things slow down.

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What's really been exciting is
since the start of this year in

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January, we've really seen the
market starting to pick up.

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I mean, one, there's been a
secular tailwind driven by

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generative AI from 2023.

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It's very exciting in terms of
how do you invest in it and stay

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away from the hype cycle.

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That's something that I think,
as investors, we're very focused

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on.

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But it's beyond generative AI.

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You're starting to see spaces
like biotech, which have really

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been slow for three years, but
where fundamental innovation has

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continued.

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You're seeing biotech starting
to come back. A lot of corporate

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M&A interest around biotech.

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And I think there's some
geographic interest in markets

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like India where there's a lot
of belief around some of the

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reforms the country's made and
some of the amazing talent that

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the Indian tech ecosystem has.

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Can we go into more detail about
AI, GenAI,

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new technologies, how they are
changing that landscape?

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I suppose the opportunities, the
challenges?

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Yeah, I mean, GenAI

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is really early.

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It's in its evolution.

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If you think about it, there's
the, fundamental infrastructure

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layer of generative AI.

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And then on top of that
infrastructure layer, there will

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be an application layer.
There'll be a horizontal

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application layer and
verticalized application layer.

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But we're very early.

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We're still in the stage of
building the chips.

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We're still in the stage of
building that fundamental

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infrastructure layer.

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I think there's a few companies
that are clearly early leaders

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in this space, but it's gonna be
a big ecosystem.

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There's a lot of opportunities
to build AI tools around coding,

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development.

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There's a lot of opportunities
to build copilot tools, and

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we're early in that ecosystem.

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I think in 2025, you'll really
start to see the application AI

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layer also start to take off.
And it's, in terms of investing

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in it

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right now, valuations are high.

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There's a lot of excitement
about it.

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And I think as investors, we
have to choose carefully and

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there's a lot of excitement to
partner with corporates in this

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space.

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And it's a place where I think
BCG is really doing a lot of

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differentiated things around AI.

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Talk me through your decision
making when it comes to making

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investment decisions.

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Has it changed?

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How do you keep a lid on the
excitement, as you mentioned?

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I think our investment process
has always been pretty

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consistent.

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It starts with great, great
founders and great teams.

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While we, yes, we are venture
capitalists and we invest in new

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technologies, fundamentally we
invest in people.

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So we focus a lot on the team.
On the venture side of our

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business,

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We're willing to invest
pre-product and in people with

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great ideas.

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But when we do that, it has to
be people who we really believe

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have the track record, who have
the skill set in this very

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nascent space.

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Then we look at the product, if
there is a product, there's not

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always a product.

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And if it's a company that has
commercial traction, we focus a

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lot on whether that commercial
traction is really coming from

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just acquiring expensive new
customers or if it's coming from

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a lot of repeat purchases.

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We always put a little bit more
emphasis in terms of being able

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to grow your share of wallet
with your existing customers

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because that's a great sign that
your product is something that

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customers, after they try it
out, are willing to continue to

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pay for.

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Raj, a pleasure as always.

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Thank you so much.

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Thank you for having me.