A portfolio in five plates
Raghav
Agrawal
Hi, I'm Raghav. I'm a second-year student. I built the sourcing engine a VC fund now uses, resold sneakers and ran a dropshipping store before that, and I want to build a fund of my own.
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Hello
I am a highly ambitious second-year student at IIM Bangalore & Masters' Union, studying business, who loves to evolve, adapt, and take risks to win big.
I was born in a small city, Nagpur, into a business family.
Recently, I've been spending most of my time trying to make it big in venture capital. This summer I interned at Audacity Venture Capital and took a front-row seat at how a VC works and generates DPI, spilling my contributions into everything from sourcing to fundraising. One output I consider of high value is the set of tools I built, which the fund now uses to find companies; they also extended their hands to keep me for six months instead of three. Before that I ran three (maybe more) small businesses, the first one when I was sixteen.
Outside work (and inside too), I consider myself a jack of all trades: I play almost every sport better than average, sing, play the guitar, and also train in MMA.
You can reach me at raghavmanojagrawal@gmail.com, or on LinkedIn.
Plate I: How it started
It started with sneakers, at sixteen.
PlugWalk
I started reselling sneakers to people my age in Nagpur. Something I did only because I liked it, with no certainty of making money, ended up covering my own expenses for a couple of months (₹50k profit in the first month).
I found the right suppliers and resellers, built relationships with them, and once the supply chain was ready I talked about it everywhere: family, friends, acquaintances, even people I had never spoken to. That word of mouth got me my earliest customers. Then I launched on Instagram and sold quite a few pairs at small profits.
I closed it after a couple of months, only because my board exams were coming up.
Moko, the dropshipping store
In my first year of college I started Moko, a dropshipping store for crochet flowers and accessories. Same way as PlugWalk: I noticed what people my age were buying, found suppliers who would ship directly, and put up a store. I ran the ads and handled the returns myself, and in about six weeks it had done close to ₹2 lakh.
Then online sales slowed, and I did not want to sit and wait for the ads. So I took the flowers offline: flea fairs, colony pop-ups, hostels, anywhere people would stop and look. I closed it when the margin stopped making sense for the time it took.
Madhusudan Packwell
That winter I worked at Madhusudan Packwell, a packaging company in Nagpur, with one job in my head: bring in business that was not there before.
I found and closed an anchor contract with a publicly listed company on my own, first call to signed order: 50 tons a month, about ₹75 lakh a month.
Plate II: This summer, at a VC fund
How to become a venture capitalist?
Haha, kidding. It's just my story.
Investments team / June to September 2026
How I got in
I always wanted a professional base sorted while I waited for the thing that clicks, the one I'd start on my own. Venture felt like the only path built for me, so I went after it in first year itself.
What I did
After I got in, I knew sourcing would be the majority of my work, and I was genuinely not confident. The problem at the fund was simple: most of the deal flow was warmly generated, and the scouting was a little weak. So I thought, why not make the most intelligent thing I know assist me? So I built six agents that read GitHub, LinkedIn, X and Hugging Face for the fund, and a radar that tracks every dollar deployed, for our intel. And that turned into a deal for the fund, the thing I am most proud of.
The deal flow, in numbers
What I learnt
Two things matter most in venture, more than the models and the memos: risk appetite, and the self-confidence to hold a view when everyone in the room says you're wrong. Then come connections. The engine finds the company; a person gets you the meeting.
I learnt all of this the most human way you can: sitting in the calls, asking the obvious questions, getting corrected by people who knew better, and coming back the next Monday.
Plate III: What I believe
Two things I believe in.
Hard work beats everything, including talent. I realised this when people who were way behind me in a sport turned out to play for the country, which I could have done too, but couldn't, just because I decided to leave the sport and hop into another one. I realised working hard would take you further than just being gifted.
Dream as big as you can, and then believe like you're destined to achieve that. Honestly, there's no story behind this one. I've dreamt big since I was a kid, and I still do. I feel like these dreams, and the belief that comes with them, were put inside me by God. They're meant to happen for me. They're destined.
There are so many things and beliefs I carry. These are the two. I'd love to share more when we meet, hopefully.
Plate IV: Along the way
Everything else, in one place.
Wins
- Symbiosis Business Conference: Winner and Best Delegate in a capital-allocation and bidding simulation. 50+ delegates
- International Award for Young People: Bronze, the Duke of Edinburgh's award as it is known outside India.
Leading
- Masters' Union Finance Club: ran the Finance-as-a-Career vertical and brought MD-level speakers from JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to campus. 150+ students
- Manzil Foundation, Head of Volunteer: menstrual-hygiene drives, and reflective collars on stray animals so they aren't hit at night. 100+ collars
- Under-19 basketball: captain of the school team, point guard.
Learning
- Masters' Union × IIM Bangalore: UG Programme in Technology & Business Management, Gurugram; BBA in Digital Business & Entrepreneurship. 2025 to 2029
- Bocconi University: Private Equity & Venture Capital (fund life cycle, DCF and multiples, IRR and MOIC).
- Bloomberg Market Concepts: markets, economics, fixed income and equities, on the terminal.
Also
- Podiums in five athletics events. Trains MMA. Sings and plays guitar. Excel and valuation.
Plate V: Where this is going
The plan from here, in four steps.
Complete and ace what I started
First, the three months at Audacity (till February 2027). I want to leave having deeper knowledge, deeper connections and one more deal from me, just like I got one in the first three months, but faster.
Go deeper
Next summer, one more VC internship, but at a better and a bigger fund: a tier-one or a tier-two fund, depending on the learning comparison. The point of both is the same: to know the VC world inside out, down to how a fund is actually run. Before the next summer, the goal is to also upskill tenfold with real mentorship.
The turning point
I consider this part of the future plan to basically change my life, and it's the Horowitz Andreessen Academy, and a move which gets me closer to becoming the greatest. And that move has always been the ambition. Sooner rather than later, someday I will move to the US, because in my view, every great thing is either from the US or for the US. I consider the Academy to be the place where my dreams would be fostered and amplified: through the environment and the acceleration it provides, and more importantly through proximity of building things with like-minded people.
Start the fund
While or after that, the ultimate goal is to start something of my own, most likely a fund: betting on what's next, moving faster than everyone else while beating the odds and the market, with everything I do.
