Riya Dhankar

Building I Fashion/design girlie turned VC investor and now building I Bridging my creative and capital worlds

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

Does anyone know how to get @X to delete an account that you have been locked out of?
Any help would be appreciated 🤳

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

@michelleefang Yess 🫶

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

Taste requires a great deal of experimentation and exploring, which is probably the reason why it can never be taught, but acquired!

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Everytime I get mad at people in the cheap seats criticizing founders in the arena, I remind myself of what Giannis said. Arguably my favorite response to a reporter ever.

[Aakanksha @aakancvedi]

Something strange is happening in India's stock markets

In 2025, 63% IPO money raised didn't go to companies, but went to promoters and private equity

And this is not by accident, I spent weeks digging SEBI filings to understand how IPOs are rigged, here's what I found

1/12

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

truly exciting to think about the opportunities being created in this space

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

AI may be making businesses more efficient, but it’s also creating a whole diff category of anti-AI companies:

- IRL experience
- finding value in boring business like plumbing, carpenters
- increased appreciation for skilled arts and crafts/vintage finds

and so much more..

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

I failed to mention that this works much more effectively when you are moving. So on subways, elevators, escalators, airplanes, buses, and even walking down the street, it is most effective.

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

There’s a huge opportunity in solving this problem:

The friction of home ownership vs. renting.

When you rent, you have a single point-of-contact for all problems. When you own, you have to somehow stay on top of the long list of recurring and one-off maintenance things.

I’d gladly pay $500+ per month to have 24/7 access to a “home manager” who could be the single point-of-contact for my home.

• Schedules all recurring services
• Coordinates all one-off services
• Consolidates all service costs into one bill

It’s probably a local/regional business (probably hard to coordinate the service provider relationships at scale), but a huge opportunity nonetheless.

Could be a franchise model with software at top and local franchises.

It solves a real home ownership pain point, so I’d bet a young hustler could go door to door and probably sell 100 houses at $500 per month over a single weekend…

I’m sure there are some people trying to do this, but I haven’t ever been pitched on it for my homes, so it clearly hasn’t scaled yet.

It feels similar to the local/regional pest control business opportunity that has now become pretty saturated.

What am I missing?

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

The learning curve of using vibe coding tools as a non-tech person is still so high.
Any company that is going to solve/reduce this gap efficiently is going to win big!

Think about the companies that made smartphone adoption easier, it’s a similar parallel playing out here.

[Pratik Poddar @pratikpoddar]

Beautiful note by Warren Buffett in his final letter to shareholders! Worth reading a few times!

[Rajat Piplewar @rajatpiplewar]

Starting up comes with an automatic 10-point IQ drop. Smart people make dumb decisions all the time.

[Rohit Mittal @rohitdotmittal]

tracking the PEfication of VC

Funds raised or deployed for AI-enabled buyouts:
- General Catalyst: $1.5B creation fund
- Thrive: actively rolling up (Savvy Wealth $72M)
- Khosla: exploring deals
- 8VC: multiple deals done
- Slow Ventures: active
- Bessemer: backing accounting roll-ups

Portfolio companies doing buyouts:
- Long Lake (GC): $670M for HOA roll-ups
- Titan (GC): $74M for IT services
- Dwelly (GC): UK property lettings
- Accrual (GC): accounting firms
- Savvy Wealth (Thrive): wealth advisors
- Crete (Thrive): accounting firms

sectors getting rolled up:
- call centers
- accounting/tax firms
- property management
- wealth management
- IT services
- homeowners associations

thesis: buy at 3-4x EBITDA, inject AI, scale to 20x+ valuations

VCs pushing down from growth stage into buyouts

what are others that I missed?

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

If you pay attention you might learn more about consumer behavior from observing social media interactions than reading an industry report

[Yash Garg @YashGargK]

Currently in image generation, only @midjourney has moat

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

@nikunj It’s an interesting read @nikunj I’m curious to know if you think belonging is a necessity at all or not? Because even for those changing the world belonging may look different but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist for them too

[Ishan Goswami @TheIshanGoswami]

the fact no one knew Zohran Mamdani a year ago and today he is the Mayor of New York

is all you need to know that you can change your life in an year if you really want it

(this is a motivational post for my techbros and not at all political)

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

Why do vibe coding tools still feel like they were made for those with coding experience or technical backgrounds

[Riya Dhankar @riya_dhankar]

Couldn't agree more @anuradha_mb

[Anuradha Agarwal @anuradha_mb]

My experience and study says that the most defensible startups in India aren't tech companies, but the system-change companies that happen to use tech.

I say so because the real innovation isn't in the elegance of the code, but in the gritty, painful process of wrestling a chaotic, offline world into a digital framework.

That’s where the true value is unlocked.

Think about it. You can build the slickest agri-tech platform, but it’s useless if you haven’t figured out how to deal with fifty different mandi agents, each with their own unwritten rules, or how to assure a farmer his payment will arrive on time when he has only ever dealt in cash.

The app is the last mile; the first thousand miles are about building trust and processes where none existed.

This is what I call inheriting the 'entropy'.

When a founder builds a layer on top of a broken market - be it logistics, lending, or healthcare - they don't just get a market opportunity; they inherit decades of manual workarounds, systemic fraud, and opaque local regulations.

Cleaning this up is the real moat.

Anyone can copy your UI, but they can't copy the years of operational muscle you built navigating this mess.

This is why many pure software plays struggle here. They try to impose a perfect, sterile software logic onto an imperfect, messy reality.

The winners are those who embrace the mess.

They build for India as it is, not as they wish it to be.

They understand that the 'product' is not just the app; it's the entire stack, from the tech to the on-ground agent network that ensures the last-mile delivery actually happens.

This is why when a founder pitches me a beautiful app, I'm always looking for something more.

I'm looking for the obsession with fixing the underlying broken system. Because that is the real, unassailable competitive advantage.

That is the path to building something truly monumental in India.

What do you think? Do share below in the comments. I have started to share my learnings as a VC more proactively here, with a note coming out every morning 8.30am. And I would love to get inputs.

Thanks,
Anuradha | Dexter Ventures

[Anushka @Kulfei]

this entire campaign is a case study on how hiring great creators, writers and designers can make you win