Anand Chandrasekharan Strategy Head, Facebook Messenger
Anand Chandrasekharan former Chief Product Officer at Snapdeal has invested in six startups — Truce, MagicX, Lucideus, LoanCircle, Lernr and Rupeek. Chandrasekaran has become an active angel investor in Indian startups over the past 12 to 15 months and typically invests about $25,000 (Rs 17 lakh) in each entity. Chandrasekaran, a co-founder of mobile applications software company Aeroprise (acquired by BMC Software), moved to India in 2014 and played a key role at Airtel, building products such as My Airtel, Airtel Money and Wynk Music. Later, at Snapdeal, he ran technology initiatives and worked on products such as Freecharge, Shopo, Exclusively, supply chain efforts and post-product customer experience. He turned angel investor after spotting a trend of growth in startups being primarily driven by a couple of 100 million people on Android smartphones and about 30 million of them with active mobile data connections. For each of these startups, products and technologies started becoming core differentiators to their businesses.
Anand Kumar Ladsariya Founder, Everest Flavours
The CEO and promoter of Mumbai-based chemical maker Everest Flavours, Ladsariya is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is the former chairman of CHEMEXCIL, an export promotion body set up by the Indian government. Ladsariya has a portfolio of over 35 angel investments, and actively invests through Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels. He is also part of the Planning Commission’s “Committee on Angel Investment and Early Stage Venture Capital” which is guided by the Vice Chairman of Planning Commission. Ladsariya’s angel investments include: Exclusively (acquired by Snapdeal), Myshaadi.in, Stayzilla, Uniphore, Traffline, Aurality, Dexl, Speakwell, Framebench, Serial Innovation, Asiatic, Morpheus Tritya, Mobiquest, Algorhythm to name a few. He is a topper and gold medalist from Bombay University and MBA degree holder from IIM, Ahmedabad. He is also involved in various social activities.
Anil Jain Founder, Venture Catalysts
A veteran of the industry, Anil Jain is a co-founder at Venture Catalysts, India’s first seed investment and innovation platform. He has been deeply involved with the financial services and real estate industries for most of his career and has gained extensive knowledge of these market segments. Leveraging his in-depth understanding, Anil has driven his own businesses to great success. He co-founded Wallfort Financial Services Ltd and established it as one of the largest institutional broking firms in India. In 2002, he moved to co-found Wallfort Properties Ltd which has subsequently evolved into a leading real estate company with over 10 million sq ft in development in Chhattisgarh and 1 million sq ft in Mumbai, one of the largest metropolises in India.
Anuj Golecha Core Team, Venture Catalysts
Anuj Golecha is a co-founder at Venture Catalysts, India’s first seed investment and innovation platform. An active angel investor himself is a certified Chartered Accountant and is also a 2nd Generation Partner of Banshi Jain & Associates (BJAA). Anuj is a seasoned professional with invaluable crossindustry experience. He has been actively involved in building businesses such as real estate, financial services, manufacturing, gold & diamond jewellery around the world into multi-million dollar enterprises. He has channelled this experience to establish BJAA as a one-stop financial solutions provider. Under his leadership, BJAA provides Advisory, Audit & Assurance Services to over 1200 corporate and non-corporate clients across 25 industries.
Apoorv Ranjan Sharma President & Co-founder, Venture Catalysts
Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma is the co-Founder of Venture Catalysts, India’s first Seed Investment & Innovation platform. Dr. Sharma holds a PhD in Incubation with an MBA, B. Tech. from reputed institutions. He also holds credit of a Diploma in Mentoring Studies from UC Berkeley offered by Intel-DST Scholarship. Having been involved in early stage investment since 2002 and established almost 10 incubators and accelerators including Somaiya Incubator, IAN Incubator, VentureNursery, Amity Innovation Incubator, JSS TBI ( Best Incubator Award,2005), EDII, Mata Vaishno University, Jammu to name a few. He was also actively associated in establishing Angel Networks- IAN Mumbai and Pune, and Venture Nursery Angels as a key catalyst. Prior to this, he has played a vital role in establishing JSS Seed Fund, Amity Family office fund, IAN Seed fund and more. Overall, Sharma led and mentored more than 50 early stage investments with high success track record including OYO Rooms, Invenzone, Talview Apnacircle.com, Circuit Sutra, Jigsee, Birdseye, Webkliper, confirmtkt, siftr and etc.
Aunpam Gopal Mittal Founder & CEo, people group
Anupam Mittal is the founder and CEO of People Group which owns businesses such as online matrimonial service Shaadi.com, real-estate portal Makaan.com, mobile content and applications company Mauj Mobile and People Pictures. Known for his business acumen and an eye for detail, Mittal is an active angel investor with over 50 startups investments to date. In 2014, he invested in around 8-10 startups. Mittal, a member of the Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels, typically invests in startups related to mobile and consumer internet. His investments include: HackerEarth, InnerChef, Ketto, LetsVenture, LittleEyeLabs (acquired by Facebook), Ola and Pipemonk, Tushky.com PrettySecrets, Sapience, Druva Software, Zepo, Peelworks, Taxspanner, Cafe Zoe, Interactive Avenues etc.
