Stellaris Venture Partners

The classical playbook for remote #SaaS sales has been pretty predictable: pitch a low price, target an established category, drive demand gen, and sell from India. But Whatfix raised the bar of the art of possibility by scaling this remote model to enterprise sales. Tune to hear what gave Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar Namburu the confidence to go behind something this ambitious! Catch their full conversation with Alok Goyal: https://lnkd.in/gkKtSWws

What is #RevOps, and why is it an important concept for #SaaS founders? RevOps (or Revenue Operations) brings together sales, marketing, and customer success functions to boost revenue growth. Yet, thanks to its evolving nature, it remains a tricky concept for many building actively in the SaaS space. As businesses move away from traditional silos, understanding RevOps is relevant for those looking to improve efficiency and customer experience. Tune in as Siva Rajamani from Everstage breaks down RevOps and the processes involved. Catch the full episode of #SaaSTalks on “RevOps: Why, When & How?”: https://bit.ly/4dJXG9e

While it seemed intuitive that combining games and learning will make it fun and engaging for the child, often called as #edutainment, seeing it work on my 6 yo daughter Mira was just magical. She was initially struggling with subtraction and as a result developed an inertia to practice. However, making a game out of it, which we fondly call as “subtraction war”, made her play like no one’s business, and needlessly to say she improved materially on her subtraction to the point that she now rarely makes a mistake. Learning was of course a side effect of wanting to win the game. So, how subtraction war is played is that each player draws two cards from a pack of playing cards at a time, and they subtract the two numbers at hand, and whoever has the lowest number post subtraction wins. This is subject to the person correctly subtracting, else they don’t win that hand in spite of having the lowest number. This process keeps going on till the pack of 52 cards is finished, and at the end of it whoever has the most wins or most cards win. This game can be played by two or more players. Post the PMF of subtraction war with Mira we experimented with “addition war” (where we typically draw three cards instead of two to make it more challenging and the player with the highest sum wins the hand), and more recently “reading war” where she reads two pages of a novel or any book, and the other player asks 1-2 questions to check the comprehension of the player, and if answered right, the player wins the turn. Goal of the reading war is two fold - both build the discipline of daily reading along side build comprehension skills. Both the two wars also ended up achieving PMF with Mira. I wish to innovate on more such games as she faces learning inertia. As EdTech Investor at Stellaris Venture Partners, I also look to scout for teams building in edutainment.

Still basking in the warmth of the Delhi chapter of our Stellaris founders and friends dinner! 🎉 It was a fantastic evening filled with great vibes, and even better conversations that went beyond work. A big thank you to everyone who joined us. We can't wait for the exciting chapters ahead! Alok Goyal Rahul Chowdhri Mayank Jain Naman Lahoty Sayantan Sarkar Shreyan Puri

We are thrilled to share that our portfolio company Zouk has raised $10 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐁 funding round, led by Aavishkaar Capital, with participation from 𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝, Stellaris Venture Partners, Sharrp Ventures | Harsh Mariwala Investment Office, and JJ Family Office. Founded by the dynamic duo, Disha Singh and Pradeep Krishnakumar, Zouk is revolutionizing the #bags and #luggage category with its 100% #veganleather products, handcrafted by in-house artisans and proudly made in India. 🇮🇳 “This fundraise enables us to scale up our online and offline channels, with a strong consumer love and product market fit we have already established,” said Pradeep Krishnakumar, Co-founder, Zouk. We're proud to have backed Zouk in their seed round, and can’t wait to witness their journey to capture a significant share of the Indian bags and accessories market, which is expected to reach $10.6 billion by 2024. 💼✨ Congratulations to Disha Singh, Pradeep Krishnakumar and the entire team at Zouk. Onwards and Upwards. 🚀 #Zouk #D2C #VeganLeather #StartupGrowth #HandmadeInIndia #SustainableFashion #TitanCapital #Funding

