May - 2009 issue > Cover Story

By Poonam Bhattacharya

Navin Chaddha is Managing Director at Mayfield Fund, a 40 year old venture capital firm with $2.8B under management in the U.S. and $111M under management in India. This man with the Midas touch has invested in over 25 companies in the past of which 9 have had IPOs and 6 have been acquired. Some of these companies have become industry leaders in their categories, viz. Akamai in content delivery networks, Suzlon in wind energy, Tejas Networks in optical networking, Mimosa Systems in e-mail archiving, Makemytrip in Indian internet travel, Persistent Systems in offshore product development services, Gigya in portable and social web infrastructure, and Bharat Matrimony in Indian internet matrimonial listings.

For all of his investments, he has looked for one chief characteristic: the team. “It’s the team first and foremost for me,” says the venture capitalist, who invests in both early and growth stage opportunities in a variety of sectors including: energytech, internet, enterprise, technology enabled services and telecom in both U.S. and India.

He has an uncanny eye for understanding the pulse of an entrepreneur and his idea. No wonder, Chaddha, has a rather unique take on start-ups. The venture capitalist says that “start-ups don’t die of starvation, they die of indigestion.” As you speak to him, you realize that the man has a special love for analogies.

Chaddha looks for nimbleness and agility in entrepreneurs. “Dinosaurs never survive,” he says. “Entrepreneurs must continuously adapt and learn, rather than being inflexible about their ideas.” He also checks whether the entrepreneur has the ability to run a marathon, or is a sprinter. This is important, he says, for building a company that one starts as it might take two to three times longer than what is planned. Will the entrepreneur be able to hold his nerve and be at it till then? “I have a very simple calculation: whatever an entrepreneur quotes as the estimated time for building a product, I multiply it by two,” he says jokingly.

He also, incidentally, possesses deep knowledge about entrepreneurship (three time entrepreneur) and technology (has published over 30 technical papers and has over 35 issues patents), graduated at the top of his class from IIT Delhi, and received a fellowship from Stanford University to pursue graduate studies in electrical engineering.

If you have more query about magazine please send mail to

May 12	April 12	March 12	Feb 12