Bs Raghuvanshi ^new^ -
That insight became his investment thesis. While Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz were chasing growth-at-all-costs, Raghuvanshi began writing small checks to “boring” infrastructure companies: supply chain logistics, industrial IoT, and B2B compliance software. In 2010, he launched Equanimity Ventures with $47 million from a handful of wealthy Indian families and ex-Sun colleagues. His first fund was considered embarrassingly conservative. He passed on Uber (“unregulated taxi service with a legal time bomb”), passed on Snapchat (“ephemeral messaging for teenagers is not a moat”), and passed on WeWork (“they sell office space wrapped in a cult”).
He mentors a small group of young founders, mostly first-generation immigrants. One of them, Priya Mehta, founder of supply chain startup , says: “B.S. asked me a question no other investor did: ‘What will your company do when the market turns against you for five years?’ Everyone else asked about TAM [total addressable market] and traction. He asked about character.” The Legacy Question At 58, Raghuvanshi is beginning to wind down. He’s raised a final, $300 million fund—small by today’s standards—and plans to retire by 2030. He is writing a book, tentatively titled The Tortoise Manifesto . bs raghuvanshi
If Silicon Valley is a high school cafeteria, Raghuvanshi is the librarian: ignored by the jocks, respected by the few who know where the real secrets are buried. Born in Kanpur, India, in 1968, Raghuvanshi was the son of a railway engineer and a mathematics teacher. He arrived at Stanford in 1990 with $200 in his pocket and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering on his mind. What he found instead was a valley on the cusp of the internet boom. That insight became his investment thesis
When asked what he hopes his epitaph will be, he pauses. The cafe hums with startup founders frantically pitching on Zoom calls. His first fund was considered embarrassingly conservative