I am an early stage focused investor who has been on both sides of the table. Over the last 17 years, I have been closely involved in building/advising high growth startups, as well as deploying risk capital to generate alpha across public and private asset classes including equity and debt. Productive stints on both the sell side and buy side at Goldman Sachs and Zephyr Private Equity respectively between 2005 to 2015. Transitioned to the "dark side" in mid 2015 and have been thoroughly enjoying my time in the startup ecosystem ever since. Subsequently I founded Ubiquity Capital with a focus on early stage venture debt and now looking to scale Force Ventures, a leading multi asset class investment firm
In terms of my early stage investing approach, proclivity to invest at pre seed, seed and pre Series A stage with the intent to back exceptional founders, who are working on building category defining startups. Through my extended founder network, I aim to catalyze a startup’s journey by bringing domain expertise and deep empathy, in addition to providing risk capital
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthik-bhat-8221b61/
Portfolio through Ubiquity: Zetwerk, Bounce, Boat, Drinkprime, Medfin, Superbottoms, Azani, WarmOven, Dropshop, Samosa Singh, Cellprop, Idea Bubbles, Bare Anatomy, The New Shop, Confirmtikt, AdvantageClub, fixcraft among many others
Select equity or angel investments: Drinkprime, Anveshan, Venwiz, Credgenics, Good Meetings, Unbox Robotics, Stockgro, Upekkha, Ofbusiness, Kalam Labs, Melio, Stamurai, Kaching, Tortoise (mobility), Donna FMCG (Aunt Floh), Revoy, Build 3 labs, ELT, Growfix, Med Devices company (TBA) among many others. Majority of the aforesaid investments made directly and some through syndicates or others
email: karthik.bhat@ubiquity-capital.com
My Philosophy: At the earliest stages team > market > product > idea
While market size is very important, my core belief is that eventually great founders manage to find their way into large markets and quite often that process is iterative!
Look to keenly analyze a startups ability to not only create value but also capture value i.e strong focus on unit economics. Will look to back 4-6 ventures a year across d2c, SaaS, fintech, marketplaces, b2b and shared economy
How do you source deals? Will you syndicate all your deals?
- I intend to tap into proprietary deal flow from my wide founder network and eco system referrals.
- see extensive dealflow from various marquee founders, super angels, early stage funds, platforms, HNIs and family offices.
- Also see a large number of inbounds from up and coming founders Eg from alum base of ex employees, B school friends, etc
