Sakshi Chopra, Managing director, Sequoia India's growth investing team
Image: Mexy Xavier
Early 2013, Gurugram. It all started with a missed call. “Some Sakshi Chopra from Sequoia wanted to meet you guys,” the receptionist passed on the message to Neeraj Kakkar. The co-founder of Hector Beverages had stepped out for a market visit to take stock of functional drink brand Tzinga, which was pitted against the Goliath Red Bull. Hector, during the same time, rolled out ethnic beverage brand Paper Boat, and opened up another front against the MNC biggies such as PepsiCo and Coca-Cola. “Soon Sakshi came with VT (Bharadwaj) and we had a great meeting,” recounts Kakkar, who back then aspired to make Tzinga the biggest player in the market. Though the first product from the stables of Hector fizzled out—protein-water drink Frissia—without getting noticed, Kakkar was waging a spirited fight with Tzinga, and was now getting ready to up the ante with Paper Boat. “You need somebody to believe in the underdog story,” he underlines. “Sakshi was the one, and she had two superpowers,” he adds.
(This story appears in the 16 December, 2022 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)