Vrax had fallen. It had fallen for the first time since its settlement millennia before, and not at the hands of some invading enemy, no, but from within, from a mad, power-hungry cardinal and his flock of zealots and fanatics. Zafan had deposed the Munitorum and enshrined himself in a theocracy in miniature, deposing the Administratum in place of his own bespoke Ecclesiarchy regime, answerable to him alone, or ostensibly, the god-emperor of mankind. It was an affront to the structure of the Imperium, and insult to the divine orderly balance enshrined within the emperor's regime. It was also a massive security risk to all military operations in not just the sector, but the segmentum. It may then come as a surprise, or perhaps will not, that the departmental Munitorum moved slowly upon the news. The grinding cogs of Imperial bureaucracy move at tectonic pace at the best of times. The initial distressed call sent from the fortress world's astrophatic choir took time to filter two segmentum Munitorum officials, and even once it had, its severity demanded it be brought to the attention of the lords of the Administratum themselves upon Holy Terra itself, where, even upon its reception, it was sorted into the morass of competing interests and priority decisions that the management of a galaxy spanning empire demands. Months of inactivity followed, with the Munitorum anxiously awaiting a ruling from the throne world. Eventually the cogs aligned, and some lodges prelit within the palace got word of the situation, and the true scope of the fall of Vrax was finally comprehended by those with the power to do something about it. Beyond the issue it created between Administratum and Atlesiarchy, bedfellows and enemies simultaneously, the strategic position Vrax occupied within the supply chain of the departmental Munitorum was so crucial that its removal threatened imperial forces galaxy wide. Such a linchpin of logistics kept the astromilitarum, the imperial navy, even the adeptus astartes in fighting standing, and who could say what disaster may befall what critical campaign in what far flung star system should these forces suddenly find themselves without arms, armaments, or ammunition. The Munitorum was as vital a part of the god emperor's wars as any soldier, and with one of their fortress worlds lost, that position was now placed in dire straits. Readings of the emperor's tarot were doomed laden in the extreme, and many within the Administratum fretted over the potential ramifications. The 8 million strong population of Vrax and their ultimate fate never entered into their considerations, what after all is 8 million human lives to the Imperium, but a line in a ledger. Especially considering the loss of their world could precipitate something as terrible as a black crusade, the high master of the Munitorum produced a ruling. Vrax must be retaken. The question was how? No then, that this is a further record of the calamitous siege of Vrax. Once again, the cogs of the Imperium began to turn. President was cited, petitions brought forth, and orders were drawn up upon formal vellum. Terra issued a proclamation to the high command of the Astrum Militarum of segmentum obscurus, upon the world of Cadia itself, to retake the fortress world of Vrax by whatever means necessary. The wording was debated by the High Castellan of Cadia and the Lord Commander of Obscura briefly, but it was clear, retake not destroy, and with this came the dread realization of the scope of the task at hand. Vrax was a bastion with few equals. It simply had never fallen. It was considered designed to be impervious to external assault. Now, how to breach the impossible walls of such a place? And if you do so, what will be the cost? Senior segmentum obscurus and scarus sector commanders were drafted into the initial planning and consultation, for this was a task only achievable by the finest minds the Astrum Militarum could muster.  They claimed the sheer cost in manpower and material alone would render any gains of the recapture null and void, and may even escalate to the point that such a campaign, regardless of outcome, would amount to nothing but a net loss for the Imperium. Vrax was lost, I said, better to simply acknowledge it. We build the supplies lost upon another world, increase production quotas and work orders segmentum-wide to compensate, and summarily execute those under whose stewardship this disaster had occurred. In short, the Munitorum should simply move on, and accept their shame for what it is. These voices, though loud and certainly numerous, held little sway over the senior commanders who, by dint of position, were forced to consider the broader picture. Beyond the simple military exigencies, there were a myriad of political concerns currently in play. The Administratum blamed the Ecclesiarchy for failing to rein in a wayward priest, the Ecclesiarchy blamed the Munitorum for lack of security concerns, several officers blamed the Ephysio-Assassinorum for the abject failure of their agent to end the situation before it had gotten out of hand, and now all were placing pressure on the guard to act quickly. The order itself had been delivered with the seal of the Prefect to the Master of the Administratum's own office. No matter how poor one's opinion of an order was, there was little one could say when the officers of the High Lords of Terra were taking note of a situation, and seeking to direct its course. Not unless that is one wished to raise such protests upon an excruciation rack in the cells of some Ordo Hereticus dungeon. For, yes, the ever-watchful eyes of the Inquisition were upon the Vrax situation and had been for some time. The Hereticus was wary of just how far Zaphans' tendrils had burrowed, and the commanders of the Militarum were fully aware that any obvious lack of piety and diligence in pursuing the cardinal's downfall on their part would be viewed with quite lethal suspicion. No, they ultimately reasoned. The planet would have to be recaptured. Or at the very least, there would be a war for the fate of Vrax. Diligence must be done. The first and most broadly agreed upon idea for such a campaign was one that, unsurprisingly, did not place the lion's share of the burden upon the guard. The strike force assembled rapidly, with intent to strike even quicker. Imperial Navy squadrons would spearhead the move, followed by an invasion in force of the Adeptus Astartes. Not to be trite, but this is what can be considered a typical opening salvo in logistical planning by segmentum command staff. When in doubt, annihilate the enemy with the Marines should they be available. Messengers could indeed be hurriedly dispatched to relevant chapters and interdiction squadrons assembled from battlefleets Cadia and Scaras. The plan did not, unfortunately, survive contact with the reality that was the Devisio Tactica assessment of Vrax's defensive capabilities. Most within segmentum command knew of the world by reputation, it is true, but when presented with the actual dossier, blanched at the information before them. Since the first construction of the Citadel planet side, the departmental immunatorium had been incredibly diligent in maintaining and upgrading their prized holdfasts defenses to ensure that it was fully in line with the most efficient and capable of the Imperium's fortification arsenal. Knowing that, relatively isolated from major patrol picket lines, the planet was vulnerable to orbital assault, the defenses were aligned to prevent just such an attack from ever even being feasible. Over 100 operational surface to orbit defense batteries ringed the Citadel itself, enough to give an entire fleet of cruisers pause, all of which were protected by multiple overlapping and redundant void shields. To give even greater protection, the majority of these batteries were housed deep within the planet's hardened crust, offering them even greater protection than the adamantine cladding of a battleship. As one guard officer Riley observed during planning, no one could expect the navy to fight a planet. Any orbital landing over the fortress itself could be rendered impossible, owing to the sheer level of fire coming up from the planet's surface. Never mind the fact that, should any landing craft even make it through the defense laser batteries, they would then have to contend with an entirely unmolested surface-to-air missile emplacements and other anti-aircraft defenses. No ship would