EP#50 Amit Gupta – Playing the long game and building category creating startups like InMobi & Yulu

The VCpreneur: Startups | Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Fundraising

In this episode, Amit Gupta (Co-Founder & CEO, Yulu), joins our host Digjay, to talk about his path leading up to entrepreneurship, the switch from mobile (InMobi) to mobility (Yulu), evolution of Yulu’s product over the past 5 years, leveraging public & private partnerships to build a strong foundation, what does it take to build a category-creating startup, learnings from previous ventures & the importance of playing the long game, fundraising experience at InMobi & Yulu and his angel investing playbook.

Yulu is a micro-mobility platform powered by shared electric two-wheelers that aims to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution in India. The startup is backed by marquee investors like Rocketship, Bajaj Auto Ltd, Blume Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Wavemaker, among others. Prior to Yulu, Amit co-founded a mobile adtech platform called InMobi which was one of the first unicorn startups of India. You can connect with him here on Twitter or Linkedin

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Show notes –

1. (02:42) Amit’s background & path leading up to Yulu
2. (05:38) The switch from mobile (InMobi) to mobility (Yulu)
3. (07:39) Evolution of Yulu’s product over the past 5 years; Impact of Covid-19 on Yulu’s journey
4. (18:00) Leveraging public & private partnerships to build a strong foundation for a new category
5. (23:05) What does it take to build a category-creating startup?
6. (26:25) Learnings from previous ventures - ‘Playing the long game’
7. (29:41) Fundraising experience at InMobi & Yulu
8. (33:26) Importance of choosing the right investors
9. (38:21) Amit’s angel investing playbook
10. (40:30) Rapid fire and closing remarks

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