WHY STAY FIT?Unpluggd Winter Edition 2015, Dec

12thAneesh Reddy

@AneeshBReddyCo-Founder, Capillary

05/03/2023 2

IIT KGP, 06; Cofounder & CEO @ Capillary Couch potato till 2013

Never ran more than 0.5 km / No yoga / meditation Done a few treks earlier

Luckily in the last 18 months 10 half marathons Oxfam 100km trail walk Back to trekking again Spend 2-3 hours a week at the gym or on yoga Long runs or a meditation session on weekends Attempting my first full marathon @ Mumbai in Jan

QUICK INTRO

Major FocusOmni-channel customer engagement and commerce solution suiteEnterprise SaaS focus in Asia and GCC regionAt the intersection of Cloud, Digital, Mobile, Social and Big Data

Global Expertise

05/03/2023

ABOUT CAPILLARY

RAISED $80 MILLION+ IN FUNDING TILL

DATE ($60mn in last 18 months)

Ruaha

What We Do

Funding

Acquisitions and

Investments

Enterprise Customers

Stores powered

Countries, through 10 offices

Shoppers on Platform

Employees Worldwide

of startup ups and downs

WHERE WE ARE KEY CUSTOMERS

200+20,000

+30+150

Million600+

7 Years

THE TERRIFIC START: 2009 TO 2012

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Capillary was started in 2008 by 3 founders (+Krishna Mehra +Ajay Modani)

Released our First product and Acquired first Customer after 5 months.

$1.5mn in angel funding over 3 rounds over 3 years - $500k each - 17 angel investors

$2mn in ARR - $100K Annual burn; 120 member team;

Revenue Split: 90% India / 10% SEA; 4 folks outside India

Growth was 300% YoY

2008

2009

Dec 2011

Raised a $16mn Series A from Sequoia, NVP, Qualcomm – Jan 2012Got married Feb 2012

2012

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THE SPRINT THAT WENT WRONG: 2012+2013 Scaled to 400 people across 10 countries Offices in US, UK, Singapore, Middle East, Australia, HK, South Africa 35 folks internationally, Founders in India (Ajay), US (KK), Jet Plane(me) Massive loss of focus -> slow down of growth Burning ~$1mn a month! 4 months of cash in bank!

5 years now as a company – massive amounts of burn out More than half of the early rock stars are in burn out mode One of my cofounders had burnt out and wanted to move on I went from 75kgs in Jan 2012 to 90kgs in Dec 2013

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PERSONAL JOURNEY TOWARDS FITNESS: The START

10k steps a day Intake of atleast 1200 calories a day

Investing in yourself has a terrific positive reinforcement loop

PERSPIRATION: Early 2014 String of exits in all teams - some due to burnout, some due to bad times! One of the cofounder moves out Nearly out of cash! No option but to pull out of a few markets… Do you do that before a fundraise?

Needed something to keep me sane and prevent the spiral of doom!

Started replacing my morning walk with a run (1km, 2km, 5km on a weekend) Positive reinforcement

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Hit the market with 2 months of cash in bank Got 2 term sheet from inbound investors in 3-4 weeks; Survived to tell

the story Took a lot of hard calls: Shut markets, product lines, refocused on

developing markets Another co-founder moves out Long runs on weekends (12 km - 20 km) @ Cubbon Park

I couldn’t find time on weekdays ………. Best start to a weekend Small running group in office Signed up for the Bengaluru Full Marathon

Building the Tempo back: SERIES B/HARD CALLS

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WHAT PROBABLY WORKED FOR ME? Running was probably my meditation

An average 2 hours weekend run where you are yourself in your world – no distractions

Where you are by yourself – no distractions An outsider/ dispassionate view of things

super close to you Good book: Running with the mind of

Meditation When you are positive, your team will be

positive!

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Does CEO Fitness matter?

Marathon running CEO’s delivered 8% better results in the years they ran a marathon than the market controlling for other factors (S&P 500 companies)

*Does CEO Fitness matter? Peter Limbach & Florian Sonnenburg, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

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There are 20 half marathoners in the company today (5% of the company)

Running is a big culture - All the main folks run - Burn out problem solved!

Run even on travel now – Great way to see a city

RUNNING AS A CULTURE[RUNS END RUNNING DOESN’T]

05/03/2023 13

Whats next? Two founders gone – what should

you do next? Prepare the company for an exit?

Build more? How do you break through? Can

this ever be a sizeable play? Few sizeable enterprise software product plays in India?

05/03/2023 14

My wife is a big yoga enthusiast 2 week yoga holiday in Rishikesh – Dec end

Longest holiday in 9 years! A great book for company: Good to Great! Rishikesh Yogapeeth – Beginners course!

Liked Yoga. For the first time in my life probably meditated! Making peace with yourself!

A NEW BEGINNING: RISHIKESH & YOGA

05/03/2023 15

Decide to build more! Multi product SaaS company is the only way to hit $100mn revenues in

Asia in a shorter timeframe! Go out and acquire products which fit the current customer base and

sales team comfort! Sign a term sheet with MartJack to acquire them in Feb Decide to raise a Series C - $40mn+

Fund the acquisition Next 24 months - build a large Asia focused sales team; multi product play Liquidity for old employees / founders

A NEW YEAR AND A NEW START

05/03/2023 16

Large fundraise No PE has invested in a India/ Asia focused SaaS play Not riding a consumer wave! Very few understand SaaS – a lot of time spent educating investors

No GMV to speak of, just good margins :) Discounts don’t work for our customers, real value does :| 35 investors pitched to in 10 weeks – Didn’t get a banker Need my daily dose of sanity – start hitting the Gym or Yoga 3 to 4 days a week

Get to 2 terms sheets finally – Decide to go with Warburg Pincus

FUNDRAISE: A tough head stand!

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Do a long trek or a reading-holiday - once an year– Its very important that you take time away from the action to think

I take a long weekend Yoga Retreat every quarter now– Shreyas (Tumkur road) is a good yoga retreat near Bangalore

Invest in yourself and your team– A long run/ cycling trip on weekends – a terrific start to a weekend– 3 to 4 days in a week – hit the gym, workout, go for a run– Investing 6 - 8 hours per week for a healthy body and mind will go a long way for your

startup and you– Start a weekend running / cycling group or yoga / Zumba sessions in office

QUICK TIPS

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No email, social media, browser on my phone Restrict snacking of news/ information - FB/ Twitter etc to 30 mins in the evening Avoid the laptop/ mail for the first 60 - 90 minutes of the day

Some Small personal experiments!

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HARUKI MURAKAMI ON RUNNING

“In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be”

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Aneesh Reddy

aneesh@capillarytech.com

Twitter: @AneeshBReddy

Slideshare: www.slideshare.net/aneesh.boddu

www.capillarytech.com

See you at Cubbon Park @6:30AM tomorrow