The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Rahul Chandra is the Co-founder and Managing Partner at Arkam Ventures , an early-stage fund partnering aimed at Middle India –– the 400 million people just below the top of the pyramid. He was one of the earliest tech VCs in India, starting in 1998 as part of the team at Walden International's India-focused fund. He later moved to Palo Alto to invest in Silicon Valley start-ups. In 2005, he co-fo...

Venk Krishnan is the founder of NuWare and NuVentures . NuVentures is an early stage venture fund based out of Bangalore which has backed companies such as MuSigma, BigBasket, Acko, Pocket Aces, Thrillophilia among others. Follow Venk Krishnan ( @krishnanVenk ), host Akash Bhat ( @bhatvakash ) and the podcast ( @thedesi_vc ) on Twitter. . . . The Desi Startups of the Week: 1. BurnCal : India's Fir...

Rohit Goyal is the Manager Partner at Windrose Capital , a Pune based early stage VC firm investing in India’s fast-transforming economy. He has entrepreneurial experience in Manufacturing & Technology and has set-up companies in & outside India, with people from China, Sri Lanka, UK & Germany. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Engineering (Electronics & Tele-Com.) & Masters in M...

Srikanth Sundararajan is the General partner at VenturEast , an India focused fund that helps tech startups looking to go global from India across segments like education, health, financial services, agritech, and Enterprise SaaS. Srikanth has 25+ years of international experience in the software product and services having worked at HP, Informix in the US, and was part of the executive leadership...

Sasha Mirchandani is Managing Director and Founder of Kae Capital and Co-founder Mumbai Angels . Previously, he was at Blue Run Ventures as Managing Director for the India operations. Before joining Blue Run Ventures he was CEO and Founder of Imercius Technologies. Earlier he was at Mirc Electronics (Onida) where he was Head of Corporate Affairs and new business. Follow Sasha on Twitter ( @sashami...

Utsav Somani is a Partner at AngelList India and General Partner at iSeed (a seed-stage fund looking to bridge successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and Indian founders in the search of money as well as the expertise and knowledge of scaling up a startup). Follow Utsav ( @somani_utsav ), host Akash ( @bhatvakash ) and our podcast ( @thedesi_vc ) on Twitter. . . . The Desi Startups of the Week: 1...

Rutvik Doshi is the General Partner at Inventus Capital India , early stage Venture Capital firm that invests in Pre Series A and Series A. Rutvik has participated in India’s fast emerging internet ecosystem since 2007, first with Google where he launched several products including Voice Search, Google Mobile App, SMS Channels and managed Google News globally, and most recently as the CEO of ecomm...

Vinay Bansal is the CEO at Inflection Point Ventures , an early stage angel investing platform. He is a finance professional and turnaround specialist with 20+ years of experience across Fortune 50 companies, private equity & startups. Last, he was Senior Advisor at TPG Global and before that CFO & CIO at Wildcraft India. He is a Chartered Accountant by qualification and spent the first 14...

Melissa Frakman is the founder & managing partner of Emphasis Ventures ( EMVC ), a venture capital fund investing in early-stage fintech startups in India. She brings 15 years of experience participating in India’s digital revolution to bridge worlds for entrepreneurs and companies. Named on the “Global Fintech PowerList” by Innovate Finance, Melissa has led early stage investments in asia, su...

Pankaj Jain is an angel investor and Ex-Partner at 500 Startups, a California-based seed fund and accelerator program. Pankaj focuses on investing in early stage startups across India, United States, and South Asia and has led investments in over fifty companies. Pankaj spent over 12 years in the Financial industry at firms such as JP Morgan, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) and GlobeOp Financi...

Ankur Warikoo is an angel investor, entrepreneur, mentor and public speaker. He co-founded Nearbuy.com in 2015, where he served as the CEO from 2015-2019. Ankur was previously the CEO of Groupon India + APAC, MD of at Rocket Internet India, Co-founder at Accentium Web, and a management consultant at A.T. Kearney. He also holds an MBA degree from The Indian School of Business, an MS Physics from Mi...

Shruti Gandhi is the founder and General Partner of Array Ventures a data-driven venture capital firm. Six of her portfolio companies have exited to companies such as Apple, Paypal, and Samsung with 10x returns. Shruti spun Array Ventures out of True Ventures. She is also an adjunct professor in the CS department at Columbia University, featured on Business Insider , BBC , Forbes , VentureBeat , a...

