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From seeing Carnation start-up ten years ago to it now being profitable with 135 outlets, 45-year-old <keyword id="2415324" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="kunal-khattar">Kunal Khattar</keyword> has grown into a seasoned investor-entrepreneur.<br /><br />“I started doing angel investment in a personal capacity three years back. After about 7-8 investments, I decided to make it more structured. Initially, we were understanding the market and making smaller investments, now we are doing more calculated investments mainly in technology and automobile sector,” says Khattar relaying his Indian start-up advantEdge, pun intended.<br /><br />advantEdge is an early stage venture capital fund, focused on finding the best ideas and execution in emerging Indian tech sectors that have immense potential to become international businesses. advantEdge backs early-stage <keyword id="6362513" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startups">startups</keyword> with a strong founding team, and a compelling value proposition and has made 18 investments so far. <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58410595" title="Exclusive: Kris Gopalakrishnan Current Ace Investor and Infosys Founder Reflects Back on his Startup Days" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Apr 28, 2017, 12:00 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div>






“We focus on strong unit economics, a clear path to monetization and a scalable customer acquisition model. The fund invests between $100K to $1 million per transaction in angel, seed, and Series-A investments and we already have two exits,” says Kunal, proudly explaining how in the Indian market, the idea isn’t the key but the execution is.

    

    

    <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58530625" title="Exclusive: From Starting-up in Silicon Valley to Investing in the Indian Capital, Kunal Khattar Knows Where the AdvantEdge Lies" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="May 05, 2017, 2:00 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div>






<br />Khattar thinks that being in Delhi NCR gives him an upper hand as the capital is quickly taking over <keyword id="6354321" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bengaluru">Bengaluru</keyword> as the start-up capital of India. In numbers, Delhi has produced more unicorns than Bengaluru, Mumbai and Chennai combined.<br /><br />Kunal thinks that this is a great time to start-up as now serious businesses are being built with more strategic investments than ever before,”A lot of people become entrepreneurs for the wrong reasons as they think it is a way to become rich faster and gain fame. What they don’t realize is that they’re leaving a 9 to 5 corporate job for a business that is 24x7 and takes over your entire life,” says Khattar who asks the new entrepreneurs their priorities before investing in them.<br />

    

    

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He thinks that most successful companies become successful after two or three pivots giving Carnation as an example. “All of the successes like Paytm, MakeMyTrip, or even Naukri.com had a ‘near death experience’ which means that they were on the verge of shutting down before they found their way out. Failures should be celebrated, especially in an entrepreneur’s risky life,” Khattar says that giving up is not an option.<br /><br />With a hybrid approach with other VC partners, they have made strong investments in Rapido, FlipClass, OnlineTyaari, ScoopWhoop, Tripoto etc.and they aren’t stopping anytime soon. The only aim is to invest in real businesses and not copy-cats that will work for the Indian market.<br /><br />

Exclusive:  AdvantEdge Partner, Kunal Khattar on why Failure should be Celebrated in an Entrepreneur’s Risky Life

