About Unicorn India Ventures
Unicorn India Ventures (UIV), was established in 2015 and invests in early-stage (Seed, Series-A) tech startups. Since its inception, the fund has established a multi-sectoral portfolio of over thirty-five startups across its three funds, located in India and the UK.
A full list of our portfolio companies can be found here. Currently, UIV is investing out of its third fund, which aims to invest in Indian early-stage startups. The firm is hiring an analyst for the Investment team of the aforementioned fund.
Work Profile
An exciting and varied position, the Analyst will work out of the firm’s Mumbai office, supporting the investment team in a wide range of activities including:
- Thesis building
- Deal sourcing & preliminary screening
- Company evaluation & due diligence
- Deal execution
- Portfolio assistance
- Follow-ons and exits
The job profile will give the analyst an all-around understanding of a VC funds investment process and the activities that happen around it.
Requirements
We are looking for young professionals that have :
- A graduate degree from one of the top tier universities in India including IIT B/D/K/Kgp/M/G/R, BITS-Pilani
- Around 2yrs of work experience. Candidates should preferably be from domains that have transferable skills useful to the analyst role.
- A sound understanding of the Venture capital and Startup ecosystem
- An ability to succeed in an individually driven non-hierarchical work environment and learn quickly with limited supervision
- A capability to ingest a large amount of unstructured, conflicting, incomplete quantitative and qualitative information and give a structured succinct summary or analysis
Role Structure
The analyst will be working alongside all the members of the investment team directly and the day-to-day responsibilities will vary depending on the task(s) at hand. The role is a full-time (not time-limited) role where the individual can either continue to grow within the firm or after a few years choose to pursue an MBA. The role will be based out of Lower Parel, Mumbai, and will involve domestic traveling on an as-needed basis.
How to Apply
- To apply, please upload your latest resume along with your submission for the problem statement given below at unicornivc.com/apply.php
- Candidates shortlisted for interview rounds will be notified over mail
Problem Statement
- Pick a sub-sector of your choice.
- Create a list of all the early-stage Indian startups operating in that sub-sector and then comparatively analyze them.
- Then give a screened down the list of the top 5-10 startups in that sub-sector based on clearly defined, logically sound, reasonable parameters.
- Finally, recommend 1 company in that sub-sector for an investment.
Some hints/pointers to help you along the way
- While there is no “right answer”, there are a few things we are looking for or thought processes we would like you to undertake and reason your way out of it, like (not at all an exhaustive list, but just to give some context)
- Which sub-sector did you choose, why? What are the parameters you analyzed? Is that sub-sector a good fit for an investor like UIV? Can you quantifiably justify/communicate how this sub-sector is better than others? How do you even define a sub-sector in the first place?
- How exhaustive was your first list? Did you manage to combine multiple public sources of information to generate this? What were the data points you collected on them, how are you analyzing this for the next step? How do you deal with qualitative data points?
- How did you filter down from your first list to your second list? As your search narrowed, how did you widen the depth of the inputs and analysis?
- How did you come to this decision for the final recommendation of one company for investment from this analysis? What factors were considered? What sets this company apart from others? Or at a more basic level, is there even a company in this sub-sector that you would like to recommend for investment? If your viewpoint is that UIV should not invest in this sub-sector at all, what are the reasons?
- Do think through this problem statement, but don’t overthink it. If you get stuck, just think what would you do if you had $1Mn to invest in a startup. How would you go about making that decision?
- Avoid boiling oceans. Try and think of smart ways to deal with such challenges. Avoid chasing minutiae to the point of losing sight of the big picture.
- Understand that depending on the sub-sector you choose there might be many ‘gaps in information’’ or ‘trends that are yet to be validated’ or ‘questions, yet not answered’ and a host of other irregularities/challenges that will often upend your attempts at bringing structure and quantification to this task. Don’t fret, it is to be expected, especially at early-stage VC investing. You can’t get rid of it so think of how you can mitigate it?
- There is no set format for submission, and feel free to use documents, presentations, or spreadsheets; whatever you think will get your point across clearly, effectively, and succinctly. Try and structure your output in such a way while being information dense it is easy to understand and follow the thought process you have put into it.