When it comes to journeys, beyond everything else, your partners are truly who make the real difference. We just added a new partner to our Zouk journey. Excited to share that we have raised $10M in Series B, led by the amazing folks at Aavishkaar Capital. Also, all our existing institutional investors participated in this round and continue to back the vision and mission of the Zouk family. From the time we met Divya Gupta, Ankita Satpathy, Mansi Khandelwal and team, we realized that they share our passion for not just numbers but also how we make our products and the impact we have in our backend. They spent time deeply understanding our ecosystem of amazing partners who handcraft our products and shared best practices. It was humbling to see them swiftly shifting from the AC boardroom to the shop floor, connecting the reality of a physical goods business like ours. Disha and I knew that we had met a like-minded partner who was willing to work together to build an enduring business. Fundraising always has lots of emotions involved. It is a time when your existing investors are your backbone. In our case, we are blessed with the best! All our existing folks not only backed us with words but with their deeds. Stellaris Venture Partners continued its participation with the sage advice of Rahul Chowdhri and Naman Lahoty. Bipin Shah, our biggest supporter and whose gut has almost always been right for us (since it comes from him being the ring side coach for so many consumer brand successes in India) - thanks for being there for us always. Titan's new fund (and Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal always get their brand names right) Titan Capital Winners Fund continued to back us this time too and have been with us across all our lows and highs. Sharrp Ventures | Harsh Mariwala Investment Office and JJ family office, with all their consumer and offline retail experience, were swift and early to say - we are in it in this round as well. Ask any founder doing a fund raise and when this happens, you go into the market holding your heads high. You freely talk about your wins, plans and your failures. In Jyotiraj Sarma from Spark Capital, we found a patient partner, willing to work with multiple stakeholders to get the deal done. The timing is truly amazing - Diwali has come early to the Zouk nagari. :) We also now have the fuel to do what we want to do - expand to 75 stores, scale-up our supply chain and take the brand to more people. All this has been possible, thanks to two sets of people - 1. Our Zouk family, that has worked with amazing determination and putting their faith in us and building the company as their own.  2. Our customers, who have always taught us what we are doing well and where we need to do better. Excited about the next phase - as I like to say, we are just getting started. So much to be done from here on. https://lnkd.in/gF8tPanj

Super excited to share that we have raised our Series B :) For Pradeep and me, this is an important milestone in building Zouk into a highly loved consumer brand from India! We are thankful to our biggest cheerleaders our customers because of whom we have been able to reach this milestone and we will keep on working hard to add value & a better experience in their lives with our products :) We are thrilled to add Aavishkaar Capital to this journey of building Zouk! Thank vineet rai for believing in our vision of creating a larger business with a high impact on our society! Divya Gupta, loved our interactions and looking forward to more in the coming time! Thank you Rahul Chowdhri, for trusting in our vision and always supporting us. You are our true champion today and always, pushing us to dream bigger :) Naman Lahoty Stellaris Venture Partners Happy to again partner with Titan Capital in their new avatar - Titan Capital Winners Fund! Shiv Kapoor Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal, thank you so much for always guiding us to build the business in the right way and giving your valuable insights into building an institution for the long term! Bipin Shah, and we can never thank you enough for rooting for us. Past few years, Pradeep and I have come to you for so many things and you have always been kind enough to help & guide us. Your immense experience in working with so many founders always brings in the right perspective. You have always been our true champion and will always be :) Rishabh Mariwala, thank you for trusting us and supporting us :) and helping us in any way possible! Sharrp Ventures | Harsh Mariwala Investment Office Jamshed Jeejeebhoy, thank you for your trust and belief in our vision! Ankita Satpathy, Mansi Khandelwal Thank you Jyotiraj Sarma & Spark Capital for being the exclusive deal partner. https://lnkd.in/gntZGEee

🚀Major Milestone for Zouk! We’re thrilled to announce that Zouk has raised $10 million (around INR 84 Cr) in our Series B funding round, led by Aavishkaar Capital Capita, the Impact Fund, and part of the Aavishkaar Group. We're also thankful for the continued support from our existing investors — Stellaris Venture Partners, Titan Capital, Sharrp Ventures | Harsh Mariwala Investment Office, and the JJ Family, with Spark Capital as our exclusive advisor. This is just the beginning! With plans to expand our product lines and open exclusive brand outlets, the future is bright. We couldn’t have reached this milestone without the incredible support from our #ZoukFamily. 🌿 Read more - - https://lnkd.in/gUP8jWKR - https://lnkd.in/gbUFgUa3

Exciting news from Zouk as they announce their $10M Series B funding round! As early investors, we're thrilled to have witnessed their journey and the incredible love from customers. With this fresh capital, Zouk is gearing up to enhance their offline presence, boost brand awareness, and strengthen their supply chain. Congratulations to Disha, Pradeep, and the entire Zouk team! We look forward to working with Aavishkaar Capital. Check out the media coverage: https://lnkd.in/gbUFgUa3 Rahul Chowdhri Naman Lahoty Rupali G.

We're thrilled to welcome Varun to the Stellaris family! ✨ Varun is a passionate advocate for founders who are building the future through technology. He believes that meaningful innovation stems from a deep understanding of how people interact with the world. Always eager to discuss new ideas, cricket, and technology, he loves engaging actively in conversations on Twitter and Reddit. As a founder-turned-investor at Stellaris, Varun brings a wealth of experience to the table. A graduate of IIM-A, he has previously held roles at BCG, Bain, and Razorpay. Most recently, he founded PeriDATA, a SaaS company focused on data clean rooms. At Stellaris, Varun focuses on SaaS, Dev/Infra software, and B2B software. If you're a founder building in these areas, write to him at varun@stellarisvp.com!