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<br />
Sanjay Mehta is popularly known as an angel investor and acts as a mentor to many entrepreneurs, but little is known about how Mehta became the go-to angel investors for many.<br />
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He was born in a middle-class Gujarati joint family in Mumbai, and calls himself a ‘first-generation entrepreneur’. He was the first person in his family to take the leap into starting his own business but credits his family for teaching him the art of nurturing relationships with diverse people.<br />
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He studied engineering from Mumbai University in 1993 and he was adamant about being an industrialist.<br />
His first company was Bespoke Software Consultancy, while he was interested in IT, he didn’t want to sell computers, he wanted to sell the software inside them.<br />
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The entrepreneur that failed and started again<br />
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His first venture was successful, but Sanjay felt the need to get out of the country like his peers albeit it was a short trip.<br />
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He went at a time when the dot-com bust was about to happen and his exposure to trending e-commerce at the time propelled him to start a B2B commodity trade portal which failed and he returned in 1999. “I lost everything as investors backed out on the term sheet. I had to start from scratch. I realized that this was going to be a rollercoaster ride,” recalls Sanjay.<br />
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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/exclusive-voonik-is-redefining-fashion-e-commerce-for-indian-masses/articleshow/58044307.cms">ALSO READ: Exclusive: Voonik is Redefining Fashion E-commerce for Indian Masses</a><br />
<br /> Mehta came back to India in 1999 and went back to the grind and started another ahead-of-its-time company which too shut down. Undeterred he started again with <keyword id="4390649" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="udyog-software-india-ltd">Udyog Software India Ltd</keyword> which was a taxation product company in the year 2000. This third-time-lucky charm turned around things as Sanjay sold the venture to an Indian owned US company in 2004.<br />
<br /> Mehta started his last company <keyword id="4390651" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="maia-intelligence">MAIA Intelligence</keyword> in 2007 which dealt with business intelligence software and analytics which he sold to Datamatics in 2015. While he was reaping the benefits of the two exits, he invested in real estate which was just in time for the boom.<br />
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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/the-stayzilla-fiasco-is-an-ugly-heads-up-of-the-future-of-the-indian-startup-ecosystem/articleshow/57689230.cms">ALSO READ: The Stayzilla fiasco is an ugly heads-up of the future of the Indian startup ecosystem</a><br />
<br /> Equipped with new found wealth, he decided to look for other areas of investment and entered venture funding with Aditya Birla <keyword id="34499" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="private-equity">Private Equity</keyword> Fund as an LP. He joined Indian Angel Network which was the first angel network and then decided to be an ‘angel’ full time.<br />
Since the past four years, as a full-time investor, Mehta always wanted to either be an entrepreneur or support one and it all started with him watching his father’s hard work. “My father has always been in the corporate sector and he toiled really hard all his life but he never owned anything. If I’m building something, I thought that I should be the one owning it. That’s why I never applied for a job.”<br />
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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/i-stayed-at-tajs-first-property-in-amritsar-and-heres-what-i-experienced/articleshow/58028999.cms">ALSO READ: I Stayed at Taj's First Property in Amritsar and Here’s What I Experienced</a><br />
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He shares one instance wherein 1993, as a young lad, he wanted a PC to start his own business that cost up to a Lakh rupees and went to my grandfather to ask for a loan. He suggested visiting a bank, and all the financial institutions shooed him away after which his relatives helped in undersigning for the loan.<br />
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The Mumbai-based investor was made to feel the importance of money from the beginning as he paid his own loan installments and it taught him a lot about financial discipline. That’s why Sanjay credits his business learning to his family and his father notably who worked with Fevicol and struck up a business building chord that stuck with him with only one hard and fast rule- ‘Do not innovate in Legal and Finance’.<br />
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Exclusive: Ace Angel Investor Sanjay Mehta’s true-life experiences that make his investments in startups fool-proof

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Sanjay Mehta has been a ‘full-time investor’ since the past four years before quitting his last entrepreneurial venture. He loves entrepreneurship for its process, “I really enjoy ‘proxy entrepreneurship’, which means that I can enable many people to start their ventures and help them create a stable business,’’ he says.<br />
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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/exclusive-ace-angel-investor-sanjay-mehtas-true-life-experiences-that-makes-his-investments-in-startups-fool-proof/articleshow/58061818.cms">ALSO READ: Exclusive: Ace Angel Investor Sanjay Mehta’s true-life experiences that make his investments in startups fool-proof</a><br />
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Mehta is excited about the business building process and thinks that the best part about starting a business is seeing it grow from seed stage to $2-5 million businesses where you enjoy the journey of creating something that has its own identity. He also believes that this is the hardest part, “Their sheer enthusiasm rubs off on me and I learn a lot by listening to their ideas. I get personal gratification by seeing them give in to their belief and giving up the best years of their lives,” he says, at peace.<br />
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With 66 start-up portfolio companies namely Zippr, Box8, WowMomos, AdstringO, UnBxd, Consure Medical Device, Oyo Rooms, PrettySecrets.com, Letsventure.com, MechMocha, Faballey.com, PayTunes, LogiNext, RepUp, Adsparx, Ecosense, PeeBuddy and more; Mehta is a regular target for aspiring founders and more so after his successful exit from Oyo Rooms whose founder Ritesh Aggarwal, became famous for being a 21-year old founder.<br />
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From an exit perspective, Oyo was the biggest exit for any Indian angel investor at 280 x of the investment made which was last year. He is very practical with his investments and thinks that a 100 x exit from a start-up is successful but that’s not why he does it; he sounds like a proud parent when he talks about his investments.<br />
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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/exclusive-voonik-is-redefining-fashion-e-commerce-for-indian-masses/articleshow/58044307.cms">ALSO READ: Exclusive: Voonik is Redefining Fashion E-commerce for Indian Masses</a><br />
<br /> He is very practical in his outlook for the start-up ecosystem, “In terms of <keyword id="3003094" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startup-India">Startup India</keyword>, I don’t think the government has done enough especially to ease the pains of doing business. I’m appreciative of this government because not only have they started a dialogue in the country, they have also started adopting new technologies made in India, at a state and national level which is a supportive move, ”he beams.<br />
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Mehta as an investor is bullish about Crypto currency, Universal utilities, FMCG brands that sell online, Medical devices, Pharma, Ed-tech, Media, and entertainment, as sectors and believes that India is on the cusp of innovative products and this is just the beginning.<br />
Sanjay has a good eye for innovation and thinks product start-ups like Freshdesk and Druva have already started the start-up revolution that is driven by innovative products that will propel India to be world’s start-up destination.<br />
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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/the-stayzilla-fiasco-is-an-ugly-heads-up-of-the-future-of-the-indian-startup-ecosystem/articleshow/57689230.cms">ALSO READ: The Stayzilla fiasco is an ugly heads-up of the future of the Indian startup ecosystem</a><br />
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<em> You can reach Sanjay Mehta on Twitter- @mehtasanjay or on LinkedIn, where he writes regular opinion articles on the start-up ecosystem.</em><br />
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Exclusive: An Angel investor whose Midas touch with Crypto-currency is redefining the future of start-up investments

