Avataar Venture Partners

Nishant Rao focuses on B2B technology and SaaS sales and marketing, with experience scaling consumer internet and enterprise software companies past $100M+ in revenue. His prior roles include Global Head of Strategy and MD for India & SE Asia at LinkedIn, Global COO at Freshworks, co-founder of the call-center company Epicenter, strategy advisor at McKinsey, and product/engineering roles at Ariba and Microsoft. He holds an MBA from MIT and a Computer Science degree from UT Austin.

Anirudh Singh has spent roughly 15 years investing in India's technology ecosystem, with roles at Norwest Venture Partners, Alpha Wave Global, Canaan Partners, and B Capital. He most recently served as Managing Director at Alpha Wave Global, where he headed the Alpha Wave Incubation venture growth fund and ran its India, UAE, and South East Asia offices. He holds an electrical engineering degree from Thapar University and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

George Thangadurai leads business development at Avataar Venture Partners and works with portfolio companies to establish executive-level connections. He previously spent over two decades at Intel Corporation in senior roles, including GM of strategy and product management and membership on the Intel Capital Investments Committee. He also led global business for IoT company Borqs Technologies through its Nasdaq IPO and served as CSO/CMO and board advisor for Mobiliya Technologies, which was acquired by Quest Global.

Krish Kupathil is a partner at Avataar Venture Partners, where he focuses on implementing the firm's operating model and helping portfolio companies scale into new markets and acquire customers. A serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience, he has founded, invested in, and mentored startups and led business turnarounds, capital raises, and exits. He has been involved with companies including Mobiliya (acquired by QuEST Global), FSMLabs (acquired by WindRiver/Intel), Azingo (acquired by Motorola/Google), ABI Health, and ImaginXP in roles such as founder CEO, investor, mentor, and team member.

Mike Mulica is an advisor for Avataar Venture Partners (AVP), based in Chicago, US, with a background in the mobile communications and internet industries and in globally scaled vertical solutions. He works as an active investor, board director, and advisor to both private and public companies in emerging technologies.

Shobhit Gupta leads Avataar's growth platform team, working with portfolio company management on growth-related topics. His background spans management consulting (McKinsey, PwC), a SaaS startup, and the large technology industry (Dell), with a focus on go-to-market planning and execution, including identifying market segments and building sales pathways. He holds a Master of Science from Texas A&M University.

Amit Kumar joined Avataar Ventures in November 2022 and leads its Finance Center of Excellence, supporting portfolio companies on cost and process optimization, IPO readiness, KPI standardization, budgeting, profitability, and governance. Before Avataar, he was a founding member of LOGIQORE, an advisory firm serving growth-stage SaaS and B2B startups in India and the ASEAN region. He has over two decades of senior finance and operations experience with startups and multinationals including GE Healthcare, Oracle, Schweppes, and Bosch, and is a Chartered Accountant with an honors degree in finance.

Arjun Vikas focuses on investing in financial services and B2B companies. He was previously a Director at Alpha Wave Global for over five years, working on transactions in India's financial services and tech sectors, and earlier worked at Rothschild & Co advising on M&A and fundraising in financial services and technology. He holds an MBA from IIM Calcutta and a BE from BITS Pilani.

Dinky Sanghvi works on fund management and internal finance functions at Avataar Venture Partners, covering the full lifecycle of PE/VC funds including fundraising, capital calls, disbursements, exits, distributions, and fund wind-downs. She previously spent over 15 years at ICICI Venture Fund Management Co. Ltd. as Vice President Finance, managing private equity funds and an asset management company in finance and operating roles. She is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary.

Ganesh Nayak leads fundraising and capital markets at Avataar Venture Partners, working with entrepreneurs, VCs, and institutional investors. He was a founding member of LetsVenture, an Indian private market platform, and has raised capital for VC funds including Pioneer Fund, MFV Partners, and IndiaQuotient. He served on the LP Advisory Board at Pioneer Fund.