be able to launch its full complement of landing troops, nor would these landing troops even be able to make it to the fortress in numbers that would lead to a successful capture, just as no chapter master of the Astartes would ever countenance risking their marines for such a move. Segmentum command quietly and dejectedly shelved the initial plan as utterly unfeasible. Faced with an initially impossible frontal assault, the Lodges proposed a different solution on the other end of the spectrum, a blockade of the planet entirely, submitting it to a total shipment and communication blackout, and then a sustained distant siege for approximately one to two hundred years, with pressure on the current holders of the planet maintained by raids against them. Such raids would primarily focus on specific areas of the fortress and its defenses, aiming over the decades to wear them down by targeting specific batteries until the fortress had been depleted to such a point that the prior mooted frontal assault would be rendered a benefit for the cost. While meeting with initial interest, Tactica revisions to this plan rendered the possible timeline as stretching as far as five to six hundred years in the future. Whatever the patience of the militarum, even if none who enacted the plan would live long enough to see it delivered, it was determined that this was far too much in the opposite direction, and that the munitorum would reject it out of hand, unwilling as they presumably would be to wait a full half a millennium to have their armory delivered back to them. A third option was proposed, deemed by the Lodges a reasonable medium between the two polarities. A full-scale siege, with an initial invasion force capable of sustaining such for years, with logistical chains put in place to ensure sustainable reinforcement for the year's subsequent. It would be a war of attrition unlike any the Imperium had seen in centuries, a grinding, relentless application of force with the defenders of wracks to be worn down into dust. It was also something the Imperium was uniquely capable of, and a facet of our empire's breathtaking cruelty. If casualty rates were considered to be two or three to one in favor of the besieged, well, the Imperium would only need two or three times as many bodies. The divisiologists bent their mental acuity to calculating the necessities of such meat grinder, factoring in everything from warp travel time disparities to available manpower to the last reported ammunition stockpile quantities both on wracks and at their own disposal, as well as, finally, the possibility of sudden military demands elsewhere in the galaxy. Ultimately, it was determined that under generally agreed-upon circumstances, the operation would take twelve standard Terran years and deliver an Imperial victory. Considered by obscure's command to be the most acceptable proposal, it was promptly ratified and forward to Terra for approval, where it was rapidly granted by the now eager Departmental Immunitorum. Command moved as quickly as it was able. The 88th Imperial Guard Siege Army was thus formally founded. But just who would form the bulk of this army? Well, the world of Krieg, that blasted, radiation-soaked hellscape of a world, was not always so. Once, it was quite the opposite of its present condition. It once rumored paradise planets of prosperous plenty. In reality, it was a successful trading hub. Its hives held a population of billions, its manufacturing capabilities having not fully ravaged its biosphere. The ruling Council of Autocrats had built a model Imperial world, and for a time, it was good. However, as with apparently all things in the Imperium, vice, corruption and suspicion crept their tendrils into the aristocracy. The wealth of their coffers becoming a source of pride and greed and a font for all sorts of paranoid delusions. Becoming increasingly more insular and isolated, the autocrats and their dynasties set to ensuring the protection of their vast riches and legacies, hosting lavish balls to flaunt their decadent lives, even as they spent billions of thrones upon fortified mansions and private armies. As their citizens laboured contentedly enough, the autocrats began to resent, in a tale seemingly as old as the Imperium itself, the heavy hand of the Administratum's tithe. Why should their hard-earned wealth flow to some far-off government, even if that rule be of terror itself? Why should the work of their hands, not of their workers or their totally inherited wealth, of course, be offered up to faceless bureaucrats? Such spiralling resentment and meopic ideology came to a head in 433 M40. The high autocrat of the Council, the de facto Imperial Governor, declared Krieg independent of the Imperium, renouncing its obligations to the great tithe, spurning terror's due and even more incendiarily, denouncing the divinity of the Emperor, claiming it was a method of control for the common herds of humanity. The world immediately devolved into civil war, but the high autocrats' rebels seizing the majority of the planet's population centres with private household armies. Only Hive Ferrograd remained in loyalist imperial hands, the coalition of citizen groups under the banner of what astromilitarium regiments had been planet-side at the outbreak of the secession crisis. Colonel Yurton of the 83rd Krieg, suddenly finding himself the ranking officer of a campaign he had no opportunity to prepare for, secured the Hive and broadcast rallying cries to all loyalists that remained upon the surface of the now rebellious world. Distress calls offworld had been answered surprisingly promptly by Yurton's sector command superiors, but the news they had brought was not good. Krieg's orbital defences, as befitted a Hive world of its size, were formidable to begin with, but had been developed upon furiously by the Council of Autocrats prior to the rebellion. Nothing short of a full invasion fleet would have breached them, rendering the question of loyalist reinforcements moot. Yurton was on his own, ordered to hold until, or if, such a fleet would be seconded from the Navy and an invasion force drawn up, which, given military commitments in and out of the sector, may be a while. Fortify, bleed, and deny the heretics. This was all the Krieg Colonel could do. It was in historical retrospect the latter word that Yurton seemed to take to heart, petitioning the world's Adeptus Mechanicus Fane for their aid, the Colonel requested the unsealing of their vaults deep within the foundations of Hive Ferragrad, and the preparation of ancient weapons for unleashing, even as the Hive above became utterly surrounded. If the Emperor was unable to have Krieg, as Yurton has been apocryphally quoted as saying, no one would. Upon the feast of the Emperor's ascension, as the siege of Ferragrad escalated in bloody intensity, Yurton unleashed what he would come to refer to as the purging. Hundreds of ballistic missiles arched from ancient subterranean silos, blasting Skyward, each containing an atomic warhead. The Autocrats realizing too late to the full scope of the apocalypse the Colonel had just unleashed could only watch in horror as nuclear blooms lit up the world, blanketing the atmosphere from stratosphere to tropopause with radioactive fallout, and showering an entire world in poisonous matter. More missiles struck key centers of autocrat power, killing millions as firestorms cascaded throughout packed hives. Whilst these attacks were certainly effective, it was the atmospheric strikes that proved the most catastrophically lethal. The biosphere of the planet was destroyed almost instantly, every part of its remaining ecosystems poisoned in their totality. The sheer amount of dust choking the sky blotted out the sun, causing a nuclear winter that would stretch for decades. The attack would ultimately kill billions. Due to the radiation poisoning, starvation, or a myriad of other disease cascades that began to ravage the famine-struck heretic population and armies. The Autocrat Council had no time to prepare for such a move, while the loyalists had used every minute they had, quipping their soldiers with hostile environment gear and chems to ward off the worst ravages of the rad storms that were now brewing in Kreeg's toxic atmosphere. The world had become a man-made charnel house, a wasteland where nothing that was not poisonous existed. And yet, the civil war ground on. Even with billions of human