When Urvashi Baruah applied to MBA programs in 2015, her dream of becoming a venture capitalist was at the core. She was rejected by every school and told that her chances in the venture industry were unrealistic, but she didn't give up.
Eight years later, Baruah, 33, has been promoted to partner at Redpoint. He joined the firm as an associate four years ago and has served as a principal since late 2021. The Silicon Valley-based firm is currently investing from its ninth fund, which is $650 million. Baruah is now one of three partners at the firm that focuses on early-stage deals.
Baruah told TechCrunch that in some ways the business school was right when it told her her goals were unrealistic — she knew it would be hard to break into a relatively small industry with no networks or connections in Silicon Valley, but she's glad she didn't listen to them.
“It didn't dissuade me, but at one point it felt impossible,” Baruah said. “I was far away from the scene. I didn't know the reality on the ground. All I knew was what I read in the newspapers.”
Baruah grew up in Guwahati, a small city by Indian standards, sandwiched between Bhutan and Bangladesh, far from Silicon Valley, where both of his parents ran their own businesses: his father ran a chemical company and his mother designed and sold furniture.
“When I was growing up, my parents would ask me, 'What kind of business do you want to start?' And that's what the most successful people in India were doing,” she says. “They always encouraged me to forge my own path and start my own company. I'd been thinking about it for a long time, but nothing really excited me. If I didn't have an idea that I was passionate about, the next best thing I could do was to work with founders.”
In 2017, after working as a consultant, Baruah applied again to US business schools and got lucky. She got into Wharton and spent every class and extracurricular activity learning all she could about the venture capital world. She spoke to entrepreneurs, developed an investment thesis, and began making pitch calls to venture capitalists.
After about 50 cold calls, she landed an internship at New York-based Primary Venture Partners in 2019. She soon followed that up with an internship at Redpoint, which she turned into a full-time job, where she has been working ever since.
Growing up with entrepreneurial parents, Baruah didn't have much exposure to venture capital, but she believes her upbringing made her a better venture capitalist: Seeing her parents' day-to-day successes and failures taught her how difficult it is to run a business and how to cope when things go wrong, she said.
“They always rose to the challenge and did what was necessary to stay in business,” Baruah said.[They taught me] “The idea is that no matter what the challenges are, you have to keep moving forward, and it's going to be hard. If my company has setbacks, I know that's natural and we can get through them.”
Baruah's portfolio includes Dune Analytics, an Ethereum-focused platform that allows access to on-chain data, Offchain Labs, a startup that helps businesses scale on Ethereum, and The Rounds, a sustainability-focused delivery service. She has two new investments yet to be announced, where she will also sit on the board of directors.
During her first few years as an investor, she learned that the best VCs are flexible and willing to follow the direction the market dictates. She spent her first few years backing blockchain and cryptocurrency companies, but now spends most of her time on AI-powered vertical SaaS startups.
Baruah said he is excited to continue expanding the portfolio and looks forward to this new role as partner and being there for founders when they need help.
“I started in venture capital four years ago and knew nothing,” says Baruah. “Over the last four years, I've gotten better at judging what makes a good company. I'm not perfect by any means, but we have a few more success stories now than when I first got here. That's given me the confidence to take more contrarian bets. In venture capital, it's about believing in things that no one else believes in and doing the right thing.”