Priya Banerjee is a principal at B Capital’s Singapore office. Prior to B Capital, Priya worked as an investment professional with Sequoia Capital India. At Sequoia, Priya helped to identify and evaluate multiple high growth start-ups, largely in the consumer and healthcare space. During her MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, US, Priya was also an investment partner at First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund, where she and her team invested in over 25 promising companies built by student founders across the US.
This interview was conducted by Darren Thang, regional marketing lead at B Capital.
Darren Thang (DT): What investing areas do you focus on?
Priya Banerjee (PB): I focus on high-growth technology investments within enterprise technology, fintech, business-to-business (B2B) and transportation verticals in India and Southeast Asia. I am particularly excited about startups that are building products to help legacy industries transition from pen and paper workflows to more modern, digital-first solutions.
DT: What attracted you to venture investing?
PB: I spent a year in Stockholm, Sweden, during my undergraduate days working at an early-stage technology company. I quickly realized that I love working with founders and partnering with them as they scale their business. I was attracted to venture investing because it gave me the opportunity to learn from exceptional entrepreneurs and investors every day. It is an incredible privilege to partner with teams solving hard problems, and providing customers with something new and delightful. That was previously impossible. Venture investing allows me to be creative and analytical in equal parts.
The combination of imagining a future that does not exist yet, and analyzing existing data to determine what’s possible, makes venture capital (VC) a very interesting career.
DT: What’s something that you always look for in a pitch?
PB: In a pitch, I like to evaluate questions such as: Is the company operating in a large and growing market? Is there an interesting insight into why customers need this solution? Has the team figured out an effective go-to-market approach that enables them to scale fast?
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