Munish Varma

Managing Partner, Americas

Overview

Prior to joining SoftBank, Munish led various large cross-border teams to build profitable business units across multiple asset classes and product areas, as Head of Global Markets, India at Deutsche Bank, and as a member of the Global Markets Asia Pac ExCo. Munish graduated from Mangalore University with an MEng in Chemical Engineering and has an MBA from Cornell University.

Region01

  • Americas

Companies39

  • Behavox
  • Cars24
  • Chime
  • DCG
  • Delhivery
  • Digits
  • DriveWealth
  • Emeritus
  • Energy Vault
  • Eobuwie
  • Ethos
  • Fetch Rewards
  • FirstCry
  • FTX
  • Gympass
  • Human Interest
  • Icertis
  • InMobi
  • Juspay
  • Lenskart
  • Loggi
  • M1 Finance
  • Meesho
  • MindTickle
  • OakNorth
  • Oda
  • OfBusiness
  • Ola
  • Ola Electric
  • Oyo
  • Paytm
  • Policybazaar
  • Polygon
  • Sense
  • Swiggy
  • TabaPay
  • Unacademy
  • Whatfix
  • Zeta

Insights

04
We’re not for everyone, but for the right match—founders with a big vision that’s poised to change the market—we seek to offer partnership and connections, and the ability to really amplify what they are doing.

02  —

What do you bring to your work with founders?

We’re not for everyone, but for the right match—founders with a big vision that’s poised to change the market—we seek to offer partnership and connections, and the ability to really amplify what they are doing. When we partner with a company, we bring significant financial backing to the equation, but I think that the backing that comes from our ecosystem is even more important. We help founders learn from other founders in different parts of the world—people who have similar businesses or have faced and overcome similar challenges.

02  —

You mentioned founders’ vision. What does that mean to you?

It's a certain kind of temperament, a habit of asking, "what's next?" Think of someone who has built a profitable company. For many people that's enough, and that's fine, those just aren't the people who would benefit from what we offer. The people with the big vision would look at that success and think, okay, we're off the ground, now let's go someplace, find uncharted territory. That takes courage, and to do it right, you also need to have integrity.

02  —

One of your focus areas is Fintech. Why gets you excited about that?

Finance has traditionally been too complex for the everyday consumer to understand or benefit from. Fintech is changing that, with simple applications, better user interfaces, and intuitive human language instead of financial jargon. It's also lowering the financial bar for investment. It used to be that you'd need at least $10,000 before a personal banker would even talk to you. Now people with $50 can be part of the financial world. That democratization is very exciting.

02  —

What inspires you most, outside of your work?

I have two boys, and I think it's my job as a parent to inspire them, by living my life with optimism and integrity. I want my boys to see that trying and failing is much better than not trying at all. I want to be part of what's good in the world, and I have learned not to sweat the small stuff anymore. I hope that's something I can inspire in my boys.

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