Shruti Gandhi | Array Ventures

About this video

Shay Gandhi, founder of Aray Ventures, shares his unconventional path to starting a VC fund despite not fitting the typical VC mold. After struggling to raise funding for his own startup, he reverse-engineered the VC industry by working in venture capital to understand what investors look for, then launched his fund in 2015 to invest in founders from underrepresented backgrounds in AI, ML, and big data.

Key takeaways

• Shay Gandhi notes that VCs rely on pattern recognition, and he didn’t fit the traditional VC pattern in appearance or background, which motivated him to create a fund focused on investing in founders like himself
• Gandhi describes building his fund by leveraging relationships and reciprocity—reaching out to people for advice, providing value in return, and allowing his reputation to grow through word-of-mouth rather than traditional fundraising databases
• Gandhi recounts that he kept potential fund investors lukewarm until he ran out of runway, at which point he formalized the fundraising process with paperwork, and most expressed interest converted into actual commitments

Episode details: published March 30, 2017 · 3.7K views · 7:47 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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