In this episode of Nothing Ventured, Aarish Shah sits down with Rajan Dosanj and Ankush Shah, partners at Rank Ventures, to unpack what real early-stage investing looks like in 2025 and beyond.

We get into:
🔥 Why “banking is eat what you kill” but “venture is eat what you grow”
🔥 How bad governance, weak boards & misaligned incentives pushed them to build Rank
🔥 Why 2026 will demand profitability plans and default-alive thinking
🔥 Why skin-in-the-game investors behave differently
🔥 How to remove blame culture and run an effective board
🔥 What founders must internalize about the new funding environment

If you’re a founder, operator, angel or fund manager — this one cuts deep.

Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro to Rajan & Ankush and the Rank Ventures story
02:00 — “Banking is eat what you kill; venture is eat what you grow”
04:30 — The investment that went wrong — and what it taught them
07:00 — Shared values, asymmetric bets & building trust
10:00 — Operator vs investor mindset (and how to balance both)
14:00 — Bad governance in venture: fiduciary failures & hard lessons
17:00 — Why Rank has real skin in the game (and no management fees)
21:00 — DPI over TVPI: why returns need to be real, not theoretical
24:00 — The new VC market: slower capital, higher expectations
31:00 — What founders need going into 2026: default-alive + ROI-driven growth

Find Rajan Dosanj online at:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajan-dosanjh/ 
Rank Ventures: https://rank-ventures.com/

Find Ankush Shah online at:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankush-shah-64144a34/
Rank Ventures: https://rank-ventures.com/

This episode is sponsored by EmergeOne, fractional CFOs for venture backed tech startups from Seed to Series B.
Get in touch at https://emergeone.co.uk/contact-us/ or join the CFO team at https://emergeone.co.uk/join-the-cfo-team/

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