Mahesh Murthy teamed up with Pravin Gandhi and <keyword id="261607" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bharati-Jacob">Bharati Jacob</keyword> to set up Seedfund in 2005, which is a leading early-stage venture capital fund with marquee investments, including <keyword id="817470" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Carwale">Carwale</keyword>, RedBus, MyDentist, Chumbak, AFAQs, and Vaatsalya.<br /><br />The trio was passionate about the internet boom and with giants like Google, Motorola, and Reliance backing the fund, they saw nothing stopping them when they organized their first round which was $15 million.<br />

    

    <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58061818" title="Exclusive: Ace Angel Investor Sanjay Mehta’s true-life experiences that make his investments in startups fool-proof" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Apr 07, 2017, 12:00 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div>




“One of the things that we were clear about was that doing business in India doesn’t take a lot of money, you needed to invest that money smartly. Our philosophy has been the same in the past 10 years- invest small amount of money, invest more as you gain confidence, work very closely to build a lot of value at an early stage,” Mr. Murthy told Business Insider.
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Their first investment was Carwale from which they exited gaining ten times the investment, the second was Redbus from which they exited at 24 times the amount invested. The entire fund is closing now at about 4 times the investment, which is the highest return for any investment firm in India, according to Murthy.<br /><br />Their second fund materialized in 2010 and still has four years to go and Murthy believes that they will again return three times the investment.<br /><br />In a country where funds raise huge amounts of money but don’t return any, he feels that in terms of investors, nothing has changed.<br />

    

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“I’ve grown as an investor in the past decade with total of 55 investments, but being in a Venture Capital is the same. There’s a time limit to it. We had to exit out of Carwale and Redbus due to the size of the next round and also to show returns on the investments which means that we can’t let the money grow further,” says Mahesh who says that frugality and building a product that is build with so much effort that it doesn’t need advertising has been his goal. <br /><br />He feels that India has a copycat culture where most popular companies in the country are just raising a lot of money, discounting and advertising which he views as failure and says that consolidation is bound to happen in the eCommerce and Ride-hailing space for sure.<br /><br />Murthy believes that the American Venture funding model is flawed in India because the exits happen too quickly within 8-10 years and in India, things are still picking up. “It’s also not fair to the entrepreneur because he will think the right time to exit a company is within 6-8 years which is when the investors will exit in accordance with this model,” he says, dissatisfied with the current scenario.<br /><br /><strong>The solution<br /></strong><br />Mahesh has been working on a long-term fund and also specialized funds which he thinks are better suited to the current emerging internet companies’ scenario. Sectors like Defence, Space and Electronics interest him for a broader long-term fund.<br />

    

    <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58177182" title="Exclusive: Mahesh Murthy&amp;#39;s Unique Art of Survival- From Being a Vacuum Salesman to an Ace Investor" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Apr 14, 2017, 11:04 AM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div> He leaves us with thoughts from great change makers like <keyword id="6355315" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Elon-Musk">Elon Musk</keyword>, Warren Buffet and Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and <keyword id="762444" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Richard-Feynman">Richard Feynman</keyword> and how non-conformity changed his life and it can change yours too.<br />

Exclusive: Mahesh Murthy thinks that the future of investing in India isn’t the current Venture Capital Model