Chinnu Senthilkumar is the General Partner and CTO at Exfinity Venture Partners , an Enterprise Tech focused VC fund with an emphasis on startups in the US-India corridor. Prior to Exfinity, Chinnu held Senior Executive roles at Intel, SanDisk and Texas Instruments, both in the US and India. In the capacity of SanDisk’s Country Head, Chinnu spearheaded SanDisk (now part of Western Digital) India o...

Anup Jain is the managing partner at Orios Venture Partners , a VC firm investing in B2B and B2C startups with offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. Anup leads their FMCG and Retail investments and has over 20 years of experience of building brands across countries and categories. Follow Anup ( @AnupOrios ), host Akash Bhat ( @bhatvakash ) and the podcast ( @thedesi_vc ) on Twitter. . . . In thi...

Sushma Kaushik is a Partner at Aavishkaar Capital , an early-stage venture capital firm currently deploying out of its 6th fund and has close to half a billion dollars in AUM. She has over 18 years of diverse experience in the field of early stage investing, small business incubation and consulting across sectors. She is an engineering graduate from RVCE, Bangalore and has an MBA from the Indian S...

Piyush Puri leads the Brand Capital International team in Silicon Valley as Vice President of BWI, the strategic investment arm of The Times Group – India’s largest multimedia conglomerate. Before leading Brand Capital’s US office, Piyush was an investment banker in Mumbai, India focusing on investments in the energy, ancillaries, and the environment spaces. Piyush received his degree in Civil Eng...

Rohan Malhotra is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Good Capital , a Delhi-based early stage fund which takes a bottom-up approach to problem-solving and values first-principles thinking. Prior to Good Capital, he co-founded Investopad , a seed-stage technology incubator that focused on ventures that were centered on solving India-centric problems. You may follow Rohan ( @r0hanmalhotra )...

Vinod Murali is Managing Partner and Co-founder of Alteria Capital . Vinod has 15+ years of experience spanning Venture Debt, Mezzanine Capital & Structured finance, Corporate Banking and Branding. Prior to Alteria, he spent time as the Deputy CEO at InnoVen Capital India (prev. known as SVB India Finance), and before that, at Citigroup as part of the Corporate and Investment Banking Group whe...

Alex Lazarow is the Investment Director at Cathay Innovation . Prior to joining Cathay Innovation, Alex was a Principal at Omidyar Network, a global philanthropic investment firm. While at Omidyar, he focused on investments in the global FinTech and financial inclusion space across the U.S., Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. He is also an adjunct professor specializing in impact investmen...

Pankaj Makkar is the Managing Director, Bertelsmann India Investments , a strategic investment arm of Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA in India, focusing on investments in the digital, education, media and services sectors. He’s spent his career at Astro, Univision and has been at Bertelsmann for the last decade. He holds a B.Comm Hons. from Delhi University and received his MBA from Harvard Business...

Ankita Vashistha is the Founder and Managing Partner at Saha Fund , a fund that invests in early stage tech-startups run by women entrepreneurs. Ankita comes with a background finance having spent time working in venture capital and private equity before co-founding Saha Fund along with her partner, Usha Amin. Follow Saha Fund ( @sahafund ) and host Akash Bhat ( @bhatvakash) on Twitter. . . . In t...

Ishpreet Singh Gandhi is the Founder and Managing Partner at Stride Ventures , a venture-debt fund focused on lending to growth-stage startups with investments in companies such as Bira and Stellapps . He brings over 13 years of experience encompassing Banking, Private Equity and Venture Capital. During his last stint as Regional Head (North & East) at IDFC Bank, he spearheaded startup busines...

Ritu Verma is one of the co-founders at Ankur Capital . She is passionate about bringing innovation from lab to the market and did that for a decade across corporates such as Unilever and Philips. She has also worked globally investing in IP-led renewable technologies. She has a PhD in physics from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from INSEAD. You can follow Ritu ( @rituverma01 ) and host Aka...

Bhaskar is the Founder and Managing Partner at Unicorn India Ventures . In the past decade, Bhaskar has established himself as a well-regarded early stage investor and advisor, especially in the UK and India. He has held senior corporate positions with Times of India, Zee Telefilms and Altavista UK. In 2000, he started his first entrepreneurial venture, Recreate Solutions, a company within the dig...

Mark Kahn is the Managing Partner at Omnivore , a venture capital firm which funds entrepreneurs building the future of agriculture and food systems. Mark co-founded Omnivore in 2010 with Jinesh Shah, ex-CFO at Nexus Venture Partners. Previously, Mark was the Executive Vice President (Strategy & Business Development) at Godrej Agrovet, and also had stints at Syngenta and PFM. He earned a BA (H...