I observed that Good Glamm Group has not paid salaries for 2 months.
I noted that the company recently received roughly ≈₹150 Cr from selling Sirona back to its founders.
Hard to ignore this anymore.
Safety incident: a rider and their child were robbed during a BluSmart trip, which I call heartbreaking.
Brand perception trend: BluSmart started out as a better alternative for Uber and Ola, but lately it’s starting to feel like the same old Uber and Ola days.
I evaluated BluSmart in 2019 and found that the unit‑economics didn’t work out: the rides‑per‑day needed to break even were far higher than what the fleet was delivering.
BluSmart needed to hit 13‑15 rides a day per car to break even.
In reality the fleet was stuck at 9 rides per day per car because of charging delays, ops inefficiencies, and no path to scale.
I did not agree to proceed with the deal – the numbers just didn’t add up.
Decision: VCs must institutionalize mandatory reference checks (previous investors, vendors, teammates) as a minimum part of diligence to catch repeat offenders like Rahul Yadav.
Why should VCs mandate reference checks? Because they surface repeat payment‑default patterns that are otherwise invisible.
Pattern: Founder Rahul Yadav walked away with crores at Housing.com, then blew through ₹100 Cr in ad spend at Broker Network and again didn’t pay vendors at Kult after raising $20 M.
I see this as a systemic risk: without reference checks the ecosystem loses vendor trust, employee morale, and ultimately hampers Indian startup health.
I analyzed the risk of founders pledging personal shares as loan collateral, using the Bira 91 case as an illustration.
Share price = ₹100
You have ₹10 L → you can buy 10,000 shares.
Now imagine you already have 50,000 shares (worth ₹50 L).
If the company does well and you exit: ₹50 L becomes ₹2 Cr, you repay the loan, pocket ₹1.5 Cr.
But if the exit is delayed or the business stumbles: you still owe interest. And if liquidity dries up, you risk losing your own company.