<keyword id="1397790" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vani-Kola">Vani Kola</keyword>, Founder, and MD, <keyword id="1397792" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kalaari-Capital">Kalaari Capital</keyword> has always been drawn to something new, creative, and challenging, something that engages her intellectual curiosity. She reflects back on her days in the <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword> where the exposure to new ideas was tremendous and the energy to create the impact. "Entrepreneurship is a personal journey which requires tremendous self-discipline. Seeing people navigate through difficult situations to grow and rise to their destiny is what drives me to do what I do,” says the effervescent globe-trotter with a smile.<br /><br /> As an investor, she finds it exhilarating and fulfilling to help entrepreneurs. Her career is testimony to the fact that she is always up for a challenge - whether it was being an engineer when women were not engineers, working with <keyword id="6362513" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startups">startups</keyword> or working with individual founders to help them succeed.<br /><br />“The fundamental question is why can’t it be me who solves the problem?,” Kola asks of herself and budding entrepreneurs.<br /><br />To push the frontier, to go with the flow has always been her mantra. For Kola, life has been about building blocks and not scripting her entire life.<div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58061818" title="Exclusive: Ace Angel Investor Sanjay Mehta’s true-life experiences that make his investments in startups fool-proof" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Apr 07, 2017, 12:00 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div>
<strong>Embracing Conventional Rules<br /></strong><br /> Born in Hyderabad, Kola said that she is glad that she was conditioned into vernacular learning by her parents and teachers and still credits that as the foundation of her success.<br /><br /> Starting out in a conventional school, she believes that her values were set right by her parents. “Like any other middle-class child, I traveled the world in my mind with my books. The first time I got on a plane was when I went to the US to do my Masters with my spouse by my side,” recalls Kola who moved to the US in 1985 and only looked back twenty years later.<div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58627612" title="Exclusive: Vani Kola, MD, Kalaari Capital talks about her big bets and consolidation in the e-commerce sector" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="May 12, 2017, 6:00 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div>
<strong>Silicon Valley and its Exposure<br /></strong><br /> When she went to Silicon Valley to work, she started understanding new businesses like never before, something that she had never been exposed to back in India.<br /><br /> “The cliché is true; Silicon Valley is a vibrant place full of ideas and possibilities. When I started my own company, I was willing to accept failure,” says Kola who founded Right Works Corp., a business that helped businesses set up software systems. She went on to sign customers like General Electric and Pepsi and sold the control of the business for $657 million in cash and stock in 2005.<br /><div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58182579" title="Exclusive: Mahesh Murthy thinks that the future of investing in India isn’t the current Venture Capital Model" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Apr 14, 2017, 7:14 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div>
 After a decade of running her own company, her homecoming happened in 2006 and she sees it as a fulfilling journey where it is the land of possibilities full of aspirations instead of it being a country of predictability that she had left behind.<br /><br /> Calling her parents hands-off, she always got support for her actions. Even after getting married, she never felt her wings were getting clipped by her partner or the family with two girls that she has created. Kola feels that she has been blessed with a family that is proud of her and encourages her to fulfill her dreams and she does the same for them, and as an extension even with the entrepreneurs, she supports.<br />

Exclusive: Know Vani Kola, one of India's best known investors, like never before

The Delhi-bred Kunal Khattar is better known as <keyword id="131018" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jagdish-Khattar">Jagdish Khattar</keyword>’s son who helped Maruti reach new heights in India but that's not just it. Kunal Khattar is the emerging investor based out of Delhi who is revolutionizing the transportation industry albiet a little differently.<br /><br />An experimentation guy, Kunal studied in Delhi till his post-graduate degree and started his career with SR group to launch their mobile services. It won’t be wrong to say that he witnessed the seeds of the data revolution being sown, with the SR cell phone becoming Hutch and then finally turning into Vodafone.<br /><br />Post that stint, he decided to go to <keyword id="1931239" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kellog-School-of-Management">Kellog School of Management</keyword> in the US where he immediately became obsessed with technology at the time when the dot-com boom was about to happen. Newly graduated from Kellogs, he had two options- to move to Seattle and work with Microsoft or work with a digital strategic consulting company called IXL, he chose the latter.<br /><br /><strong>A Series of Busts<br /></strong><br />The consulting firm helped businesses start their e-commerce shops in the bay area and the Silicon Valley became Khattar’s home for the next two years.<br />

    

When the bust happened, Khattar recalled that it was the first time he had seen a company scale up rapidly only to come down.<br />

    

    

    

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The next bust he saw during his ten years residence in the states was the financial crisis in 2008.<br />This entrepreneur cum investor's first startup was with a professor from <keyword id="33081" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Stanford">Stanford</keyword>, and they managed to raise $ 1 million from small investors but it failed because it was technology ahead of its time as the use-case very small.<br /><br />

