Kaushik Subramanian
Venture capitalist, product person
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About
I am on Chapter 3 of my career:Chapter 1 was learning consumer goods businesses in Asia, and learning how sales and marketing is done at L'OrealChapter 2 was learning silicon valley style product leadership and marketing:
- At Stripe, where I built a $XB profitable business in FX/Multicurrency, and led several product teams and initiatives across Stripe Connect, invoicing and monetization
- At Meta, where I grew its ad network to a multi billion dollar business by changing the plumbing of the ad tech industryCurrently, I am on Chapter 3. This is as a Partner at EQT Ventures, Europe's largest early stage fund. I invest primarily in product led technology businesses, and am biased towards fintech.I studied computer engineering, marketing, later an MBA and went to finishing school at McKinsey so I can confidently speak in threes.
Portfolio
| Company | Invested | Today | ? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payrails | Lead, Seed | Series A | Payments for enterprises |
| Stacks | Lead, Pre Seed | Seed | AI native financial close |
| Paid.ai | Lead, Pre Seed | Seed | AI Agent Management |
| Payflows | Angel, Pre Seed | Series A | AI native Finance OS |
| Fermat | Angel, Pre Seed | Series B | AI native commerce |
| Relay | Angel, Pre Seed | Series A | Logistics |
| Otera | Angel, Pre Seed | Series A | Agentic Automation |
I write about tech, careers, product management and in an earlier life, consumer goods. Here are some examples:
Longer reads:
CFO's are facing a moment of crisis
Stablecoins - making financial services internet native
1 year in VC
How to write a manager manual
How to write a user manual for yourself
How to quit your job with grace
What its like to leave McKinsey
Short Reads (<2 mins):
How apps make money
Good product counsel vs Great product counsel
Good feedback vs bad feedback
The big shiny thing problem
How to have great meetings
How to drive influence without authority
On Metrics
Strategy vs narrative framing
How to scale when you're not a manager
Podcasts:
Venture Europe - Building multi billion $ businesses, 2023
Sifted - Decision making in uncertain times, 2023
Blume Ventures - How to build empowered product teams, 2022
Techstars - Crafting succesful products, 2021
Indian Silicon Valley - Navigating a career in tech, 2022
Startup Operator podcast, 2021
Product Summit Talk, 2020
Keynote at Facebook f8, 2019