It was before the pandemic made virtual meetings popular, so getting on a video call in 2014 was intimidating. But what had to be done had to be done. A second later, I fired up the WebEx app and saw Raj Sheth’s smiling face staring back at me.
At the time, Raj was the CEO of Recruiter Box, and I approached him to contribute to iSpirt. Raj and I had been formally introduced, but we had never met. Hence, it was extremely unusual that our first conversation would be a fundraising one.
My VC and founder friends tell me that fundraising is an art more than a science. You must feel your way through conversations, read microexpressions, and understand the individual and their motivations. I had all of this in mind.
But five minutes into the meeting, Raj had agreed to support the mission of making India a product nation and donated Rs 4 lakh.
This was not part of the script.
Leaning back in my chair, I wondered whether I was a genius at fundraising or had met a unique individual. So, I decided to do some digging. I asked friends and colleagues: Who is Raj Sheth, the person? And the stories started to pour in.
One said, “I was in the US for SaaStr, and Raj invited me home for snacks and tea.”
“He lives in the US, but his heart is Indian,” said another.
“There is nothing he believes in more than India and her founders,” said a third.
They all spoke effusively of Raj’s generosity, which confirmed two of my theories: I am not a genius at fundraising, and Raj is unique. What makes Raj unique? For me, he cannot let go of his India dream.
When founders move overseas, they often insist that it is for a short time, but the ease of living keeps them there, not for Raj. Raj thrives in the abstract. When his stint with Recruiter Box ran out, he was back in India. He built and sold companies in the US but always returned home.
Every time he returned, he threw himself deeper into the founder community, trying to help them with everything from hiring to GTM. He opened his playbook to anyone who asked. He empathised with founders trying to find themselves as people and entrepreneurs. Often, even if he were in a different time zone, he would be up late in the night, talking to founders and helping them solve significant, complex problems.
That dedication to paying it forward is why, at every SaaSBoomi social or event, he attracts founders who crowd him, trying to get a little piece of his knowledge.
But Raj’s ambitions are much broader than being able to help a handful of founders in India. During a deeply personal conversation, he once told me his dream was to build a city for founders. A place where they could not just access cutting-edge technology but also use it to create large solutions that would solve essential human problems. That dream led him to form Inuka Capital, a unique VC investing in unglamorous businesses that can be transformed through AI. It’s an exciting space, which I find very interesting.
More personally, Raj has been a silent but strong presence in my life. Over the years, as we spent more time together, we found similarities in how we looked at life. I remember, a few years ago, when I was toying with the idea of joining SaaSBoomi in a permanent role, I spent hours at a Starbucks in Mumbai, hunched over empty coffee cups, trying to analyse how I felt, not the opportunity that lay ahead, but just how I felt.
I never felt so seen.
Thank you, Raj, for always helping me and our community feel seen. There are very few of you around.
