Arjun Malhotra: The Contrarian Investor Behind Good Capital's 50x Returns
An in-depth profile of Arjun Malhotra, General Partner at Good Capital. Explore his journey, contrarian investment thesis, and the playbook behind his 50x returns.
In a global startup ecosystem obsessed with "disruption," Arjun Malhotra, General Partner at Good Capital, is making a profoundly different bet. While most of Silicon Valley is built on the idea of cutting out the middleman, Arjun's entire investment thesis is built on empowering them. He believes that in India’s unique “low-trust, high-touch economy,” the path to scale isn’t by replacing the vast network of agents, resellers, and brokers, but by supercharging them with technology. This contrarian insight, forged through personal trial and error, has become the bedrock of one of India's most successful seed-stage venture funds.
This dossier deconstructs the journey and playbook of Arjun Malhotra and Good Capital, revealing how a series of early failures and an "accidental" path into venture capital created a uniquely successful, India-first investment philosophy. Much of the insight is drawn from a candid, deep-dive conversation with Arjun on the Founder Thesis Podcast.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
The Founder's Thesis: An Insider-Outsider Perspective 🌏
Arjun Malhotra's unique worldview was shaped by a combination of a global education and a deep-rooted Indian entrepreneurial spirit. Though from an army family, his primary influence was his first-generation entrepreneur father, who founded Informatics Computer Systems (ICS) with the ambitious vision of making India computer literate. This early exposure to building a business with a broad societal impact left a powerful mark.
This entrepreneurial DNA was paired with a distinct educational journey. At thirteen, Arjun and his late brother and co-founder, Rohan Malhotra, were sent to boarding school in the United Kingdom. Arjun went on to complete his International Baccalaureate from Malvern College before earning a Master's Degree in Economics & International Relations from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
This decade abroad was underpinned by what Rohan once described as an "unwritten pact of building something together in India." It cultivated a distinct "insider-outsider" perspective that became fundamental to Arjun’s approach. His Indian upbringing gave him an intuitive grasp of the country's complex market dynamics, while his time in the UK provided an analytical, outsider's lens. This duality allowed him to see beyond the surface-level inefficiencies of India's intermediary-driven economy and recognize a contrarian opportunity where others only saw a problem to be "disrupted."
“We have never really viewed ourselves as investors but instead as entrepreneurs whose product happens to be capital.”
The "Accidental" Path to Venture Capital 🚀
Arjun’s entry into venture capital was, in his own words, "a little accidental." During his university years, he interned at Capricorn Investment Group in Palo Alto, the private investment fund of eBay co-founder Jeff Skoll. The fund was making pioneering deep-tech investments in companies like Tesla, SpaceX, and Planet Labs.
While surrounded by world-changing hard-tech, Arjun found himself captivated by the parallel revolution unfolding in consumer internet. This was between 2010 and 2013, when platforms like Facebook and Twitter were still in their early scaling days. Armed with this inspiration, he returned to India around 2013 and persuaded his brother to join him, not as investors, but as builders.
The Crucible: Forging a Thesis at Investopad (2014-2019) 🧪
In 2014, the Malhotra brothers launched Investopad with $250,000 of their personal savings. The initial plan was to operate as a "product studio," co-founding companies from the ground up. However, they quickly ran into a fundamental reality.
“We faced an ‘adverse selection problem,’” Arjun explains. “The best entrepreneurs don't ask for permission, they're already doing interesting things.”
Reflecting on their own early product concepts, Arjun is remarkably frank, calling them "terrible ideas, to be honest with you." This humbling experience forced a pivot. To subsidize their efforts, they began operating a co-working space, which transformed Investopad into a vibrant "hub of activity" for the Delhi startup scene. By hosting hackathons, meetups, and nurturing a community, they became a central node in the ecosystem. It was this activity that led to the accidental birth of their investment thesis.
The 50x Portfolio: Proof in a High-Conviction Playbook 📈
Being at the center of this ecosystem gave them unique access to promising founders. Between 2014 and 2018, they made 12 angel investments using their limited personal capital. This constraint forced them to be highly selective and develop deep conviction, a stark contrast to the "spray and pray" model. The results were astounding.
Remarkable Returns: The small, personally funded portfolio achieved an incredible internal rate of return (IRR) of 138%.
Early Cash-Out: It "returned the entire corpus within the first four years" from early acquisitions alone.
Unicorn Hunting: They were early backers of future unicorns like Meesho.
Overall Performance: Today, that blended portfolio stands at 50 times what they invested.
This accidental portfolio was the indispensable proof of concept for Good Capital. It proved that their high-conviction, founder-first, and India-focused approach worked.
Building Good Capital: The Firm's Thesis & Strategy 🏛️
In 2019, the brothers officially launched Good Capital to formalize and scale their strategy. The firm has since demonstrated a focused progression.
Good Capital Fund I (2019): Initially targeting $25 million, the fund was impacted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and closed at $16 million. However, this constraint became a strategic advantage, forcing discipline. Through co-investment vehicles for their Limited Partners (LPs), they ultimately deployed $45 million into the portfolio.
Good Capital Fund II (2023): The firm raised a second fund targeting $50 million with an additional $25 million greenshoe option, doubling down on their thesis.
Good Capital intentionally maintains a concentrated portfolio, making only about seven investments per year and acting as the lead investor in approximately 80% of their deals. Their initial checks typically range from $500,000 to $1.5 million. Their portfolio includes standout companies like simsim (acquired by Google), Orange Health, Solar Square, and Entri.
The Contrarian Playbook: Empowering Intermediaries with AI 🤝
Good Capital’s investment thesis is a direct rebuttal to the standard Silicon Valley playbook. It is built on a nuanced understanding of the Indian economy, which they identify as a "low-trust, high-touch economy" where services and middlemen contribute to over 60% of the nation's GDP.
Good Capital's Thesis: "Instead of pursuing disintermediation—the act of cutting out the middleman—our strategy is to do the opposite. We invest in companies that enable on-the-ground partners to solve this trust deficit by leveraging intermediaries... Recent developments in AI allow us to bridge skill gaps further... AI essentially supercharges these intermediaries, by doing all the work they are not good at."
This focus on AI as an augmentation tool, not a replacement tool, has become increasingly explicit. The firm plans to deploy $25 million from its second fund into AI-focused startups by 2025, seeking founders who intelligently integrate AI to empower intermediary networks in sectors like e-commerce, edtech, healthtech, and cleantech.
The Founder's Mindset: Lessons from the Trenches 🧠
Arjun's leadership style is deeply rooted in his entrepreneurial journey, defined by high conviction, intellectual humility, and resilience. He actively seeks "humble founders on a journey of learning, not those claiming experience," valuing a founder's capacity for grit and adaptation over a polished pitch.
This philosophy was hardened by experience. In a candid reflection, Arjun shared one of his most significant lessons learned:
“The biggest mistake we've ever made has been to get swept away in the excitement around companies and rely on borrowed conviction.”
This admission reveals a core tenet of his decision-making: the necessity of developing a deep, first-principles understanding of an investment, independent of market hype. This journey was undertaken side-by-side with his brother, Rohan, whose tragic passing in 2024 adds a powerful layer of resilience and legacy to Arjun's mission. The "unwritten pact" they made continues, now imbued with the weight of carrying their shared vision forward.
Arjun Malhotra’s story is a powerful testament to the idea that the best strategies are often born from experience, not theory. By choosing to empower India’s unique economic structure rather than disrupt it, he and Good Capital are not just funding companies; they are building a portfolio that reflects a deep, authentic, and contrarian understanding of what it takes to win in India.
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