How Piyush Goenka Built Prath Ventures From 4,000 Meetings and a Safari Success Story
The former Tano Capital partner spent 17 years learning consumer investing the hard way, then created a concentrated portfolio strategy as India's $2.1 trillion consumption market hits its inflection
In early 2022, Piyush Goenka faced a decision that would define the next phase of his career. After 17 years as a partner at Tano Capital, where he had deployed over $200 million across consumer businesses and sat on boards from Safari Industries to Good Glamm Group, his firm decided not to raise a third fund. The logical next step would have been to join another established private equity platform. Instead, Piyush chose uncertainty.
He had been quietly making early-stage consumer investments on the side, and something fundamental was shifting. India’s per capita income had crossed $2,500, the same threshold where China’s consumption had exploded in 2006. His personal portfolio was showing what he calls “phenomenal traction,” with institutional investors validating each bet. The patterns he’d recognized across 4,000 founder meetings were crystallizing into a systematic framework that didn’t exist elsewhere in the market.
“I had also started doing a bit of early stage investing personally, and mostly all in the consumer space. Whether I was lucky or the timing was right, I was seeing phenomenal traction there as well. And validation of what I was doing through institutional investors coming in in each of those companies.”
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The decision to start Prath Ventures represented more than a career move. It was a bet that India was entering what Piyush calls the “golden era of economic growth,” supported by data showing India’s private consumption had doubled to $2.1 trillion in 2024 from $1 trillion in 2013, growing at 7.2% annually and outpacing the US, China, and Germany. By 2030, the number of Indians earning over $10,000 annually is expected to nearly triple from 60 million to 165 million.
The Education of a Consumer Investor
Piyush’s journey began unconventionally. As finance club secretary at MDI Gurgaon in the late 1990s, he dreamed of landing a prestigious banking job. When First Global, an equity research firm, came to campus for their inaugural recruiting visit, Piyush set his sights on the opportunity despite having secured offers from two other firms.
The pivotal moment came when the placement office sent a note during his interview. Founder Shankar asked what it was about. Piyush had been selected by two other firms and would need to choose one if First Global didn’t make an offer. His response was direct: “This is what I want to do.” Shankar’s reply: “You have the job.”
That first role as a consumer analyst would prove prophetic. Under Devina, an IIM Ahmedabad gold medalist known as a “tough taskmaster,” he learned fundamentals that would shape his investment approach 25 years later.
“Coincidentally, I started as a consumer analyst and I’m now running a consumer fund. So yeah, in between did a lot of stuff.”
The “lot of stuff” included brief stints at Exim Bank (which he knew on “day one” wasn’t a cultural match) and four years at IL&FS managing a ₹10,000 crore lending book. Each role added skills, but the consumer sector kept pulling him back.
The Tano Years: Expensive Lessons and Pattern Recognition
In 2006, Hetul Gandhi offered Piyush a role at Tano Capital, a new private equity fund targeting India’s consumption growth. The decision took “not more than a few seconds.” What followed was a 17-year education that would fundamentally shape his philosophy.
But first came expensive lessons. Tano’s first fund, launched during peak India euphoria in 2006-2007, suffered from what Piyush calls “first time fund mistakes.” Leading economists projected 8-10% GDP growth rates, and Excel sheets showed linear growth curves extending impossibly high.
“I think 2006, actually, there was so much excitement around India. We feel that today there is excitement around India. It’s nothing compared to what it was in 2006, 2007. India was believed to follow the China growth path.”
The team spread investments across infrastructure, industrials, consumer, healthcare, and financial services. Then 2008-2009 happened. Infrastructure companies consuming 30-40% of the fund’s capital “did not return anything at all.” Consumer and healthcare investments, however, performed well despite the macro crisis.
By the second fund, the strategy had been refined. The team focused 95% of capital on three sectors: consumer, financial services, and healthcare. This concentrated approach delivered significantly better results.
The operational involvement that would later define Prath Ventures emerged during these years. Piyush found himself traveling monthly to Italy for an acquisition representing 90% of one company’s deployed capital. Working with a four-person team running a €30 million business taught him efficiency lessons that challenged conventional wisdom.