Gulshan Dhanani is a SaaS operator who previously served as Chief of Staff to the founders and then Head of Revenue Operations at Yellow.ai, working across go-to-market areas including GenAI product monetization, account-health scoring, sales compensation, and international expansion. Earlier, he was a strategy consultant at Deloitte handling healthcare and financial services engagements, and began his career as a software engineer at Citigroup. He holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a Civil Engineering degree from IIT Roorkee.

Krushi Jain works with founders and senior management across a range of sectors at Avataar Venture Partners. She previously was an Investment Banking Associate at Spark Capital, where she helped founders raise $70 million across three transactions in the consumer sector, and earlier worked in KPMG's Assurance practice covering the automotive, B2B distribution, and IT services industries. She is a Chartered Accountant and has cleared Level 3 of the CFA program.

Maxence (Max) Cacheux works with Avataar Venture Partners' portfolio companies across Europe and the U.S., focusing on enterprise sales strategy, go-to-market partnerships, key account management, and marketing. He has over 20 years in the technology sector, including work with Texas Instruments, Infineon Technologies, and Samsung, and has held senior executive and co-founder roles, notably at Mobiliya (acquired by QuEST Global) and at zbyte in the Web3 space. He holds a Master's in Electrical Engineering from ISEN France and an MBA from INSEAD.

Saksham Bhandari has experience spanning early-stage venture capital, SaaS scale-up operations, and investment banking. He previously worked at Citi as an investment banker, at EightRoads as an enterprise tech investor, and at MoEngage where he led corporate development, focusing on new market expansion, product and business strategy, and inorganic growth. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BCom from Sri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.

Sanjeev Kumar is a Venture Partner at Fusion Fund who works with early-stage enterprise AI software companies, focusing on ML pipeline platforms, domain-specific ML systems, IIoT, and the industrial metaverse. He spent 2022-23 as a DCI Fellow at Stanford University's Distinguished Careers Institute studying AI enterprise software economics and business models. His prior career spans enterprise software roles at Informatica, BEA Systems, EMC, and Oracle, along with startups including Leapyear, Foghorn Systems, and Zambeel; he also served as Managing Director of India R&D at BEA Systems and Informatica in Bangalore.

Spurthi Naidu is an operations associate at Avataar Venture Partners, where she works with portfolio companies on their growth alongside the fund's venture activities. She previously worked at Let's Accelerate (Let's Venture) designing and managing startup innovation programs, and began her career at Kalaari Capital Advisors as an HR executive, leading Kstart's first Fellowship program. She holds an MBA in HR from Bangalore University, where she was a Gold Medalist.

Sridhar Solur ("Sri") is CEO of Kenmore's brands at Transformco, where he led the turnaround of Kenmore and DieHard. He previously served as Chief Product Officer and GM at Berkshire Grey (industrial robotics) and as CPO at SharkNinja, helping bring products such as the Shark IQ Robot vacuum and Ninja Foodi to market, and was involved in both companies' public listings. Earlier he spent 20 years at Hewlett Packard, including as founder and CPO of CloudPrint, the company's wearables and IoT business.

Frida Schain has more than 25 years of experience in life science, spanning academic research, pharmaceutical development, and entrepreneurship. She started in medical research at Karolinska Institutet before joining Johnson & Johnson, where she worked in clinical development, medical affairs, health economics, and commercialisation, most recently as a Director in its global commercial strategy organisation. She has also built and scaled data science companies serving the pharmaceutical industry and advised on capital raising and AI solutions for life science. She holds a Master's in Molecular Medicine from Lund University and a PhD in Haematology from Karolinska Institutet, and at Sciety she identifies and analyses life science companies for potential investment.

Kumari Subhra is a Chartered Accountant with over four years of experience in hedge fund operations and venture capital fund and portfolio finance. She is Manager, Finance COE at Avataar Venture Partners, where she supports LP reporting, portfolio valuation, fund performance metrics such as IRR and MOIC, budgeting, and regulatory compliance. She previously worked at Morgan Stanley on NAV reporting and fund operations for global hedge funds, and has also held a role at Jungle Ventures.