lives lost to the ashes that now choked the skies, the men of the Kreeg regiments, and the impressed civilians raised now to military service brought their war across the ruined wastes of a world the Imperium itself had deemed unsalvageable. There would be no recompense, no relief. There was only the war. Yurton died, and yet his successors fought on. Society broke down as a conflict became generational. Born in sealed bunkers and scavenged tunnels, the children of Kreeg became the conflict that their forefathers had begun. And they were expected to continue. There was only the war, only the enemy. No other concerns or reason for existing persisted. Kreeg was ultimately returned to the Imperium in 949 M40. For 500 years, the successors of the atomic legacy of Colonel Yurton had fought to deliver their poisoned, destroyed world back to the Imperium that had written them off. They had achieved this through nothing short of total dehumanization. Those born after the Purging were not human, not in the sense that we would understand it. They had no reason to live other than to be a body in a conflict they had no knowledge of. They were meat bred for a meat grinder, the ultimate purpose of which was to deliver an end state that was no longer even required of them. The Imperium, never one to look a gifted equine in the mandibles, realized that despite losing an economically prosperous world, Kreeg yet had one resource it could dependably produce. Bodies. Better still for the sansocrats of the Administratum and the Minotorum, society, if it can even be called such, of Kreeg had metastasized into one of singular vision through fanatical loyalty to the Emperor. The Kreeg seemed now to truly believe as one that their sole purpose in their short existences was to fight and ultimately die in whatever manner the Emperor through his earthly representatives decreed they would. They willingly and eagerly offered themselves as the one resource the Imperium prizes above all else, human lives. And the Imperium was quick to move upon this new boon. Kreeg's tithe, impossible in its delivery owing to the lack of anything even approximating a livable ecosystem, would now forevermore be paid in the bodies of its citizens, and the name of the regiments that had prosecuted the great war for the planet would now be borne by the astral military armed forces raised there. The Death Core of Kreeg. The 88th siege army that was destined for wracks was to be made up entirely of regiments drawn from the death core. The siege would be long, arduous beyond human reason, and present challenges few baseline humans could possibly overcome. Indoctrinated, dehumanized, and fanatical to a literal fault, the Kreeg were the perfect soldiers for the militarum's upcoming campaign. Much has been said by command of their moral character and noble ideals of self-sacrifice, pithy pleasantries to disguise the true reality. The Kreeg were desensitized from birth to the horrors they were going to be sent into. Their ability to withstand the psychological torture of the warfare their regiments specialized in was a product of their childhoods, if they can even be called that, a product of the culture that was their unshakable dedication to the Emperor. The siege of wracks would be an unremitting attritional grind a decade or more in the prosecution. The militarum needed a force whose service people would not balk if they lost every single comrade they had ever known. Many an instance of regiments breaking under such stressors existed in the annals of guard history, because guardsmen, guardswomen, guardspeople are uniquely human. The Kreeg simply never were. Beyond their psychological resilience, if such a word is even applicable here, their regiments had developed a notable specialization in attritional trench warfare, complete with training drills, strategic experience, specialized equipment, all the things necessary for that especially hellish form of conflict. It is a trope oft common when discussing the militarum that it cares not for the lies of those under its command, but thousands of guardspeople are thrown into the fires of battle by uncaring generals far from the front lines. This is not as often the case as the omnipresent nature of the idea would suggest, but it is prevalent and in the case of the siege of wracks one can find no better example. The employment of the Kreeg rendered the forward planning of the campaign as too readily is imperial preference, simplistic in the coldest and most inhuman capacity. The deathcore lives were now a mere line item for tacticalogist calculations, whereas other regiments would scream bloody murder at such casual disregard for the humanity of their service people, the Kreeg would not. They could be counted upon that. They were an expendable cell upon a calculation sheet, to be spent as readily as ammunition, fuel, or rations. The mathematics simply spun out from there. How many lives were required to capture and then hold a certain area of ground? How did this extrapolate outwards to shells, las-gun power cells, personnel carriers, billets, starch rations, caffeine allotments, or entrenching tools? This was warfare at its most monstrously impersonal. There was no need to account for humanity and any factor of its preparation. Lives were as replicable as gas masks. One need only have a robust supply chain, and by mathematical certainty, wrecks would be delivered into the Emperor's realm once more. Overall, operational command of the 88th Siege Army was ultimately, after a short but fierce period of politicking amongst segmentum high command, granted to one Lord Commander's Zwellk. A scion of a notable aristocratic dynasty, whose authority extended in both soft and hard capacities across both navy and militarium, Zwellk was nobody's first choice, but nobody's last. Not quite objectionable, it could not be denied by any party, that his appointment was born not of ability but connections. His great-grandfather had, after all, served as an attaché to the staff of the Lord Commander Solar on Holy Terra during that particular High Lord's tenure on the High Twelve, and his social standing was impeccable. Qualifications beyond that were scant to say the least. Aside from the martial bent of his education and childhood, and a notable post-scholum instructions on the tenants of Imperial Tactica, he had nothing in the way of actual combat or command experience. High Command ultimately reasoned that the pedigree of his breeding would placate arrest of Terra. Unhappy with the delays already present, not to mention the potential visibility his appointment could place upon the upcoming war. Additionally, as the siege was appearing by all lodges calculations to be a mathematical certainty, Zwellk was considered a safe bet. Someone who was sound in his theory, and lacked the bullish or bellicose personality that may lead to flights of fancy or divergence from the strategic planning that was already assuring an Imperial triumph. In order to ensure the latter, his command staff was to be several times a normal size, ostensibly to provide robust and redundant logistical support, but also no doubt to prevent the newly minted Lord Commander from pursuing any tactical inspiration of his own. The Siege of Wrax was, to be in many ways, a study in the mechanics of the Imperium itself. It certainly, in all its aspects at this point in history, is a deeply Imperial war. Its soldiery was made up of fanatics that could barely be considered human, more akin to meat-based automata, but even less valued. Its planning was directly predicated around spending the lives of its participants as easily as coin in a strategic middle ground between unacceptably costly bloodbath and unacceptably slow besiegement. It was to be led by a stuffed shirt of a commander in place only because of political connections rather than actual ability, with the real work of the battles being undertaken by field commanders leading squads of entirely expendable troopers supported by the most vigorous logistical mathematics the Imperium could muster. It was, ultimately, all about the numbers. The Imperium's numbers has ever been its greatest asset, and by their proper application a foe would be overcome and the Emperor's justice delivered. Or at least, that was the plan of a Imperator, Gloria in Excelsis Terra. Otherwise, please like, subscribe, comment, let me know your feedback, and as ever, thank you very much for watching.


