EP#40 Pankaj Mitra – Decoding corporate VC, Cisco’s symbiotic relationship with portfolio startups & collaborating with traditional VC funds

The VCpreneur: Startups | Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Fundraising

In this episode, Pankaj Mitra (Director & India Head @Cisco Investments), joins our host Digjay, to talk about his path to corporate VC, Cisco’s mandate in India, the symbiotic relationship with its portfolio companies, learnings from other enterprise tech ecosystems like US & Israel, difference between Corporate & traditional VC and how Cisco collaborates with & invests in other VC funds.

Cisco has a portfolio of ~10 start-ups including - Whatfix, Videonetics, Mobikwik, Mobstac and CloudCherry - that it has already invested in directly or through investment partnerships with VC funds. Cisco is also an LP in VC funds like Aavishkaar, Stellaris Venture Partners & Chiratae Ventures. Prior to joining Cisco Investments in 2018, Pankaj was formerly at Infosys Corporate Development, where he helped enable early stage investments for Infosys’ $500M innovation fund. A UC Berkeley and IIT Kharagpur alum, Pankaj started his career with Delsoft (acq. by Mentor Graphics) & later worked at companies like VMware & Deloitte. You can connect with him here on Linkedin

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Show notes –

1. (01:46) Pankaj’s background & path leading up to Cisco India
   
2. (04:07) Cisco’s mandate & sector focus in India; Key portfolio companies
   
3. (06:47) The symbiotic relationship between Cisco & its portfolio startups
   
4. (11:33) Learnings from other enterprise tech ecosystems like US & Israel
   
5. (15:49) How Cisco differentiates itself from other corporate VCs; Cisco’s Launchpad program for early stage startups
   
6. (18:58) Difference between a Corporate VC & traditional VC
   
7. (22:08) How Cisco collaborates with & invests (as a LP) in other VC funds
   
8. (29:29) Learnings from working closely with startups & VCs over the past decade
   
9. (33:20) Rapid fire and closing remarks
   

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