Jayanth Sharma | CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF TOEHOLD TRAVEL AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Q : In this era of online startups and tech businesses, does there exist the possibility for traditional brick and mortar businesses to raise capital or is it that only businesses with a technology layer to scale up are attracting investors?
A : This is a common question that investors get asked a lot by aspiring entrepreneurs and there are a few different perspectives we have.
Firstly, businesses without a technology layer are going to find it almost impossible to attract investors -simply because technology is what brings scale and efficiency and in many situations access to customers. And venture investors are all looking for scale because that is what will give the exits that we require for our success.
That said, technology in a business does not make it a technology company.
Srikrishna Ramamoorthy | PARTNER, UNITUS SEED FUND
Businesses across traditional sectors like FMCGretail, education, healthcare, financial services, agriculture, transportation, logistics etc. will continue to need brick and mortar or offline elements to succeed and not just technology alone. And there continues to be VC investor interest in businesses in these spaces that are in techenabled andor tech-led and where there is innovation.
Does this mean traditional businesses with or without tech cannot raise capital? They can, but it is challenging.There aren’t that many investors interested and it will likely involve large amounts of initial capital vis-à-vis investing in a tech enabled play.
All that said, tech or brick and mortar, what remains key to success is a strong team, great execution and a product service that is solving a real problem.
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