Most brands don't get to grow up in public. Ours did.

Indian VCs started as the simplest thing imaginable: a list I shared over WhatsApp, helping founders figure out which venture funds might actually be right for them. No grand brand, no strategy — just something genuinely useful, passed hand to hand in the startup community. Back then it was casual by design: our friendly neighbourhood VC community.

But useful things grow. More founders showed up. More feedback came in. The list became a directory, the directory became a platform, and the platform quietly became something the ecosystem now treats as infrastructure — a verified, searchable map of venture funds by stage, sector, and cheque size, with tools, LP data, and partnerships on top. Today we describe ourselves, accurately, as the operating infrastructure for India's venture capital ecosystem.

The problem with growing up in public is that your old clothes stop fitting. That's where this project started.

Why our old brand stopped working

When a brand built for one job ends up doing ten, the seams show. For us, the growth created a very specific strain. It was getting chaotic. It wasn't clear anymore. People were genuinely confused about what we were. The casual, community-first identity that had been perfect for a WhatsApp list couldn't carry the weight of a platform now serving founders, funds, and LPs across an entire ecosystem. There was more information than ever, and no coherent place — or brand — to hold it.

There was a bigger realisation underneath the operational one. India's venture ecosystem is not a small story — it's one of the largest after the US and China, as large as the whole EU. We were increasingly showing up on global stages, partnering with forums like SuperReturn, hosting people the calibre of Vinod Khosla. You can't stay as a playful community when you're standing on those stages. We needed a tone change, and global storytelling — because the name we represent deserves to be represented properly.

That was the brief, really: take everything we'd become, condense it into one clear place, and give it a brand serious enough for a global stage — without losing the trust we'd earned as a community.

Why did we choose Everything Design for Branding and Website?

I'd worked with agencies and vendors before, so this decision came down to three things, and I'm clear about the order. 

First, craft — whether they can actually deliver high-quality output. I love design; I love craft. Very rarely do you find people who take real pride in it. Second, trust and relationship: I work with people I know I can trust. (I'd known Mejo for years, going back to his earlier design-studio days.) And third, the practical stuff — timeline and feasibility. When it came to our brand, it was an easy call: prioritise people I trust, who are known for the craft. We partnered with Everything Design.

The workshop, and the idea everything hung on

Everything Design didn't start with a logo. They started with a workshop designed to get the truth out of me — and honestly, that's the part I keep coming back to. It was intense and genuinely interesting. It forced me to think deeply about how I felt about certain things, to organise my thoughts and connect the dots.

Out of that came the idea the whole brand would hang on: Indian VCs as a bridge — the connective tissue between founders and funds, and between India and the global venture stage. When I showed the concept to a few friends, the reaction was immediate: this is really cool.

From there, the brand identity took shape — a bold, distinctive system built on a confident cream-and-dark palette and a typographic voice that said "serious business" rather than "friendly neighbourhood." What the launch film would later call "a look rooted in simplicity, yet carrying deep authority, serious intent, and an enduring vision."

And here I'll be honest. At the start, I wasn't sure. When people do something creative, something out of your comfort zone, you feel that discomfort — is this working out? That was there. Then came the flip. It wasn't one dramatic moment; it was a series of small ones. I started using the new colours and type in everyday internal communication. After a week, I tried going back to a plain font and a regular colour — and I couldn't. It was like you're used to working in the dark, and suddenly someone turns on the light. That's the moment I felt: okay, they did a good job. The brand, the colour — it's great.

The website: a "Wikipedia of VC funds" that feels effortless

If the brand had to feel global, the website had to feel useful. Our audience is founders trying to find the right investors, fast. My brief to the team was uncompromising: a very functional website, top-notch, clean, straight value-add.

That's what they built — and the reception was immediate. Even in our LinkedIn comments, people kept saying it was the cleanest, simplest, most functional website. It's so fast, so snappy. Once we launched, so many people said it that I realised, okay, it's genuinely good.

The important part is what happened beneath the compliments. We track our analytics, and the redesign moved the numbers that matter. Average session time, usually around a minute to ninety seconds, climbed to roughly two-to-two-and-a-half minutes. The heat maps told an even better story: with ten-to-fifteen data points per fund, the new layout guides people straight to the three or four that actually drive a decision. People are getting the information faster, easier, and more productively. For us, that's the whole game.

The launch film: one shot, zero corrections

By the time we reached the brand launch film, my anxiety had fully turned into trust. I figured they'd do a good job — I didn't have to think about it. They shared the script and concept, produced the film, and sent it over before launch. It was one shot. Perfect. We had literally no corrections.

Then the film did what a launch film is supposed to do — and it put our whole story into words:

"India has been building ideas, growing in ambition and capital at scale. But progress demands more than momentum. It needs structure, intent, connection — a shared ecosystem. This needed a simple representation. That's when we partnered with Everything Design, a branding agency who gave our vision an identity rooted in quiet strength. A bridge that connects startups to funds, ambition to global investments. A look rooted in simplicity, yet carrying deep authority, serious intent, and an enduring vision. This is Indian VCs."

After it went out, a lot of people DM'd me — the branding is crazy, how much did you spend? And I'll admit I told the team what is probably the biggest compliment I could give: this is so good, I think I have to email my investors, because they're going to be worried I spent a bomb here.

What actually changed — beyond the pixels

Here's the detail that makes this more than a pretty rebrand. We didn't change our content, our tone of voice, or what we published. The only thing that changed was the branding. And yet the perspective around us shifted — that's real.

It showed up as inbound. After the launch, people reached out proactively — can we co-create something, do something together? Stakeholders, friends, other people wanting to work with us on events, content, new initiatives. I can attribute that directly to the branding.

The internal shift was just as real. What had started as a side-of-desk community effort now felt, to all of us, like a serious business building an ecosystem. It grew on us fast. This is how it should be. (And yes — my wardrobe has quietly started drifting toward pearl-cream and dark. The brand got into everything.)

A note to other founders

Venture capital is a peculiar branding challenge. You're speaking to founders, LPs, and peers all at once — and all three are unusually good at spotting anything that feels like fluff. Craft isn't a nice-to-have here; it's the credibility signal.

That's the space Everything Design has built real fluency in — they work across a lot of the ecosystem, with funds and platforms including Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India), Stellaris Venture Partners, BEENEXT, Trifecta Capital, and Social Alpha. What I'd tell any founder is what I experienced: they treat it as a partnership, not a transaction. Whenever our scope shifted or something needed another pass, there was never a "that's not in scope." They just did it, warmly. That's rare, and it's why I'll work with them again — and why I recommend them to my VC friends and startup founders without hesitation.

If you're thinking about your own brand or website, look at Everything Design's venture capital design and website work, or the way they wrote up our project — then just talk to them.

If I had to sum up the whole experience in a line: it was fun, and it was good. For someone who cares this much about craft, that's the version of high praise that actually counts.

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