“We always think about Europeans as someone who do not work hard, they would work only from 9:30 to 6:00. But they were so efficient during that period. We as Indians pride ourselves working 16 hours, 18 hours a day, still we have 10 people in that department and the output is not something to be proud of.”
The Safari Masterclass
Piyush’s investment philosophy crystallized through Tano’s Safari Industries deal. The journey began when they spent significant time evaluating another travel goods brand, only to lose the deal to a competitor willing to pay 2x their valuation.
On the rebound, they met Sudhir Jain, who had just acquired the Safari brand. The background check was impressive: 25 years in luggage, former CEO of VIP Industries where he created substantial shareholder value, and personal wealth from that success. Safari had been stagnant for years, doing ₹60-70 crores annually for a decade despite being listed.
“Safari before he acquired it was completely stagnant for years. It was 60-70 crores every year for the previous decade. And he acquired it, and within a year when we’re talking to him, he’s taking that 60 crores to 150 crores. It was that magical understanding of the space, attacking the low hanging fruits.”
Tano invested at a ₹200 crore valuation when the business was doing ₹150 crores in revenue. What Sudhir had bought was essentially just a brand name. There were “hardly anything in the company - no people, products were completely irrelevant, distribution channels were not well developed, supply chain was irrelevant.”
Today, Safari has a market capitalization of approximately ₹10,500 crores with FY25 revenue of ₹1,772 crores and profit of ₹143 crores. Tano fully exited two and a half years ago, but Piyush continues as an independent director, now nine years after the initial investment.
Safari validated a core thesis: consumer businesses don’t go to zero if managed competently. They capture market share - the only question is how much.
The 40-Parameter Framework
These decades of pattern recognition led Piyush to develop a systematic approach to founder evaluation. The catalyst was a recurring problem: different team members evaluated founders subjectively. Someone would say “the founder was good,” but as Piyush notes, “your grade is different from my grade.”
The solution was to document roughly 40 personality traits and business-critical parameters that provide a common evaluation language.
“We’ve put down lots of personality traits, things that we think are important in terms of developing the business. It’s not that you use all 40 parameters to evaluate everybody. But if somebody is good, he’s good because he’s demonstrating some of these, over-indexed on some of these parameters.”
Consumer orientation tops the list - understanding what consumer need the product solves and why people buy it. Piyush sees many founders obsessed with channels and products while losing sight of this fundamental question.
Category passion ranks equally important because entrepreneurship’s ups and downs require deep motivation beyond economics. The reason to exist in that category must be crystal clear.
Domain knowledge differentiates consumer businesses from pure tech plays. Each category is fundamentally different - why people buy bread differs completely from why they buy fans or travel goods.
The grind factor particularly matters for consumer businesses:
“Consumer businesses are very different from tech businesses. Tech businesses get funded right out of IIT. Whereas consumer businesses - if you have not worked and understood what it means to build a brand, people underestimate the challenges of building distribution, whether online or offline. Superior product just doesn’t cut it.”
The Anti-Spray-and-Pray Model and Current Portfolio
What sets Prath Ventures apart is its deliberately concentrated approach. While typical venture funds make 40-50 investments hoping a few deliver outsized returns, Piyush is building a portfolio of 15-20 companies with deep operational involvement in each.
“We are building a concentrated portfolio. We believe consumer companies don’t go bust if they’re run half decently. If there is a product which is accepted and we are not coming at pre-revenue stages so there is some product acceptance, you basically keep on building levers from there.”
The expected outcome is that 70-80% of portfolio companies will deliver returns, compared to typical VC expectations of 20-30% winners carrying the entire fund.
Assembly, a Delhi-based luggage startup founded in 2019, demonstrates this framework in practice. The company raised $2.1 million led by Prath Ventures in early 2024. One co-founder came from a family manufacturing luggage for major brands, providing deep supply chain knowledge. More impressively, they had achieved over 5x capital efficiency (revenue run-rate divided by total capital invested) when most companies show 1.5-2x.
“We have seen more than a thousand companies in the 16 months evaluating. Our capital efficiency in most companies is like 1.5x, 2x. And a lot of them are less than 1x. But their capital efficiency was more than five X.”
