Motherland Experience Design

Lightspeed India Partners 2018

Insight ≥ The Venture Capital ecosystem is an exciting, headline-grabbing space filled with unicorns and revolutionaries. Lightspeed India is somewhat of an anomaly in this world – they prefer to work deep behind the scenes with their partner enterprises, far from the glare of publicity. While this model has resulted in a stellar track record, Lightspeed India’s understated approach to self-promotion has one major drawback: new entrepreneurs tend to flock to the VC brands that make the most marketing noise. The challenge was to make Lightspeed India more visible, and we had to do it without going against the monastic culture of the firm. The solution was a typical Lightspeed move: host an annual training workshop featuring the best minds in the business – but with zero strings attached for the participants.

Motherland co-developed a brand new program with Lightspeed India: Extreme Entrepreneurs, a new-age business training series for emerging startups without any vested interests, stakes or cash handouts. EE comprises of an intensive 6-week training period for shortlisted companies that includes masterclasses from tech titans and startup founders, 1:1 mentorship from a Lightspeed investment partner, and tactical workshops. Learnings from these sessions are then distributed via a live, high-engagement social media calendar to benefit the larger startup ecosystem. Motherland also worked with Lightspeed to manage brand and social strategy, design, application processes, and on-ground support. The program’s second edition was held in New Delhi in 2019. There were 900 applicants (up from 350 in 2018) – of which 10 teams graduated as Extreme Entrepreneurs.