A very hearty good morning to all our attendees who have joined us for the very first virtual summit of ours and welcome to the very first panel of today's Tech and Innovation Summit. After a great keynote by one of the most successful SaaS unicorns, we are out here discussing the other side of the table, which is the investment part. We're going to discuss all the money matters right here and just from more light on this, I have with me two prominent investors in the tech space who will be sharing the stage and tell us more about what do SaaS investors look for in companies. Let me welcome on stage Mr. Rajesh Raju, Managing Director, Kalari Capital and Mr. Sushant Rande, Founder VC, 100X.VC. Gentlemen, welcome to our virtual stage. I'm your session lead, Punita Kapoor, Deputy Editor on the PNOR India. So before we start discussing the next big leap for SaaS, I would suggest both of you to first share with us more about your fund and some of your tech investments specifically in the SaaS space. Rajesh, if you could share. Punita, you want me to go? Yeah, so I'll share my thoughts about the SaaS and I'll name a couple of companies. We can go into more detail about these companies soon. So as you can imagine, with all the interest in SaaS, both from entrepreneurs and investors over the last few years, there has been a significant shift and there's been a kind of an inflection point over the last two years, primarily because enterprise tech in general, we've all dabbled in enterprise tech for at least 14 years that I can remember in India. And with largely disappointing results, primarily because we had to invest into companies which did not have much domestic market and our dependency was very high on global markets, primarily US markets. And enterprise tech traditionally has been kind of a on the ground, kind of a technology space where most of the US companies thrive because they had large local markets. Of course, they had the tech talent, but they had the large local markets where sales support, implementation, everything was on the ground. And that made very, very difficult for young companies out of India or anywhere else to go and compete with on the ground teams in the US. But fortunately with SaaS evolving as a major force in the enterprise tech space, it has democratized the entire enterprise tech. So now the large markets and the companies don't have to be in the same geography. And the biggest change it has brought upon is it has made software just not the domain of large enterprises. And that's the biggest shift in democratization of software. And now medium to small business can afford software primarily because of SaaS. And it boils down to affordability, implementation, timeframes, support. All these things have fallen to not only the prices, but the effort needed to do these things is relatively low in the SaaS model. And the biggest change has been you can be a startup or a company anywhere around the globe. You can be anywhere and go after markets, western markets or Asian markets doesn't really matter. So that has helped dramatically companies out of India. And one of the shift we have seen over the last two, three years is Indian domestic markets are getting better or deeper. And finally the shift was driven by the startups which have grown to a sizeable size in India experimenting with SaaS technologies themselves and buying off the shop software which is relatively a difficult sale in India now has become easier. And now even the larger enterprises in India are experimenting with enterprise tech and more and more SaaS technology. So there has been a fundamental shift and I think SaaS is a great opportunity, great equalizer for all entrepreneurs sitting anywhere around the globe. And India has definitely a great advantage. We still have the labor arbitrage advantage. We still can build the product cheaper. We have great talent pool here. Every large tech MNC product company around the globe has had development centers in India for nearly two decades now. So we have great amount of talent, trained talent and now the capital is available. The local markets are getting better. And I think we can get our products to a maturity stage locally within India and then take them globally when they get to a little bit of product maturity. So overall I think it's a great time to be a SaaS entrepreneur and SaaS investor today. And we have had I think over the last 14 years nearly 30 or investments in enterprise tech and over the last two funds, the last seven to eight years, we've had nearly 10 companies which are in the SaaS space. Currently we have companies like Hiver which is a collaborative email inbox solution which is around G Suite. We have a company called Shopalist which is doing extremely well, not only in India but globally. It works with some of the biggest global brands. It's in the marketing tech space. We have companies like H Networks which has a SaaS solution for primary enterprises around talent acquisition and talent management within large organizations. And we have a long list of companies but I'll leave it there for now and I'll let Shashank share his thoughts. Shashank? Fund, 100x.vc was started in July of 2019. With the core objective of investing in early stage companies, minimal viable product, we are backed by Sanjay Mehta family office which is Sanjay Mehta, my founding founder and partner at 100x.vc which has been a very, very active investor in the ecosystem. And the last day we understood the challenge of raising seed capital and obviously we set up this fund to invest in 100 companies a year and we've done 20 so far and we've had a sizable chunk of companies in deep tech and need to be particularly in SaaS. And what we've been observing is that while the situation has been a little tricky over the last 75 and 80 days, it's been a humbling experience for a lot of us but never ever have we seen some segments accelerate so quickly and adding to Rajesh's point, I think SaaS has been there for quite some time. The whole compounding power has been building for the last 20 or years and we are seeing some of the most promising companies in few emerging categories. Privacy debt will end up becoming a new technical debt. We'll see a lot of B2B transactions moving online. The whole API universe will be finding a lot of innovation across industries. And we are, so to speak, now entering the age of automation at scale. So within this purview, I think we set out as a fund to invest in very early stage companies. We did 20 investments through an instrument called ISEAF, which is India's Safe Sympathetic Agreement for Future Equity and all our investments are done through this process where we try and expedite the fundraising, seed capital raising very quickly. And the first set of investments were promising and particularly the SaaS portfolio of 100x has been doing exceptionally well and I'd like to kind of highlight two companies. One is Norish, which is an education technology SaaS company enabling digital and financial inclusion for millions of teachers, trainers and institutions who don't have access to tech and design teams to build their entire infrastructure for online education delivery. And more than ever now, the requirement for such an offering is very, very high. So the promise for the India story becoming stronger on the SaaS side is, I'm particularly very optimistic about it. Norish did end up raising its pre-CDC around just two weeks ago and it's a very promising field and space which we are excited about. The other one I would quickly like to highlight and then we can get into specifics over the course of our discussion is a company called Data Sutron, which has built an AI based location management platform that uses external data sources to help businesses leverage location based insight. So with post-COVID, the need for optimized resource planning, specific targeting has become very essential. This company has been providing, has helped companies specifically in essential services like grocery, policy change, rapidly scale their reach and increase their market share. So it's a great time for the ecosystem, I feel. SaaS had challenges scaling up in India as rightly pointed out by Rajesh. We always had companies who were working