Assembly’s cabin bags retail at ₹6,000, positioned between mass market and ultra-premium - the 20-50% premium sweet spot where Indian consumers demonstrate willingness to pay.
Jimmy’s Cocktails (Radiohead Brands) showcases category expansion strategy. The company raised over ₹35 crores with Prath Ventures leading. Founder Ankur Bhatia had launched Jim Beam in India and spent 10 years with Beam Suntory, while co-founder Nitin Bhardwaj had 20 years in FMCG distribution including 10 years distributing Red Bull.
“Ankur spent 10 years with Beam Suntory on alcoholic beverages side. Nitin had 20 years in distribution, the previous 10 years with Red Bull, North India distribution. So it was very strong founder-market fit.”
Jimmy’s achieved an ₹80 crore revenue run-rate in FY23, is targeting ₹100 crores by FY24, and has expanded from cocktail mixers into energy drinks with their Hustle brand at ₹60, positioned between Sting (₹20) and Red Bull (₹125).
This partnership philosophy extends to transparency. Piyush insists founders share problems early when they can be addressed:
“We know businesses are not made on Excel sheets. So it’s real life. You’ll have challenges which are more and different than what you anticipated. But don’t hide bad news. Say bad news first, share bad news even before you feel the need to share good news because we are partners.”
The India Inflection Point
Piyush’s concentrated consumer approach coincides with structural shifts in India’s consumption landscape. Countries that crossed specific per capita income thresholds experienced accelerated consumption. China’s experience after crossing $2,000 per capita in 2006 provides the playbook - income quadrupled over the next decade, with 15.5% CAGR in air conditioner sales and 10.7x increase in luxury car sales.
India now sits at $2,500+ per capita income. Supporting data shows India’s per capita disposable income growing from $2.11 thousand in 2019 to $2.54 thousand in 2023, with projections reaching $4.34 thousand by 2029.
E-commerce has eliminated traditional distribution barriers, enabling pan-India reach instantly. Marketing has transformed from mass media advertising to digital performance marketing and influencer campaigns. Gen Z consumers, who comprise 52% of India’s population along with millennials, were born into social media and have fundamentally different spending patterns.
“People in their 40s today have heard growing up stories about their fathers and grandfathers having seen real difficulties, poverty in life. Whereas today’s Gen Z - a lot of their economic needs are taken care of, and hence the way they think about consumption, the way they think about spending is very different.”
These structural changes support Piyush’s prediction:
“I believe more than 500 brands in India will do more than 500 crores in business. I grew up in a country which was brand starved. We’re not brand starved anymore, but today every consumer wants brands which are personalized to them.”
Building Prath and Looking Forward
The decision to start Prath Ventures in 2022 came after clarity on three fronts: the India opportunity, his investment approach, and the right partnership. Co-founder Harmanpreet Singh had a similar journey, spending 10-11 years at Multiples doing consumer investing before leaving for the same reason - wanting to invest earlier stage.
“Prath” is a Sanskrit word meaning value creation. The positioning: “first institutional investor with a focus on value creation.”
“Money is deployed to make money, right? Everything else is ancillary. We want to have values which we bring to the table. But money is not invested for show.”
The fund has raised ₹120 crores in its second close as of March 2024, with participation from SIDBI Fund of Funds. Current portfolio includes 9 investments, with 4 new investments in 2025 alone - Nothing Before Coffee ($2.3 million Pre-Series A), Littlebox India (Seed round), and participation in Aukera’s Series B.
For founders, Piyush’s framework offers a roadmap: deep consumer understanding, genuine category passion, partnership-oriented team building, relevant domain experience, and commitment to capital efficiency over growth theater. For investors, his approach demonstrates that different markets require different strategies - consumer businesses benefit from PE-style operational involvement and concentrated portfolios rather than traditional VC spray-and-pray approaches.
As India’s consumption story unfolds, Piyush’s journey from finance-obsessed student to consumer analyst to PE partner to early-stage fund founder represents continuous learning and adaptation. The 4,000 founder meetings weren’t just accumulated experience - they were data points in developing a systematic understanding of what separates consumer business winners from well-intentioned failures.
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