Real assets, patient capital — a self-made entrepreneur's view on investing
Why my capital sits in the things India structurally needs — and almost never in things that promise to disrupt them.
I have never been an early-stage technology investor. I haven't backed a startup hoping it gets acquired. I haven't picked stocks. The capital I've allocated has gone to a small number of operating businesses I either run or sit close to — Sahayog Energy, VVP Solar, V.V. Patel & Co., Sahayog Ferti Chem. The thesis behind this allocation is unfashionable, and I want to share it because I think more Indian wealth should sit in real assets than in the public-market and venture portfolios it tends to default to.
The bias: things, not narratives
I want to own things that exist physically. A solar panel installed on a roof. A bag of fertilizer that goes onto a field. A warehouse full of distributed inventory. A manufacturing line that produces an item someone in India buys next week. When the asset is physical and the customer is paying for it monthly, the business model is honest. When the asset is intangible and the customer is paying for it 'eventually', the business is harder to understand and harder to value.
This is not a critique of technology — technology businesses can compound enormously — it's an acknowledgement of where my operating edge actually is. I know real-asset categories. I don't know what makes a marketplace business defensible. So I own real assets.
The horizon: longer than most
My investing horizon is roughly two decades. Not because I'm patient by temperament — I'm not — but because the categories I'm in compound slowly. Sahayog Energy isn't going to be ten times its current size in three years; it will get there in eight or ten. The fertilizer business doesn't fivex in a quarter. Distribution businesses don't have product-led-growth curves. They have dealer relationships that strengthen over years.
If the holding period is two decades, the entry valuation matters far less than the operating discipline. I pay less attention to whether I'm investing at 1x or 1.3x annual cash flow and far more attention to whether the operating team can execute. That weighting is the opposite of what venture funds optimize for, and it's deliberate.
Multi-sector — by design
The four ventures I'm associated with span renewable energy, solar manufacturing, agri-input chemicals and trading. That looks diversified — but it's actually one bet, restated four ways: India needs more of certain things, and the businesses that deliver them well will compound for decades. Each venture is a different physical category that India has structural under-supply in. The breadth is deliberate; the throughline is also deliberate.
What I won't invest in
I won't invest in categories where the product is undifferentiated and the moat is marketing spend. I won't invest in businesses whose unit economics only work at IPO scale. I won't invest in financial instruments I can't read on one page. I won't lend money against assets I can't physically see. These constraints look conservative; in practice they have prevented every bad decision I could have made over fifteen years.
For the SME founder thinking about their own capital
Most Indian SME founders I meet have a high percentage of their net worth tied up in their own operating company. That's not a problem; that's correct. What I'd push them on is the marginal-rupee question. When the operating company throws off cash, where should the next ₹1 lakh go? My answer: into another real-asset category they understand, that has structural Indian demand, and that they can operate themselves or with a trusted partner. Not into mutual funds. Not into PMS. Real assets, every time.
This is not financial advice. It is operating advice from someone who has compounded slowly, made it work, and is still doing it the same way.
Got a question on what you've just read — or a project that touches one of the categories above? Write directly to the office.
First-generation Indian industrialist. Founder of Sahayog Energy and a group of ventures spanning solar, manufacturing, agri-inputs and trading.