Steady and Sexy: Vivek Oberoi Reveals the Investment Mantra of His Family Office

Even though my father was very successful, he was extremely disciplined about money. I remember learning debit and credit when I was around 11 or 12 years old. He made sure I maintained accounts and understood the value of money very early in life. 

That thinking came from his own upbringing. My grandfather lost everything during the Partition, so my father was taught never to take wealth for granted, and he passed on the same lessons to us. We travelled by train, took buses and managed pocket money carefully, even though we lived comfortably. 

But he also believed in experiences and splurged on those. So, there was always balance. Over time, I realised you cannot look at money only as a scorecard for past success. Money must become fuel for future innovation and growth, particularly in a family-office setup.

Very early in life, I was deeply aligned with philanthropy and impact work. But I realised there is only so much scale you can achieve through purely non-profit structures. 

If you build a for-profit, impact-oriented entity, then you can combine scale with sustainability. I genuinely believe every business’ dharma is profit, but every businessman’s dharma should be purpose. 

The idea behind the Oberoi family office was never to create some Western-style institutional asset-management platform. It was about empowering good founders, supporting meaningful businesses and strengthening Bharat economically in whatever small way possible. If I can support someone with capital, guidance or relationships and help them scale, that itself creates value. 

When I set up the family office, the idea was to create generational wealth and create a structure to preserve it, along with investing ethos for generations to follow. May be in this generation I am able to make X impact; I am hoping that multiples in the generations to come. I have dinner table conversations with my son (13) and daughter (11) on which company are we investing in and why.

Initially, the thinking was very direct-impact oriented. How do we support education for underprivileged students? How do we save lives through roadside-assistance programmes? How do we support environmentally aligned businesses?

Over time, I realised something interesting. When good founders create wealth, they usually go on to support other founders themselves. One successful entrepreneur creates many more entrepreneurs. From one unicorn, many more emerge.

That creates a fertile ecosystem of growth, jobs and opportunity. So today, while we still have a positive bias towards impact-driven businesses, we also look at scalable companies that can create long-term economic value.

Absolutely. I continue doing purely non-profit work through my foundation. But a family office is a more scalable way to give back to the society. Scalable impact is difficult through charity alone because eventually you face fundraising fatigue.

If you create a revenue-generating structure that compounds and attracts more like-minded investors, then the impact becomes self-propagating. That is what excited me about the family-office model.

The family office is not just about passing down capital. It's about passing down governance, values, institutional relationships and creating a repeatable framework for decision-making. That imbibes the entire ethos that you are setting at the base of the family office. 

Waiting for a crisis or an illness before discussing succession, that is a failure of leadership. You have to start this conversation early. Globally, most family wealth disappears by the second or third generation because there is no structure, no governance, no preparation.  

And once wealth has already been created, you don't need reckless exponential growth. If your structure allows you only 20–30% in the high-risk bucket, you stick with that. You don't say I'm going to gamble it all and maybe it triples or gets wiped out. What matters is disciplined compounding and building a structure that can survive cycles over generations.

The steady gives you a baseline to operate from, which gives you a risk appetite for the sexy. The steady is more of my anchor. For example, I'm invested in multiple companies that are generationally owned small family-run businesses that could just do with a more modernised outlook, digitisation, AI [artificial intelligence] integration, better business development and removing leakages. So, I will pick a small company doing solid business on solid fundamentals and help them scale and grow into a listed entity. 

The sexy stuff is exponential. Mercurial. I have investments in AI, deep tech, life sciences...Also, lifestyle. I did something called Rotoris [a premium analogue watch start-up]. People didn't know whether a company like this would do well. Rotoris did massive numbers in the first year—$600,000 in revenue. The second year is expected to be five times that. By 2027, I see the company valued at over $250–300mn.  

Whatever it is, lifestyle, tech, impact, if it is exponential, that's the sexy.

We have invested across sectors and have investments in over 30 companies and exited over 11 investments. This year, we should have another six-seven liquidity events, of which three would be listings. We have done really well for ourselves. For example, a listing we did last year, we exited at close to 300% returns in around two years. Sometimes you come across those exceptional opportunities.

