Apeca

Prasanna and Apeca identified a massive opportunity in India's SaaS ecosystem. In 1992, there were 200 IT services companies doing $100M in exports; by 2002, there were 8,000 doing $12B. Prasanna saw the same trajectory happening with SaaS in India—a combination of over a million developers in Bangalore alone, fluency in English, and deep expertise in the "service" component of SaaS (integrations, migrations, training, data transformation) that enterprise and mid-market customers require.

Apeca started as a pure accelerator in the years before 2021, providing operational guidance and mentorship without capital. Only after proving they could help founders scale from near-zero revenue without any funding did Prasanna and team decide to add a capital layer. Their first check was written in 2021. By 2022, they had deployed 47 checks of $100K each (roughly $5M total), working with 40 startups. In 2023, they targeted writing 60 new checks.

Apeca's model is deeply hands-on. They spend 50-100 hours per founder helping them transform their business—rewriting websites and copy to appeal globally, repositioning products from India-focused to global-focused, and shifting decision-making frameworks from services businesses to product businesses. One example: a startup that came in at $1,500-2,000 MRR grew to $60,000 MRR through this operational partnership. Most portfolio companies are headquartered in Delaware with Indian subsidiaries, and all are B2B SaaS targeting global customers.

Their portfolio results speak for themselves. Out of their first 10 companies, six crossed $1M ARR; three crossed $5M ARR. For a company valued at $2.5M at the time of investment, reaching $5M ARR at a 5x multiple means a $25M valuation—a 10x return on valuation in about 30% of their portfolio. The key differentiator is their "founder-friendly" terms: founders can choose to raise more equity (which converts Apeca's initial stake into permanent equity and cancels buyback obligations) or bootstrap and repay via revenue share. This appeals to founders who want to maintain control and build profitable, sustainable businesses rather than chase unicorn status.

As of the interview, Apeca has backed 110+ companies through accelerator and investment combined, with 47 having received $100K checks. They've realized four exits, mostly strategic acquisitions, with several portfolio companies worth billions on paper. Two of the three companies that crossed $5M ARR have never raised outside capital—Apeca is their only equity holder. Prasanna is active on Twitter and LinkedIn, participates in events like SaaS Boomi (held in Chennai, March), and continues to operate on a rolling fund model where investors (primarily SaaS founders and the anchor LP Westbridge) wait for exits or revenue repayments rather than receiving quarterly distributions.