Gagan Biyani was recently featured in a Newsweek article by Katrina Brooker, titled How Greylock Partners Finds the Next Facebook. Biyani is a Graduate of the Bay Area Founder Institute, and is the co-founder of Udemy and the Growth Hackers Conference.
Since graduating from the Founder Institute, Biyani’s ambition hasn’t diminished. His newest company, Sprig, a seasonable and sustainable meal delivery service, scored a considerable Series A round last April. Considering the disadvantages of Sprig’s business model - the millions of dollars required to build it, the lack of immediate returns, the complicated logistics - this is no small feat.
However, this funding round is just the beginning, as Biyani’s aspirations include transforming Sprig into the Uber of food, delivering meals anywhere, anytime with the touch of a smartphone.
But to get there, he first had to convince some of the most powerful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, including David Sze, Aneel Bhusri, Reid Hoffman, and every other partner at Greylock, of the viability of Sprig. As these were the same individuals who backed Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pandora, Dropbox, and Airbnb, pitching a business to capitalists of this caliber was a daunting task for Biyani, as it would have been for any other burgeoning entrepreneur.
Biyani describes his first meeting at Greylock:
Coming in, the first person I see is Reid, right? And then David is over here; Aneel is there. It was the biggest moment of my life. I have never seen so much intellectual horsepower in one room in my life.”
Nonetheless, Biyani succeeded in capturing the interest of Greylock, as his efforts were rewarded with a $10 million offer soon after the momentous meeting. While Sprig has yet to expand outside of San Francisco, its recent acquisition of funds is the first major sign of a long and prosperous future, giving credence to Heraclitus’ quote, “Big results require big ambitions.”
For more information on Sprig, go to their official website.
