India’s leading venture capitalist Vani Kola on how to make it against the odds

“To use a trite metaphor, you see the growth of someone from caterpillar to butterfly,” says venture capitalist Vani Kola, describing the thrill of funding start-ups. But the thrill goes deeper, “You have a chance to make a difference. Venture capital allows for a ringside view into somebody’s deepest compulsions to create something. I never know when I am going to hear about someone taking it into the crescendo of wow. I don’t know how I got to be so lucky.” In the insular, competitive world of venture capital finance, Kola, founder and MD of Kalaari Capital, has made her mark. She made early bets on companies like Myntra, Snapdeal, fantasy sports firm Dream11, pharmacy chain Medplus and Zivame, an online lingerie and sportswear firm. 

Since its founding in 2011, Kalaari has invested in 92 ventures. Earlier this year, Kola sent out an email announcing that Reliance Industries is investing $200 million in Kalaari’s fourth fund. Prior to this, Reliance had already acquired a few of Kalaari’s portfolio companies, including Zivame and Urban Ladder. What makes her successful? As someone who was once founder and CEO of two successful technology start-ups in Silicon Valley, the 57-year-old says, “I think the best thing I do is to bring my knowledge of building companies, of being a product manager and an engineer, to being a product-centric entrepreneur.”

Originally from Hyderabad, Kola received a Master's degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University in the 1980s, at a time when few women were doing so. She subsequently moved to California and jumped on the technology boom, founding Rightworks, which helped firms manage global procurement, in 1996. She sold the company for $657 million (cash and stock), and went on to found compliance firm Certus Software in 2001. 

But her journey was not easy. In addition to the stress of running an organisation, she also faced tremendous bias. During an encounter with a male acquaintance at the airport during a business trip, she was asked why she didn’t feel guilty leaving her young daughter, then less than a year old, at home. “It occurred to me ‘oh wait, didn’t his wife just have a child and wasn’t that child only 6 weeks old’? Yet he was here at the airport also leaving to go somewhere. It just doesn’t occur to men! You just have to develop tools to cope.”

When she sold Certus four years later, in 2005, Kola suddenly found herself with some serious free time on her hands. She was 40. It was time to evaluate life. She had never taken a solo vacation and decided to go to Hawaii. “I took a step back to think about what I wanted in life,” she says. That break proved to be a turning point because after her island vacation she decided to spend more time in India, where she saw first-hand the changes brought about by economic liberalisation. The country she had left behind in 1985 was not the India of the mid-2000s. “I know this sounds dramatic but I was reminded of Jawaharlal Nehru’s midnight speech. I felt an economic awakening in the country. There was unbridled aspiration!”

And so, after 22 years in the US, it took Kola just 60 days to move to India. “The Valley was great, but it was a bubble,” she says. She and her husband Srinivas had two young daughters and had just built their dream home in California and planted 42 trees (Kola is an avid gardener). “Some of the motivation was probably masochistic,” she says with a laugh. “I like to do things outside my comfort zone. If you keep doing safe things you get complacent and plateau.”

Asked why there are so few women venture capitalists, Kola answers that it’s because there are not enough women in the C-suite or executive level of start-ups. Of all the unicorns (companies valued at $1 billion) that we celebrate in India, why aren’t there more women running these firms?  “You have to fix the fundamentals. It’s like asking why a child is bad at trigonometry or calculus before they have learned arithmetic,” she says. “We do not have enough women in STEM leadership. You need women in those positions in order to be tech venture capitalists. There is so much unconscious bias. We always celebrate people who overcome high odds and overcome systemic bias and then we think why doesn’t every woman do that? That isn’t fair. Capital is not easily accessible and community—like the old boys network—is not as easily accessible to women. Women are at a disadvantage.”

Kola is a firm believer in the power of entrepreneurship to transform economies. When deciding to invest in companies, Kola looks for founders who focus on product centricity versus deep financial experience. “Strategy and vision are something you can’t buy or hire,”, she notes.  “We like to find founders who have deep insights and a compulsion to build truly great products. We look at their capacity to grow.” She looks to see if they are good listeners, learners, and whether they are coachable and receptive. She also looks for individuals who have self-confidence because, as Kola puts it, “the world is going to continuously say ‘no, no, no.’”

Despite her successes, challenges abound. She’s lost valuable team members, struggled to raise funding, and dealt with tremendous stress. “Entrepreneurship is all about the mindset. When I started my company in 1996, I realised my personal physical and mental well-being was the most important thing for my success, because you need stamina.” That’s what motivated her in her mid-thirties to take up running. Growing up in India, she had never run before, but set herself daily goals and ended up running marathons. Kola has also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. These days she has embraced ashtanga yoga, proudly reporting that during the pandemic, over Zoom classes, she conquered her fear of the headstand!

1. Be answerable to yourself and no one else.
2. Pursue your dreams even if you fail—don’t be afraid to fail.
3. Success is a journey. There is no final failure and no ultimate success.
4. Keep learning and growing till your last breath.
5. Set big dreams and be persistent to get there.

 In our new series, How I Made It, Gayatri Rangachari Shah speaks with successful women in business who let us in on their inspiring stories, and challenges we can all learn from

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