Soch Capital

Soch Capital represents the investing and advisory work of KS Jangbahadur (KS). KS invests personal capital in pre-seed and seed opportunities. He also advises select principal investment firms on potential investments (growth capital and special situations), and companies on fund raising and m&a.

KS has been a member of the board of 10+ companies including Star Health Insurance (NSE: STAR HEALTH), TeamLease (NSE: TEAMLEASE), Bharat Biotech, Merlin Solar (now part of the Ayala Corporation) and was board observer at Epic Sciences.

His sectors of interest are technology, climate change and life sciences.

Soch Capital represents the interests and body of work of KS Jangbahadur (KS). KS is based in Palo Alto and started his career as an investment banker(JPM, CS, UBS), moved to later stage investing in growth equity and special situations (JPM, ICICI Venture) and for the past several years has been working as an advisor and investor with select investment firms and corporates. Areas of interest include technology, climate change and life sciences.

KS has been a member of the board of a number of companies including Star Health Insurance (NSE: STAR HEALTH), TeamLease (NSE: TEAMLEASE), Bharat Biotech, Merlin Solar (now part of the Ayala Corporation) and was board observer at Epic Sciences.

PRE-SEED & SEED INVESTING

Over the past 18 years KS has made pre seed and seed investments entirely using his personal capital. He considers himself fortunate to have invested behind great founders and entrepreneurs. He has a solid investment track record across the 20+ companies in the portfolio: DPI ~ 3X, TVPI ~ 6

CURRENT INVESTMENTS (SELECT)

INVESTMENT EXITS (SELECT)

GROWTH EQUITY

In early 2008, after a 14 year career in investment banking, KS moved back to India to do growth equity at ICICI Venture. Lots of changes: investing vs investment banking, India focus vs largely US and some Europe, and all sectors (finance, general industries, etc.) vs software and tech.

KS was co-head of ICICI Venture’s PE business and a member of the investment committee (IC). He sourced and led ICICI Ventures’s investment in Star Health Insurance and TeamLease, and and was on their board. Both companies ended up building very successful businesses and going public in the Indian stock exchanges.

Star Health ended up being a RTF (return the fund) investment for ICICI Venture and together with TeamLease represented USD 50 mm + of invested capital, and contributed ~5.5X DPI to the LPs of ICICI Fund III.

Special Situations

KS learnt the ropes of special situations investing at JP Morgan’s Global Special Opportunities Group (GSOG) when he led the India office between 2011-2014. A key investment highlight was a $37mm successful unitranche investment in the operating SPV of a gas fired power plant in India.

He also spent two years, between 2015 and 2017, with Altos Capital Partners which was founded by the family offices of Romesh Wadhwani and Ajay Shah where he helped source, execute and manage a venture buyout out of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy process of an NYSE listed company in the climate tech sector and helped execute a venture recap investment in the life sciences sector.

KS is currently an Operating Partner with

INVESTMENT BANKING

KS started his investment banking career in 1994 in what was then known as “emerging markets” with the JP Morgan India JV and Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) and worked in Mumbai, Singapore and HongKong. KS then moved to the Palo Alto office of the CSFB Technology Group (led by Frank Quattrone) in early 1999 where he eventually ran the West Coast Internet Infrastructure banking group. KS went on to join and run Global Software Investment Banking at UBS, based in the San Francisco Office which he continued to do at JP Morgan, up until early 2008. Over these 14 years, KS has helped raise capital and provide m&a advice cumulatively on several billions of dollars worth in transactions.

Startup & VC Advisory

Between 2018-2020, KS was an Advisor with Ajax Strategies which is a climate tech focused venture capital firm. KS’s role included being on the board of a portfolio company, Pinnacle Engines. Between 2020-2022 KS was a Venture Advisor with Neotribe Ventures, where he advised select companies in the portfolio on their capital raising and m&a plans.

Examples of companies where KS was an advisor include CipherTrace (acquired by MasterCard), Fortanix, Gainspeed (acquired by Nokia), Koopid (acquired by DialPad), and Niara (acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise).

* KS does not have a broker dealer license and does not engage with any company or investment firm on that basis

About

Investments

Advisory

Contact

Email: info AT sochcapital DOT com

Palo Alto, CA,

United States