This article was co-authored by B Capital Group co-Founders Raj Ganguly and Eduardo Saverin.
For the global community of founders and entrepreneurs, 2020 presents a truly paradoxical experience. From a macro perspective, the last two decades have ushered in a veritable golden age for starting a company. Technologies like AWS have significantly reduced the cost of building and scaling a business, the global market of engineering talent has grown exponentially, and there are more investors actively deploying capital than ever before. At the start of the year, 92% of founders polled in a survey by First Round said this is a good time to be starting a company. Even the receding economy isn’t all doom-and-gloom — following the 2008 financial crisis, 2009 was a blockbuster year for the formation of new companies.
But on the ground, founders are navigating a much different reality. Even before COVID-19 upended how we live and work, founders faced some big challenges. Many feel it is getting increasingly harder to fundraise as investors, wary of an impending bubble, tighten up on early stage deals (which dropped precipitously following the arrival of COVID). Facing a disappearance of revenue and an uncertain path to resuming normal sales cycles, leadership teams across sectors have had to make tough choices to manage cash burn including layoffs.
In today’s environment, founders looking to scale a company globally need more than just capital from their investors. We founded B Capital Group with the belief that we could offer more support and better returns by adding value beyond an investment, building a global team of investor-experts that could provide our portfolio companies hands-on support in the strategic and operational areas most critical to their success.
Today, we are proud to introduce our newest Operating Partner, Arijit Sengupta, who will help lead us in our mission to do more for our portfolio. Arijit is an incredibly seasoned founder, operator and investor in B2B technologies and services. He has helped found and grow several technology companies including WNS, Mu Sigma, Antuit (a part of Goldman Sachs) and Daksh, which was acquired by IBM, and held senior leadership positions at established companies like IBM and Accenture.
Based out of B Capital’s Singapore office, Arijit will further enable our partnership with leading founders in the region, providing expertise and guidance in areas such as strategy and operations, business development, sales, and capital formation. At a time when partnerships are crucial to scaling a growing business, Arijit will be instrumental in identifying key corporates seeking to broaden innovation by working with startups through his own network as well as our partnership with The Boston Consulting Group.
There has never been a more challenging period for founders pursuing big goals as adverse circumstances, capital scarcity and lack of guidance and mentorship threaten their pathways to growth. Arijit’s leadership and experience are instrumental to B Capital as we double down on our commitment to adding as much value as possible beyond our investment. We are striving to build a world-class team to support founders through the different phases of growth and we are thrilled to have Arijit on board to help serve and empower transformative founders.
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