On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Sandeep Bhadra, Partner @ Vertex Ventures.
On today's Talk, we ask Sandeep about his operator journey starting out in engineering and product management roles at Texas Instruments. Sandeep explains the lessons he learned around building next-gen technologies and trying to sell his visions internally while navigating around the politics at such a large company.
Next we ask Sandeep about his transition to corporate development at Cisco Systems where he made over 5 acquisitions and invested over $400mm into strategic investments during his two years there.
Moving on, we dig into Sandeeps transition to venture capital as a Principal at Menlo Ventures and the struggles he faced trying to stay focused while figuring out how to convince Partners at the firm to see things his way. We ask Sandeep why he decided to lead the series B investment into Signifyd and the lessons he learned after passing on the company at the series A.
Next, we get into Sandeeps current role at Vertex Ventures and the firms focus on early-stage investments into enterprise SaaS companies. We ask Sandeep what he’s most excited about when it comes to Microservices and his views on cloud infrastructure companies and where he is looking to invest next.
Finally, we ask Sandeep what he looks for when investing in cloud and cyber focused startups who have limited traction but massive market opportunities.
This Tank Talk really makes you appreciate the vision and excitement investors like Sandeep bring to startups at the early-stage. You will also hear how Sandeep thinks about the future of cloud infrastructure and who he believes will win in the end.
Book Recommendations:
Sandeep’s words of inspiration - “Great teams build great companies, so treat your people well and you will be rewarded on the other side”
Tank Talk: Sandeep Bhadra (Partner @ Vertex Ventures) - Investing in Cloud, Data and Cyber for the Next Decade