Making Every Day a Monday: Praveen Varshney & Varshney Capital
By: New Business Review
Tags: Vancouver Startups, Social Enterprise, Venture Capital, Technology

Image Courtesy of Praveen Varshney.

Praveen Varshney was born to solve problems. This knack for problem-solving initially pushed him to study Science at UBC, with a hope to work in engineering. However, after failing first-year physics, he felt a bit of a paradigm shift. As he reflected on his love for people and relationships, he saw Commerce as a better option and a natural calling. Today, he has combined that love for people and the ability to solve problems as Director at Varshney Capital Corp, a leading Merchant Banking and Venture Capital firm — in Vancouver. NBR was very fortunate to sit down with Praveen and discuss his vastly interesting philosophy of life and his greatest pieces of advice.

Growing up, Praveen’s two most influential role models were his parents. His father, Hari B. Varshney, (the Business Career Centre at Sauder is named after him), worked in accounting and had his CPA designation. Praveen decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and major in accounting. However, his desire to pursue projects that required problem-solving and thinking outside the box never faltered. He recalls an entrepreneurship course at UBC, his first foray into the field, where you designed a business idea, plan, and pitch. For Praveen, it was very formative in terms of what he wanted to do, but also just fun! However, he did not go on to pursue entrepreneurship immediately; upon graduating he worked at KPMG for five years and earned his CPA designation. A few years later, both Praveen and his father were named CPA Fellows (FCPA), an award for the distinction and honour that they brought to their profession and community.

However, his entrepreneurial instincts continued to grow, so he decided to leave KPMG and create a company with his father and brother. They initially launched a mining company in the Northwest Territories, which went on to become one of the world’s largest and last new diamond mines, Gahcho Kué. The endeavour was taken public and was a tremendous success. This led to starting their next venture: a casino company, Thunderbird Gaming. Once again, the venture was successful, went public and provided capital to fund two more ventures. One of them was Mogo: a fintech company that launched in 2003 and IPO’d on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2015 with a subsequent listing on NASDAQ. Mogo leverages the increasingly popular blockchain infrastructure to enable users to buy bitcoin, offer personal loans, provide identity fraud protection, mortgages, a Visa Prepaid Card, and free credit score with free updates. These subsequently successful ventures offered enough financial freedom for the Varshney’s to create Varshney Capital, their own family firm.

Varshney Capital has built a portfolio with unique breadth: from crypto to resource exploration to compostable, biodegradable patented single-serve coffee pods and real estate, there was no shortage of interesting innovations to discuss with Praveen. He admitted he is no expert in each and every business sector. However, his experience of building companies has given him the foresight to invest successfully in unknown industries by focusing on criteria like strong financial control, qualitative factors (the team), and timing. Firstly, Praveen noted that if a leadership team doesn’t have a strong financial grasp of their company, it’s effectively like “driving a car without any of the instruments and panels, which will ultimately lead to crashing.” Second, his ability to read qualitative factors such as the founder’s vision, passion, and the subsequent team they’ve built is one of the most important factors. Finally, once they’ve analyzed all this, they look at the timing. Praveen admitted that he doesn’t mind being a bit late to an investment opportunity because they can analyze incumbents and tweak the venture’s offering to be more successful in landing customers and partnerships.

On Praveen’s path from a traditional accountant to a prominent serial entrepreneur to an esteemed angel investor, he has reaffirmed and developed many important values that have led to his successes. He spoke to the importance of integrity. For students, he noted that if you ever want to become a leader, “you must develop integrity.” To help build the future of business, he noted leaders must act according to principle and not simply as a result of what a situation provokes, which Praveen noted as especially important in the ambiguous world of entrepreneurship. Beyond that, he discussed the value of a personal brand. For Praveen, building a brand of clarity, consistency, and constancy is vital to ensure we leave the desired impact on our partners, customers and other external parties — if done right, it leads to opportunities as you’re reputation is one of being reliable and dependable, the “go to person” wants on their team.

Within Vancouver, there are few, if any, individuals who have made as much of a social impact through business or daily life. In early 2000, the Varshney’s played a huge role in Victoria-based Carmanah Technologies becoming the largest solar-powered LED lighting company in Canada. Praveen recounted that this venture was life-changing since it was the first time he had positively affected the planet while simultaneously delivering value to shareholders. That awakening has helped shape the Varshney Capital portfolio as it now holds a number of social impact enterprises such as Little Kitchen Academy, a franchise of cooking schools for kids, and NEXE Innovations, an advanced materials company that has developed a plant-based, fully compostable coffee pod for use in Keurig brewing systems. Aside from the obvious tech ventures that have helped drive momentum in Vancouver’s startup ecosystem, Praveen feels that the continued acceleration of the market is largely thanks to such socially-driven businesses that have helped increase the amount of capital available in the market. Further, beyond his financially invested ventures, Praveen spends a tremendous amount of time helping the community by being a partner with Social Ventures Partners Vancouver, a community of philanthropists that catalyze the growth of non-profits via a unique venture model consisting of capacity-building expertise and funding. He’s also involved with numerous other charities such as Room to Read, The Dalai Lama Centre for Peace & Education, Foundations for Social Change, Covenant House and Instruments Beyond Borders.

Praveen and Varshney Capital Corp have become one of the most significant players in Vancouver’s startup ecosystem. They have helped pave a path for many others to follow, particularly by mentoring many entrepreneurs along the way. Ultimately, Praveen has a built career where

“every day is a Monday”: a day full of new ideas, inspiration and opportunity.

He mentioned that while many of his partners are beginning to consider retirement, it is far off for him as he is still having “way too much fun,” which is certainly great news for Vancouver!