for a larger pie of a client base from the US market, which is still the most active market from a business development perspective. Slow and steadily, I think we've reached a point where India is becoming a homegrown domestic market. I see a lot of activity happening over the next few years in India. These are my initial thoughts, but we can get into specifics as we go along. So thanks Rajesh and Shashank. With this, let me ask both of you my very first question. So what is the success rate you have seen with SaaS companies if we talk about India as a market and are there any specific causes of failure which you see and you can guide fellow startups who are attending the conference so that they can avoid them? Should I go? Sure. So I think SaaS is just a model, whether you want to call it an implementation model or a revenue or a business model, but largely enterprise tech has been difficult for a couple of reasons that I mentioned earlier. One being the local markets, the domestic markets have been quite shallow for many, many years in India. So getting your product to maturity was difficult in India before you can take it globally. You had to go globally very early on and that was quite difficult for most companies, young companies without much experience trying to establish a base in a place like US. So the success rate, I think there are not that many successes as you can see over the last 15 years in enterprise tech, there are a handful of companies and any of the large names that you hear like Freshworks, et cetera they've all followed a simple model. I mean, can I sell my product or service sitting in India and without having to build large sales teams in the US or any other geography that I'm targeting and can I support them remotely? And implementation has to be pretty much a plug and play. You can't have a service. I think all those things kind of go well with the fast business model as well. That's why SAS is the new kid on the block and there's so much focus globally and of course in India primarily. So the success I think is going to come from for entrepreneurs to be able to put a great product out there which is almost plug and play and the product can be implemented, supported and experienced, trained, training, everything has to be remote. We are doing anything virtually or remotely. The power of the product or the value proposition of the product is the simplicity and it cannot be too complex, it has to be self-explanatory and how do you bring that simplicity into your product is important and in India we have struggled through that over the last many years. I see more and more companies understanding that aspect when you're trying to sell to global audiences sitting in India. Selling has to be easier, implementation has to be easier and support has to be easier and primarily focusing for young companies on SME is better. Enterprises still need that physical presence locally. They need to convince when you're trying to sell somebody a million dollars worth of technology. It's really done remotely, it's difficult to do it remotely and they expect a level of service and they expect on the ground service which is also difficult for Indian entrepreneurs to do. So I think primarily focusing on SME businesses for now and as you go larger, like for example Freshworks is doing then you can build local sales teams in US or Europe and elsewhere. So sales and other services teams locally. But when you're a startup I think keeping your product simple, easy to understand, learn, implement, use has to be your core principles in building and rolling out your product and most companies are slowly learning that and I'm seeing a great improvement in the space now. Sashank you have any guidelines which you can share with startups? Sure, Puneetha. So we work with very early stage startup as I mentioned earlier. You've seen a lot of B2C companies over the last few years obviously the advent of Flipkart being as successful it is. A lot of businesses were cropping up in B2C because the strength and the effort required to kickstart a B2B SaaS platform and as Rajesh pointed out at an early stage at startup you can't possibly go global and that's where the largest sense of the market was. So we weren't seeing that exponential growth in the B2B SaaS phase over the last few years as we were seeing in other segments. And I feel that is changing now and there are multiple factors to it. A very fact that it's a lot more easier to now be closing transactions virtually that culture will set in. A lot of organizations are now becoming cognizant of figuring out how they can not have a physical presence in a large outside their home country and still figure out how they can do business critically as a domestic market within India and as Rajesh also mentioned SME and MSME segment is picking up a lot. This whole COVID situation has compelled them, arm twisted them, jolled them, forced them to go digital and move beyond their WhatsApp conversations and I think that is against too early. I'm just being very optimistic. That space offers a lot of opportunity and I'll give you a few examples. Within our portfolio there's a company called Finline which is automated, it's created automated software for SMEs and MSMEs who are applying for mudra loans. And there are a large number of companies in millions who want to utilize this or rather who apply for mudra loans and can utilize the software because it's just an end-to-end process, pre-application and you have to physically do it. Such small innovations, such small automations where smaller companies with simpler products as Rajesh mentioned and I couldn't agree more with him. Simplicity of the product, the efficiency of the product and then catering to a segment which is now for the first time going digital and are likely to be in that zone for the next 10 to 15 years. I think that in itself is a huge market. Are we going to be pulling out large SaaS success stories right now like the way it's been going on in the US? Not now because I think we are a different ecosystem, our scale is different but within that there's a lot of opportunity. So those are my thoughts as I said, I'm optimistic about this and I think COVID only has accelerated this entire process of compelling and pushing people to go digital and they've been rewiring their working processes and how they can make it more efficient through these tools. I think it's a great time for early stage entrepreneurs to cater to this segment. So Rajesh, taking a cue from what you said, like we have seen the world has been the stage for SaaS startups but in current times, how do you see these startups approaching the global markets? I think in the current times and assuming you're referring to the COVID crisis situation and COVID only makes, like Shashank pointed out COVID only forces people to adopt SaaS models more and it accelerates the trend which has already been there. SaaS has been gaining traction and it was accelerating I think it's going to get further accelerated because of COVID and most of the businesses, whether it is SMEs or enterprises are operating around the globe remotely and one of the great things I think everybody realized during this and the reason SaaS startups like Shashank was pointing out are doing extremely well through the crisis and hopefully post the crisis as well is because the nature of SaaS is all remote anyway. So there was no interruption within the SaaS providers and there was no interruption in the service that the companies and enterprises were using from the SaaS company. So as you can imagine the cloud, the hosting all these companies like AWS and everyone has been doing extremely well. I think now the companies have realized that having anything on premises even if you can afford it and if you're a large enterprise you've done that for control, security etc in the past now they're all taking a second look saying I'm sure security we can solve through AWS and SaaS services but having on premises when you don't have teams to really take care of your servers etc which can be a massive headache especially through the crisis and I'm sure this may continue even when the COVID situation eases a little bit. So I think it's a COVID has been a great inflection point