A family office gives you flexibility because you are deploying your own wealth. There are times when I knowingly invest in something where the financial upside may not be the highest possible, but the impact is meaningful enough for me to still do it.  

If I were managing LP [limited partner] money in a fund, I would not have the freedom to make that decision because then my responsibility is different. That is one of the biggest distinctions between a family office and a traditional fund structure.

We are not trying to squeeze founders or become adversarial. We try to become long-term partners, big brother and a positive team. We want to help them deal with VCs [venture capitalists] and PEs [private equities] we have had relationships with before.

A lot of founders get blamed when the company collapses, but sometimes it is the money behind it that is pushing them really hard to show results. It has happened in so many cases that people have fudged numbers. Then the whole story collapses.

The focus is on helping founders build fundamental value. We are not under pressure to deploy capital and performance at any cost, and that changes the relationship.

If I am a GP [general partner] of a fund, then I have to look at things differently. Then I cannot align solely with the founder.

India today is one of the most exciting growth markets globally. Whether it is AI, MSMEs [micro, small and medium enterprises], technology businesses or value-backed real estate opportunities, the growth potential is massive. 

At the same time, the regulatory framework is becoming more investment friendly. Of course, there is always room for improvement, but the direction is positive.  

For instance, in America, if you haven't made money on a deal yet, you're not exposed to taxes. Loss setoffs exist in India too, but they're very restricted, especially in the unlisted space, where you end up in grey areas that depend on which assessing officer you get. Then it's appellate, then tribunal. That complexity will ease, and I see it happening fast. 

I also think there needs to be more ease and understanding for start-ups because many founders are still learning governance and compliance while building businesses at speed. If that ecosystem becomes more supportive, India’s start-up opportunity becomes even larger. 

As family offices grow larger, geographical diversification becomes necessary. Having holding structures in different jurisdictions helps with smarter access and exits.  

A UAE start-up is easier to invest in from a UAE structure. An Indian local business, from the India side. Case by case. Some of the most exciting opportunities may come from Silicon Valley or other global markets, and those opportunities are highly time sensitive.  

You need structures that allow you to move quickly. If you go through long procedures to access them, you lose them. Multi-jurisdictional structures fix that.  

And it works both ways—my friends in the US who I co-invest with are also putting money back into India through a structure with me. The flow is no longer one-directional. Part of it is also hedging. Currency movement matters, especially if your capital base is linked to dollars.

I am seeing this trend globally that people are setting up family offices. Someone has a big liquidity event and the first thing they do is set up a family office. They diversify, anchor some capital in familiar instruments, and then have a play bucket for interesting deals.  

But more importantly, they bring their network and relationships. A family office that has backed a company can introduce a larger institutional fund into a subsequent round. They've already done the diligence; they know the numbers, they have skin in the game. That introduction carries weight. A deal has a greater chance of going through.  

So, family offices are not just providing capital, they're becoming the connective tissue between early-stage companies and larger institutional money. 

The second thing is the network effect among family offices themselves. Three years ago, this didn't exist. Now family offices are co-investing, sharing deal flow and building symbiotic relationships. It's not transactional anymore.  

I'm not inviting another family office in to make a buck. I'm sending them an opportunity because when they see something I'd aligned with, they'll do the same. You're improving the quality of your funnel because you're already working with people you trust.

Each world demands a very different relationship with risk. Entertainment is an emotional risk. Every Friday can change everything. You learn how to emotionally deal with success and failure. 

Entrepreneurship is an operational risk because you carry moral responsibility towards people who have invested with you or work with you. Family-office investing adds another layer because now you are managing macroeconomic risk, founder risk and promoter risk. You are taking a bet not only on an idea but on the person building it. That requires a very different mindset altogether.

The joy I get when I face the camera, the artistic expression, that is something I've pursued with stars in my eyes since I was four years old. When that camera rolls and I'm on a set performing, it's a different kind of high. That passion is something else. 

But investing gives me a different kind of fulfilment. When you grow older, you've been successful, you've got a sense of security about yourself. I love to see these young, bright, hungry kids succeed. I see the young, hungry me in them. And when I see them succeed, I have great love, admiration and respect for them.  

Most of these founders, even after I've exited the company, end up becoming friends for life. You're there at their weddings, their big milestones of life.