Long term partners for long term games

Every founder needs a partner who believes in their mission as deeply as they do.
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A partner who hurts when they hurt - when the company is struggling.
A partner who feels the same joy after making an arduous climb.
A partner who understands the depth of the company — both good and bad.
A partner who is thinking about the grandest vision of the company.
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Then, and only then — does the partner have any right to push the founder further; To shoot, not for mediocrity, but greatness.
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We try to be that partner every day.

About Us

core belief
Conviction led, long term oriented, deep skin in the game partner

We are a long term holding company have started as a venture fund. We believe that in most markets, for most products there is space for a conviction led, long term oriented, deep skin in the game partner that has concentrated numbers of bets and is therefore incentivized to be a true partner

Investment size
Our average starting check size will be ~$5M

We are investing from a $100M fund and looking to build a concentrated portfolio of high-quality companies. Our average starting check size will be ~$5M, and our growth capital is ideal for companies that have achieved some product market fit.

OUR TRIBE
Our investor network represent some of the best Indian and Global entrepreneurs

Our investor network has collectively encountered nearly everything our young founders are currently experiencing or are likely to face in the future. We bring those insights, distilled contextually to our portfolio companies. This is not generic advice, but specific advice coming from people who have put their money where their mouth is.

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

MINDSET

They are mission driven, with a bit of chip on the shoulder. They know that the path that they have willingly chosen will yield meaningful fruits in a decade, if that. They have tremendous tolerance for pain and yet are eternal optimists. Their joy comes far more from a customer email noting their delight than from announcing a new financing round

Experience
 Our founders have deep domain expertise - often in unsexy areas

Our founders are not generalists who are learning the problems and reading about solutions. They have been in the trenches, they have often spent time on the other side from a solution like theirs, and found it missing this and that. While some of them are brilliant 20-somethings, most are grayer and full of customer insights. With a marker in their hands, they can hold an impromptu lecture on an arcane topic, and in 60 minutes convince you that this is the most important problem that you have not thought about

OPERATING STYLE
Our founders see their products as extensions of themselves

While our founders can zoom out and explain how the world is changing in their domain, they can describe in nitty gritty what differentiates a great product from a good one. They like to read the copies of most customer-facing materials that is being shipped, they have points of view on the colors and fonts. While they know they should be focused on higher-order business drivers, they cannot get away from the product. They have realized (after all else fails) that they have to rely on teams and that is the only way to scale. They always feel that they can do more on customer service and customer experience, even if NPS scores are great

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

MINDSET

They are mission driven, with a bit of chip on the shoulder. They know that the path that they have willingly chosen will yield meaningful fruits in a decade, if that. They have tremendous tolerance for pain and yet are eternal optimists. Their joy comes far more from a customer email noting their delight than from announcing a new financing round

Experience
 Our founders have deep domain expertise - often in unsexy areas

Our founders are not generalists who are learning the problems and reading about solutions. They have been in the trenches, they have often spent time on the other side from a solution like theirs, and found it missing this and that. While some of them are brilliant 20-somethings, most are grayer and full of customer insights. With a marker in their hands, they can hold an impromptu lecture on an arcane topic, and in 60 minutes convince you that this is the most important problem that you have not thought about

OPERATING STYLE
Our founders see their products as extensions of themselves

While our founders can zoom out and explain how the world is changing in their domain, they can describe in nitty gritty what differentiates a great product from a good one. They like to read the copies of most customer-facing materials that is being shipped, they have points of view on the colors and fonts. While they know they should be focused on higher-order business drivers, they cannot get away from the product. They have realized (after all else fails) that they have to rely on teams and that is the only way to scale. They always feel that they can do more on customer service and customer experience, even if NPS scores are great

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

Our founders believe passionately that they have to build the category-defining company in their chosen space

Core belief

Our fouders find the problem space complicating and growing sharply over a period of time, and the existing solutions not scalable. They are tiny, but they don’t care. They know that the complacence, politics and lethargy of bigger companies provides enough of a wedge for them to get through. They feel that their TAM is deeper than people think and growth underappreciated. 

Values that define our culture

Our values emanate from two sources. First, the training we got in our early years on the right way to do the business. Second, fostering speed of execution and reliability of commitment - attributes that we believe are critical to succeed in our industry. We look to live up to our values every day.

Empathy

Do unto others as you expect others to do unto you. Building fast with quality is hard. Put ourselves in our counterparts shoes.

Co-Founder Mindset

Act as entrepreneurs, not just fund managers. Work with founders beyond the board meetings on real stuff.

Trust Through Transparency

Play long term games and don't shy away from having tough conversations. Say what you do and do what you say.

Win Win

Our win will almost never come at someone else's cost but along with a large group of people. In the long term, even your competitors will be your trusted friends.

No Shortcuts

Embrace tough challenges, knowing they foster long-term resilience. Be patient with outputs but impatient with inputs.

Discipline

Maintain strong, informed opinions while keep mind and ears open. If you can, be narrow and deep. Do not lower the bar or get married to personal biases.