for SaaS there was acceleration I think it's going to get only further accelerated and now businesses have to be very price competitive SMEs dabbled with SaaS before some in the western world have done it but in India and elsewhere I think more of the businesses small businesses are going to look at this as a way to automate things their workflows and improve efficiencies in their businesses so I think more and more usage has happened through the COVID and now hopefully they've gotten used to using the service and using software maybe for the first time some of these businesses and sometimes the fear of unknown and there is a great amount of fear about technology that's been the biggest stumbling block in the SME world for tech companies they just fear of unknown I don't have IT people, tech people within my company who will manage it, who will take care of it, who will support me I don't know anything about technology and I want to use it but how will I use it how do I get the kick started I think the initial push is important I think COVID has provided that initial push to some companies just like on the B2C side people who have never bought anything online have experienced that online purchase for the first time people who have not played online gaming for example have experienced for the first time during the COVID crisis kids who have never seen online education online tutorials have experienced for the first time because Navit is kind of mandatory schools are conducting online classes so I think the initial fear has been the stumbling block and I think a lot of that like other industries as also has benefited because people are compelled to try it out for the first time and I think it's a great inflection point because of that Thanks Rajesh Shank, any thoughts you have on how should startups approach the global markets given the current situation? I mean depending on what the product offering and solution is I think today remotely working is a huge possibility and reaching out to a global market and these are my thoughts I think today is the right time with larger companies like TCS and so many others who have announced that at least for the next 2 years 75% of their population would be working from home and these are all large companies who have been managing accounts global accounts for quite some time yes they have had office locations outside but the fact that projects are going to be delivered executed and while 75% of your organization is at home or not in office I think this is again adding to Rajesh's point an inflection point for companies to really think that there is no barrier to doing global business again very specific to what the product is what the requirements requirement is and I think in terms of delivering it should not be a challenge I'll give you an example again I come back to my portfolio company which is an tech company over the last 60 days while they've been doing business in India sitting here in India they've been working with four schools in the Middle East UAE and Qatar and all has been handled virtually in terms of the offering and also deploying the solution which in this situation and any of the SaaS business should not be a challenge so I think the core objective is go out try it for the founders in terms of reaching out to global players sometimes you might not get through but when you get through people are willing to experiment not only in India outside as well and it's again it's a cost arbitrage if there is an availability but I can access a better solution which is cheaper efficient agile and based out of India even the clients are willing to figure out how they can work with such solutions outside their home countries because everybody is trying to preserve cash cash is coming right now so they are trying to figure out which are the vendors which are more efficient and price sensitive to their kind of entire balance sheet and they are open to kind of evaluating so I think my answer is I think entrepreneurs should be going out all out and I think being home or not being able to go to a specific country I think those parameters, those barriers can be crossed now and should be attended some might work, some might not work but no better time to give it a shot Interesting so both of you if you could share I mean how do we compare the first generation SaaS startups like Zoho, Freshworks and Thruva with the second generation of SaaS startups and do you think they can replicate the same success? Yes, I think the second wave have a few advantages that the first wave did not they had to struggle through various things one, maybe the talent itself second funding was a major roadblock because not many Indian VCs believe that a large enterprise tech companies can be built so primarily the dollars were flowing into consumer side and you've seen some large consumer companies grow over the last 10 years but very few product companies so that has changed so now the second wave have believers in investors and there is enough funding that is available if anything over the last two years we have seen more than enough funding for SaaS companies I think it has crossed billion dollars in 2019 I think that was the highest ever 2018 was a peak and 2019 beat that by 50% so there is enough funding available the first wave did not have that kind of support and now globally that option rate of SaaS has gone up dramatically over the last four or five years and Salesforce for example 15-20 years ago when they started struggled the first decade to preach the whole SaaS advantages but now we don't really have to educate the buyer much as Salesforce or even Freshworks and Zoho all these guys had to do 10 years ago but now I think there is an understanding of how it works there is enough confidence that data security, connectivity all these things which used to be problems for the first wave of SaaS players they have been largely resolved and with AWS and cloud computing becoming pretty much a standard not just in SMEs but also enterprises I think most of the roadblocks are taken away the question is how Indian startups can compete globally and earlier question and now for Indian entrepreneurs out there listening to us today you need to go with the confidence that if you have a good product if you have a good offering in a space that could be competitive that may not be competitive it could be a white space or may not be a white space doesn't really matter as long as you have a good offering you can build the product cheaper than anyone else around the globe we have the talent and we have the labor arbitrage we can get great talent at one fourth one fifth the cost of for example US and have the cost of for example what China can do so we still have the cost advantage in tact and we have the talent pool here the other advantages that you need to really use and leverage is even though we are providing a SaaS offering to the globe nobody else whether it is US or China or Europe no other startup can provide the high-touch service we still can provide so the advantage of even though it's remote the advantage of being in India is that you can still put a human being in front of a client or a phone call or a Zoom call doesn't really matter and support them in the hour of need and like I said most SMEs are afraid of technology and they may still need the high-touch model so they may buy your SaaS offering compared to a US SaaS company which may not be able to provide that high-touch service this will be very low-touch the best messaging would be the best form of service they can provide or email or something right so they will not put a human being for an hour in front of you to solve your problem through whatever the learning curve or whatever you need the Indian companies can still afford to do that and other countries cannot and the other advantage we have is we can afford inside sales in India very expensive to do that in the US here unlike other SME-focused SaaS companies around the globe it's all digital marketing and digital conversion and digital support everything has to be automated because they can't really afford tech resources or tech sales resources India can still do that we can still have large inside sales teams sitting in India and you have the