Dheeraj Jain Partner Redcliff Capital
Dheeraj Jain is working as Director at Redciffe Capital based in London and Delhi/ Gurgaon. He is also value partner at Nine River Capital, PE fund focused towards India and hedge fund manager at Numia Capital. For last three years, he was lead mandate holder towards structuring and financing numerous cross border acquisitions in the mining, metal, technology, security services, manufacturing, shipping, oil, renewable power sectors coving India, USA, UK, Africa. He himself is seasoned investor and have network of investors, banks and other financial institutes supporting on investment banking transaction done on his acumen of risk/reward and ability to stitching deal pieces together.
Rajan Anandan MD, Google India & Southeast Asia
Rajan Anandan, also known as Anand, is a co-founder, founding partner and managing director of Blue Ocean Ventures. Anandan has been the managing director of S-East Asia and India at Alphabet Inc. (Google) since January 2011. He has been Vice President of sales & operations for Google India & Southeast Asia at Google since January 2015. He was on the judging panel of Venture Engine in 2014. He is an active angel investor in India and focuses on investing in internet, mobile and SaaS companies. His investments also primarily include software and services based companies, followed by IT consulting and other services, application software, internet retail, air freight and logistics and biotechnology. Anandan holds a Master’s degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Stanford University and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kunal Naresh Shah Founder and Chairman, FreeCharge
Kunal Naresh Shah, founder and chairman, FreeCharge, has invested in 19 startups at the seed stage, had made 16 investment deals. Kunal Naresh Shah’s favourites are Pocket Aces, Bharat Bazaar, Gold VIP Technology Solutions (Crown-It), Unacademy, Shaadi Saga, Remitware Payments, Daily Ninja, Twigly, Voonik, Inc42, Cookifi, Pianta, Dil Mil, LifCare, Table Hero, Flyrobe, Zilingo, Razorpay. His sweet spots are software and services-based startups that dominate his portfolio. Rest of his investments have gone into companies operating in specialized consumer services, air freight and logistics and Internet retail sectors.
Rajesh Sawhney Founder and Chief Executive officer, GSF India
Rajesh Sawhney is the founder and chief executive officer of GSF India, India’s leading multi-city Tech Accelerator for the brightest tech startups in India. At GSF, Rajesh is architecting the vital building blocks of a nascent early stage startup ecosystem in India. Rajesh has made over 20 investments as an active and engaged angel investor, which include Viki (acquired by Rakutan for USD 225M), Little Eye Labs (acquired by Facebook), Mobstac, Pokkt, Silverpush, Hackerearth, Browntape, Overcart, Flinto and Timesaverz. Sawhney has vast experience in entertainment, media and communication sector. He is also the co-host and curator of Founders Forum India. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, where he participated in the Advance Management Program, and has a fellowship from London School of Economics. Sawhney also has a Masters of Business Studies from the University of Mumbai, India and Bachelor of Engineering, Electronics & Telecommunications from the Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi, India.
Ratan Tata Interim Chairman Tata Sons
Ratan Naval Tata has been a Special Advisor at Jungle Ventures since July 2015. Tata serves as an Adviser at Kstart. He works with its portfolio of companies to help them build category leadership, while being ethically impregnable and culturally strong in Asian and global markets. He serves as a Senior Advisor at IDG Ventures India. Ratan Naval Tata’s picks are MadRat Games, MUrgency, Techbins Solutions (Niki.ai), Snabizz Cloudtech, RKSV Securities, Pouring Pounds India (CashKaro.com), BagsKart. com, WatchKart.com, NestAway, MogliLabs (Moglix), Invictus Oncology, FirstCry, Tracxn Technologies, Teabox, KyaZoonga. His portfolio is spread across internet retail, application software, and biotechnology but a majority of his investment has gone into startups operating in Internet software and services sector.
Zishaan Hayath Chief Executive Officer, Haygot Education Pvt. Limited
Zishaan Hayath serves as chief executive officer of Haygot Education Private Limited. Hayath is the founder of Haygot Education Private Limited and Powai Lake Ventures. An IIT Bombay graduate, his key investments include A S Justride Tours and Travels Pvt Ltd, BeeWise Labs Pvt Ltd, BlackCotton Solutions Pvt Ltd, Urban Online Services Pvt Ltd. Major part of his portfolio is in Internet software and services companies and other investments are in sectors such as application software, other diversified financial services, air freight and logistics.
TV Mohandas Pai Founder, Partner and Member of Advisory Council at Exfinity Venture Partners LLP
T. V. Mohandas Pai, also known as Mohan serves as founder, partner and member of Advisory Council at Exfinity Venture Partners LLP, is a Co-founder, managing director, partner and chairman of Aaric Capital. Pai is a partner at The Habit Fund. Like his peers, Pai has been investing aggressively in software and services-based companies. Other sectors that he has routed his funds into include application software, internet retail, asset management and 
custody banks, education services, and home furnishings. Pai spearheaded the foundation of the Akshaya Patra Foundation. He is a fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a private investor and has also backed some early stage funds. He was Honored with Padma Shri award (National recognition in India) in 2015 in the Trade and Industry category. He was voted the Number One Angel Investor in India in 2015.
