The Bridge Builder: How Anand Prasanna Found India's $10M Revenue Gap
Iron Pillar's Managing Partner on building a growth-stage VC firm by filling the hole others ignored
March 2020. The venture capital world was in free fall. Every fund worth their term sheet was sending “Black Swan” memos, telling founders to cut burn rates and extend runways. Anand Prasanna did the opposite. He raised $45 million.
“While some may see this as a formidable challenge, we see this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to add fuel to our well performing portfolio companies,” he said at the time. This wasn’t recklessness. It was the logical conclusion of a thesis Anand had been building since 2016: that India’s venture ecosystem had a structural gap, and he could build an entire firm to exploit it.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
The Missing Middle
The Indian VC market looks like an hourglass. There’s abundant seed capital at the top and late-stage money at the bottom, but almost nothing in the middle. Iron Pillar was purpose-built to fill this gap.
There’s a lot of early stage funds, very few growth stage funds. By the time you get to a growth stage, maybe only 20% of the people who got an angel check actually are in a position to even fight for a growth check.
The math is brutal. Only 30% of angel-funded companies reach seed stage. Only 30% of those reach Series A. By Series B or C, the survivors are battle-tested but often stranded. Early-stage funds that backed them are focused on their next batch of seed investments. Global crossover funds have moved to later stages or pulled back entirely.
Iron Pillar targets companies at $4 million to $10 million in annual recurring revenue with initial checks of $10 million to $15 million. The firm aims for ownership stakes of 10% to 30%, enough to matter.
We don’t want to be buying a ticket in a bus for a ride. You’ve got to be part of the navigation team rather than just a ticket sitting in the back enjoying the ride.
From Shanghai to Series B
Anand’s career arc reads like a deliberate accumulation of skills needed for growth-stage investing. After starting at McKinsey, he joined Sequoia Capital India in 2006-08. But India was still subscale. So he moved to China, leading Asia investments for Morgan Creek from Shanghai between 2012 and 2015.
The timing was critical: 2007 was when China hit $3,000 per capita income, exactly where India stands today.
I was like, hey, look, next decade I can learn things here which I can probably apply in India.
By 2015, when 4G arrived in India and data costs collapsed, the opportunity was clear. Indian SaaS companies like Zoho were scaling. The Series B funding gap was widening. Iron Pillar launched in 2016 with a simple thesis: build a specialized firm that only does growth capital, and bring global go-to-market networks that early-stage funds typically can’t provide.
August 2025: Two Exits, Two Paths
This year delivered the proof. In August, Iron Pillar exited two portfolio companies via completely different routes.
Bluestone Jewellery went public on Indian exchanges, with Iron Pillar realizing a 5.6x average return across a pre-IPO secondary sale (₹103 crore to Peak XV and 360 One) and the IPO offering (₹67.9 crore). The omnichannel jewellery brand proved that domestic consumption can scale profitably and exit locally.
In the same month, Vyome Therapeutics listed on Nasdaq via a reverse merger, becoming the first India-origin, IP-driven life sciences firm to list on a major U.S. exchange. The biotech exit validated that capital-intensive, R&D-led companies can be built in India and exit globally.
The dual exits weren’t accidents. They represent Iron Pillar’s core discipline: optionality in exit strategy based on what each company is building.
The India Moment and the Hard Truths
Anand’s macro thesis is built on a structural difference between India and other emerging markets. While China, Korea, and Japan grew through exports and infrastructure (60-70% of growth drivers), India’s growth is 60% driven by domestic private consumption.
US in 1959 built for US because they have a big domestic market. Once you build economies of scale, you actually can win beyond your country also. India have that today.
The numbers back this up. India is the fastest-growing major economy. Per capita income stands at around $2,900 today and is projected to grow significantly in the coming decade. The domestic consumption economy, currently at $2.5 trillion, is expected to reach $4.4 trillion.
But Anand doesn’t traffic in hype. When asked about India’s 100+ unicorns, he estimates 30% are overvalued relative to what public markets will pay.
I may get a lot of hate mails after this, but that’s what I actually feel.
The 2025 venture capital market has created a “flight to quality” that validates his focus. Overall VC funding to Indian startups dropped 18% in the first nine months of 2025. But seed funding fell 31% while growth-stage funding rose 18%, with median check sizes up 14%. The market is consolidating capital exactly where Iron Pillar operates.
On AI, Anand is similarly direct.
AI theme in our view, honestly, is overhyped at this point of time. A lot of money is going to get destroyed in the current AI hype cycle.
But the AI frenzy creates opportunity elsewhere. Non-AI companies building fundamental businesses are getting better valuations because capital is chasing the shiny object.
The 444 Process
Iron Pillar’s discipline is mathematical. The firm reviews 400 companies annually, evaluates 40 deeply, and invests in four. Since founding, it has raised approximately $450 million across Fund I ($90 million, 2018), a top-up fund ($45 million, 2020), Fund II (with a $129 million Global Cloud Fund component, 2021-2023), and co-investment vehicles.
The firm’s “4-T framework” filters for Team (experienced founders who’ve survived near-death experiences), Technology (potential to be #1 or #2 in category), Traction (sub-six-month CAC payback, 50-100% growth), and TAM (not today’s market, but what it can become).
We have a saying: you sit around and say, that’s an absolutely great idea, but we are not going to do it. That is actually discipline.
It’s discipline that lets you raise $45 million when the world is panicking. It’s discipline that lets you pass on unicorns that don’t fit your model. And it’s discipline that, in August 2025, delivered two public exits through two completely different paths.
The gap Anand identified in 2016 is still there. But now, there’s a bridge across it.
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