ability to convert customers who are treating whether to buy your service or not you can get on the phone you can get on a zoom call and convert them so we have advantages in sales we have advantages in support we have advantages in the cost arbitrage in developing the product we can put more resources we can get to market with new functionality quickly so I think you need to go with the confidence that we have a number of advantages that other geographies don't Thank Rajesh Shashank, a quick perspective from you before we open the floor for questions from audience Rajesh has quite efficiently covered all the points I love the idea and the point on the inside sales I don't agree more adding to that I think the whole ecosystem has involved in 2010 we saw large private equity funds and venture capital funds set up shop over here and most of them buy folks who had worked in the US and now we are moving back to India and those models they have seen are more than they experimented with that but as Rajesh pointed out over the last 10 years the availability of super data penetration of connectivity in tier to tier it has just really evolved the whole landscape it gives us the ability to now look at catering to this audience and then developing solutions products which are more efficient simple and then are catering to the specific requirements of this particular audience so today now we have an audience which is willing to experiment which is willing to try out new things because they have been exposed to some level of connectivity they understand I think zooms, sessions or zooms interactivity increased phenomenally and I think multi-fold over the last 75 days wherein so my parents using it for the first time I have never seen them using it so even folks who have not been used to technology are now getting accustomed to it and we are going to see a different wave of companies coming out over the next 10 years because the challenges have been reduced the access to seed capital and venture capital has increased incubation centers have increased the whole ecosystem has evolved so promising times ahead sure on this note I will just ask you some questions from our audience our first question is from Neha Bharti who is asking will Indian young startups continue to attract large investments from various funds despite changing government policies especially with reference to Chinese investors the space itself can I take that question the space itself has been attracting investments at record levels over the last couple of years 2020 shouldn't be any different although investors do get cautious when there is health or an economic crisis like we are facing today but SaaS pace of investment should not change at least that's my gut feel at this point and the point about the Chinese investors that's a gray area for now I think there needs to be more clarity on what are some of the criteria that one needs to worry about when taking investments from China or Chinese linked individuals or funds we are struggling with the clarity as well in few of our companies there is interest but we don't know exactly how we should proceed hopefully that's temporary nature unfortunately it comes at a wrong time when Chinese investors have started accelerating their investments into India over the last couple of years so we will see what happens there but anyway SaaS has not been a domain of Chinese investments or investors primarily it's been either the local funds like us or the western funds which have taken a lot more interest in SaaS than Chinese have Chinese have been primarily focused on the consumer market of India so it shouldn't make much of a difference for the SaaS space but still it's a gray area and a question mark which needs to be clarified by the government so sure the next question we have from Sanjay Togardia Shashank I think you can answer this since you've invested in one of the ATTIC startups the question is we have product online exam software as SaaS how to explore or attract new market local and global repeat the question again the question is we have product online exam software as SaaS how to explore or attract new market for local and global I think there are a few players in the market who have been providing the same solution broadly speaking as I understand but I think if you've got that solution and there is more differentiation starting within the online academia or physical academia which have been trying to get better and efficient software or utilize better and efficient software to engage with their students I think that's one way of going about it how 100X looks at this is that when we are looking at opportunities we are looking at founders backgrounds and particularly the total addressable market within that space and how the founders have built out the product and their moat comes out now space which you are addressing has a lot of players right now what would be really really interesting is that how quickly can you on board a client when you pitch the product and how efficient and differentiated your offering is compared to the other players I think that's one way once you get the local piece done similarly the same principles are applied to the global platform or global set of clients sure another question we have is from Kanishk who is asking do you believe early state investments into startups are insular to the economic slowdown I can address that it really depends what kind of investment firm you are running there are growth state VC funds who are also typically doing follow on rounds in companies and they might take a back seat in doing fresh investments because they want to manage their portfolio companies or maybe still continue to look at newer companies at our level we are a seed state fund typically investing up to 160 USD and we want to invest in 100 companies a year and in our state we are not doing follow on funding so before the corporate is ready and we are ready to deploy so irrespective of whatever the situation is we will continue to invest at our level because we are so to speak feeders the growth state VC funds like Kalari capital and the other ones in the market so at a seed level it should not stop because if you are an investor or a small ticket size investor on the sidelines and you have not been active then yes you might not look at it but for funds at seed level I think we need to continue to invest we need to continue to deploy and then let it take its own course okay sure so next question is from Rohan Joshi he is asking how do I market my product differently to B2B and B2C companies what are the key differentiators that play a role here Rajesh you want to add to it yes assuming he is referring to a SaaS platform of his and then customers are being either consumer companies or other product B2B companies right so I don't think if it's a service that is needed by whether B2B, B2C doesn't really matter it's the reaching those companies may be through different channels and the channel strategy may be slightly different but I don't see fundamentally B2C versus B2B customers being different one thing is B2B companies tend to be more stable and a little bit more predictable cash flows and B2C tend to be unless they are old time old school companies which are profitable and have been around for a number of years they tend to burn a lot of money and it may depend on whether they have cash or not whether they have any funding or not so marketing may have to be a little bit more nuanced but fundamentally the service itself doesn't have to be marketed differently to both of them you have to look at geographically and vertical markets segmenting them properly and what channels whether digital channels or offline channels are the best way to reach customers those strategies have to be worked out but you don't have to worry about the end customer being B2B or B2C much so with this we will just take one last question before we conclude the question is from Kanishk Anakya who is asking what are your views on marketing automations as for SMEs in India and do you think such companies would take a hit due to cuts on short term marketing budgets among other controllable expenses due to economic slowdown let me start with the marketing automation has been around