Our approach to partnerships

Pre-funding

We inquire deeply and listen generously

We engage with you to understand your product's demand drivers, unmet customer needs, and deep differentiators that you believe others might not grasp.
We're keen to understand your product roadmaps, your organizational roadmaps, and the toughest challenges there are to solve. We know that most markets are deep enough but we are keen to have that discussion on how you think about the market.

We like to feel customer delight, especially when you are solving a problem that they do not know who else could solve as well. We love to meet the team that has been with you for a while and feel what they feel.
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We tend to be skeptical of financial models early on but are deeply empathetic to your building it, at the end of the conviction-building phase, we might look at a model as an effectively shared roadmap with you.

We expect our companies to have just travelled 5% of the eventual path by the time we come in, so we fully expect to see things broken all over the place. A very buttoned up early stage company feels weird to us! Brokenness is a feature of a growing company, and not a bug.

We like to use passionate discussions on all things above as a weird mating dance, where we arrive at a shared belief on the product market fit, potential journey ahead and our potential fit with each other.

If all you need is capital and you truly do not need any help in any aspect of institution building, then we might not be the best partner for you at this point. We are also probably not going to the highest bidder in the market and if it feels there is too much competition, we are likely to respectfully bow out while genuinely wishing you the best

Post-funding

Your battles are our battles

We are a mix of active operators and quiet investors. We know that there are times when you want active help, and times when the best help for you is for others to give you space. We constantly seek feedback on our read.

After we have invested, we sit fully on your side of the table. We think returns are our joint responsibility and not just yours.

If you do want us involved, we don't "just" give advice. We roll up our sleeves and work with you on an operating level. We are the people who will call your valued employee who feels unvalued suddenly on your behalf, who will work with you to refine your story for the next fundraise, interview people on your behalf. We will be happy to be in your customer pitches when you need us to. Make slides for your all hands deck if need be. We work with you on the actual drivers of the business and own an OKR if need be.

  • Customer introductions
  • Organization design and hiring
  • Business model choices
  • Focus on customer NPS
  • Pressure test roadmaps
  • Helping you implement right tools and processes
  • Company culture
  • Capital raising and deployment 

We wear our battle scars with confidence. We have made more mistakes of every kind than we hope you will make, and so we do not think very highly of ourselves. We might have our sharp points of view but will switch to a wholehearted "disagree and commit" if your instincts are not headed the same way, since in startups, all truth is contextual.

We will urge you to build the best possible company, even if that happens much after our fund life, because that is how companies become valuable - not by eschewing all risk and playing safe.

No matter what, we will operate with empathy because we know how hard these battles are. When you are down, we promise to be the guys that you call vs. the guys whose phones you dread picking up. We are quiet in press, audible in boardrooms, and animated in late-night discussions with you over take-out food

Our differentiators

Capital from founders

A majority of our capital comes from the best Indian founders and technology executives. The nature of this capital allows us to do things that are right vs. things that would "look good to the LPs".

Lean by design

We hope to always stay lean. Staying extremely lean ensures that we are close to all meaningful touch-points. This allows for fast decision making.

Actual operating experience

We really know what it feels to actually build a venture funded company with all kinds of pressure.

Skin in the game

The capital that we are deploying is either from us or from our friends. This skin in the game removes any chance of a principal-agency conflict.

Narrow focus

We love companies solving narrow problems deeply, as that helps build true moats.

Skin in the game

The capital that we are deploying is either from us or from our friends. This skin in the game removes any chance of a principal-agency conflict.

Narrow focus

We love companies solving narrow problems deeply, as that helps build true moats. Our playing within our circle of competence ensures that founders spend less time answering the most basic questions.

Questions we get often

What is your cheque size?
Our average starting check size is $4-5M. We often look to do pro-rata in subsequent rounds and invest up to $10M in the lifecycle of the company
What is your fund structure?
We are an India domiciled Cat II AIF
What stage of business do you invest in?
The nomenclature of the funding round does not affect us. We partner with companies post-PMF and typically come in post Series A
Who are your LPs?
Our investor network represent some of the key Indian and global entrepreneurs and executives  
How long do you take to come up with an answer?
We hate keeping founders with little time on their hands hanging for our response. When it is clear to us that there is no fit, we say a no very fast - 90% of the time within a week. Tough no's can take upto 2 weeks. Yes-s are few but we try and get to between 4 and 6 weeks.‍
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Mumbai
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Unit 514, The Capital, G Block,
Bandra Kurla Complex,
Bandra East, Mumbai 400098.
Maharashtra, India
SEBI Registration No: IN/AIF2/21-22/0990  |  Investor contact and grievances: investors@tenacity.vc
Fund name: Tenacity Ventures AIF | Scheme name: Tenacity Ventures Fund - I | CAT II AIF
Fund manager: Tenacity Investment Advisors LLP | Sponsors: Bulletproof Partners LLP, Doremi Enterprises LLP

Tell us your story

If you are a founder raising capital, we would love to hear from you.

Please write to us at founders@tenacity.vc with a description of your team and company, as well as the problem you are solving – either with a few bullet-points, a short slide deck, or whatever other format you like!

We will respond as soon as we can