for a long time and it's a very very competitive space with dozens and dozens of small and large companies in the US already and I've seen a bunch of companies in India as well it's a tough space to begin with because it's competitive so you would need to have a world class product to compete against the existing companies out there but coming to the spending per se marketing is one of the first things that gets cut when there's an economic crisis and that's a concern on the companies which are trying to make money from the marketing groups budgets of companies right so that's definitely a concern having said that we have had a few of our companies which depend on marketing budgets etc and those companies have seen some difficulty but not dramatic change the way the customers are behaving especially if you're focusing on if you have a marketing budget and your digital marketing budget for example was x% your marketing budget may shrink but your digital marketing budget may actually increase with the world getting more and more digital the trend was there but COVID actually the digital trend accelerated further so the digital marketing side may not see a massive change that's a hope and at least that's what we're expecting for some of our companies so hopefully the budgets may not shrink as much but even if they shrink this year we are confident that starting next fiscal year I think on the digital side marketing budgets will only further accelerate so with this we would like both of you to conclude with one parting note which would be on why would you bet your dollar on SaaS in India sure you want to go first thanks Rajesh as I said our fund thesis is to back Indian startups at the seeds level we work extensively with incubation centers and accelerators to identify these opportunities very early on and very sector agnostic in our approach and hence we as a thesis we are very optimistic and sector agnostic and we've been working in large corporates and we've been seeing the requirement for such B2B companies so as I said during the course of our discussion we are looking at backing B2B SaaS cloud infrastructure startups across categories we are looking at we might not look at certain spaces like travel tech right now but I think largely we are open and I think this is a great time for entrepreneurs to really evolve and work towards building out a very sustainable offering a lot of sectors have been affected possibly for the archaic processes of following archaic process those have been completely broken down while we might see it as a problem right now there's a huge opportunity in that so as I said excited about supporting the early stage ecosystem across sectors we are completely accessible and possible on a website so looking forward to it and we are looking to back at least 50% of our portfolio should be coming out of the B2B SaaS segment and that's what we are pushing for this year as well coming to Kalari over the last 4 years the current fund that we are investing from we have significantly increased our exposure to SaaS compared to the prior to funds and I don't see why that should change if anything I think the percentage of companies which are focusing on SaaS or product or enterprise tech would only go up for us so in terms of our confidence in the markets the SaaS market has been high for the last 4 years and now we feel we made the right call taking that 4 years ago and I think for the entrepreneurs my parting note is you are blessed with the timing right now and like I mentioned earlier the first generation of SaaS companies struggle the current generation of SaaS entrepreneurs and companies should go with great amount of confidence into the markets whether it's building great products that are faster, better we have that ability now you have the ability to get angel funding, to seed funding to an institutional VC funding like ours I would say magnitude wise at least 4x, 5x better now compared to 4, 5 years ago so you have the ability to raise capital now and like I said as a SaaS platform compared to other global competition that you have you can build faster cheaper products and you can support those products better than anybody around the globe you can sell those products and have better conversion rates relative to anybody else because you can afford the inside sales people that other geographies cannot so you have all the advantages whether it's building, supporting and selling so I think it's a great time to be a SaaS entrepreneur and I would really encourage people who are looking at it are already in the game to really go wholeheartedly into this and good luck to all the entrepreneurs out there Thank you gentlemen for such great insights with this discussion we can try to conclude that we are all well placed to give much larger share of the global SaaS buy Thank you and we will end the session here our attendees can join us for our next session


Hello, I'm General Mike Garrett, Commanding General, United States Army Forces Command. I've asked Command Sergeant Major Kurt Cornelison to join me again so we can update you on the coronavirus pandemic. In the month of March, the Force Com team came together to support our nation in the fight against the spread of COVID-19. Thousands of soldiers from active duty, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve responded from across the nation with vital support to state and local efforts. Force Com will continue to support the COVID response for as long as we are needed. We're all in this together. Sir, I couldn't agree more. We need everyone to do their part to slow the spread of the virus. Continue to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control, Civic Leaders, and your chain of command. The uncertainty and stress of this fight, coupled with isolation in our homes, can cause patients to wear thin. Now, more than ever, we need to take care of ourselves and our families. Although we have become experts at social distancing, now is not the time to socially disconnect. A phone call or video chat with friends and loved ones are great ways to feel less isolated. Sergeant Major is right. And even in this environment, we have to maintain and build readiness. We will do this through individual, team, and squad level training and equipment maintenance. We are working on ways to conduct collective training in the future, and will continue to provide updated guidance as conditions evolve. Protecting our soldiers, civilians, and family members is vital to preserving readiness. Recent guidance on force protection measures has generated a number of questions and rumors. When it comes to protective face masks, everyone will wear cloth face coverings when they cannot maintain six feet of social distance. When in uniform, soldiers can wear the neck gaiter and other cloth items like bandanas or scarves as face masks, but the color should conform to the uniform. Soldiers will not wear face masks that have printed wording, profanity, races, demeaning, or derogatory logos, script, or images. Don't attempt to cut up army combat uniforms to use as face masks. These have likely been treated with chemicals. We need leaders to approach this as a force protection issue. Use your best judgment. Protect the force, protect the mission. Another rumor that you may have heard is that the army will adopt relaxed grooming standards. Let me assure you that this is just a rumor. Soldiers will continue to maintain grooming standards. We understand that this pandemic has been highly disruptive to you and your families. Stay engaged with your chain of command. Monitor the updated guidance and directives from the army, and don't forget about the resources available to you and your families. We will come through this unprecedented time together and emerge stronger and more resilient than ever before. I have absolute confidence in the talented men and women of force comm as we work together to flatten the curve and kill the virus. Be safe, stay healthy, always ready.


Human Resources Command is sending a mobile training team to Europe to train officers on their new evaluation system. This new system will go into effect April 1st. Training dates are from February 18th to February 28th. Contact your local S1 for more information.