    

Learning from that experience for Khattar was that good technology needs to be timed well to be able to succeed and the importance of product-market fit. “You learn more from your successes than your failures,” says the effervescent Khattar who believes in adding new skills every five years.<br />

    

    

    

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Khattar moved to LA next in 2001 where he finally found some success with a pharma company where again, he took charge of the business side of things. In 2005, the company was sold and Khattar saw his first successful exit as an entrepreneur.<br /><br />For Khattar, two things mattered at every point in his career, one that he was interested in what he was doing and rising from the chaos of a startup to find learning, whether it is successful or not.<br /><br /><strong>Starting up with Investing<br /></strong><br />His journey in investing started with the New York-based firm who had acquired his company, called Aptuit Inc which had a $700 mn corpus. Khattar proved instrumental for the privately held firm where he had lead strategic investments at a $100 million valuation.<br /><br />His homecoming started when he decided to put his investing lens over India and his father, Jagdish Khattar quit Maruti. Encouraging his father to start up, the two Khattars started Carnation in 2009 and have not looked back since.<br />

    

    

    

    

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Kunal Khattar was still investing in start-ups when he decided two years back to get completely immersed in angel investing with AdvantEdge Partners where he helps early stage start-ups to get incubation and invest in middle-stage start-ups.<br /><br />His life has seen many ups and downs but Kunal is determined that the rollercoaster isn’t stopping anytime soon.<br />

Exclusive: From Starting-up in Silicon Valley to Investing in the Indian Capital, Kunal Khattar Knows Where the AdvantEdge Lies

“I’ve always believed in one motto in life: Being different, being relevant and being entrepreneurial and I’ll follow that to the end of my days,” said <keyword id="262067" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Mahesh-Murthy">Mahesh Murthy</keyword> on his journey as a broke teenager to an entrepreneur to investor and he doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58062121" title="Exclusive: An Angel investor whose Midas touch with Crypto-currency is redefining the future of start-up investments" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Apr 07, 2017, 5:30 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div> Mr. <keyword id="20148" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="murthy">Murthy</keyword> describes himself as someone who started out as doing exactly as he was supposed to do. He hails from a traditional Tamilian Iyer Brahmin family, and was naturally good in studies and even aced the quintessential Indian child checklist by getting into an engineering college. After a year of studying engineering, he realized that he wanted to drop out of college which resulted in his family kicking him out.Mahesh says that as a 17-year-old, it was the best lesson he could get as he learned to survive and rise from nothing. He lived in a cheap hotel in Secunderabad and got his first job at 17 in Eureka Forbes as a vacuum cleaner sales executive but he knew he was meant for greater things.<br /><br />“I started my first business when I was 19 when I realized that I could sell vacuum cleaning services instead of vacuum cleaners as the cost of the machines was too high at the time. It didn’t get off but I realized that I wasn’t meant to be just an employee,” Murthy recollects.<br /><br />Murthy is a huge believer of self-learning and says that he’s never stopped learning, “I once sat with Jeff Bezos and asked him how he knew so much, and he said simply that I run a bookstore. That resonated with me and I still go to books when I don’t understand anything; from stock-exchange to venture capital funding, I’ve read all relevant books that are out there,” he says that he remains a self-learner which is why he’s still not a graduate in the formal education sense.

    

    

    

    

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His journey to entrepreneurship and then being an investor started with realizing his creative genius and joining Grey Advertising and then Ogilvy Hong Kong where he worked for clients like Unilever, The Economist, HP, Microsoft, Pepsi, and MTV.<br /><br />He joined <keyword id="4415688" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="passionfund">Passionfund</keyword> in 2000, and then since then, he has been involved in the creation and exits of many successful start-ups including, USWeb, Compassbox, WebDunia, Geodesic and EBSDirect among others.<br />

    

    

    

    

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He’s currently investing through Seedfund which started in 2005 with two other partners and raised its first round of India’s first Venture Capital Fund.<br />These days Mahesh divides his time between his three passions; advertising, traveling and startup companies via both Pinstorm and Seedfund.<br /><br />“I look dispassionately at what people say and examine life as I go. The advertising business taught me psychology and understanding consumers to know how you can persuade them,” the rebel signs off.<br />

Exclusive: Mahesh Murthy's Unique Art of Survival- From Being a Vacuum Salesman to an Ace Investor

Krishnan <keyword id="6356252" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ganesh">Ganesh</keyword>, has played a lot of roles in his life; from an engineer, to an entrepreneur, to now a venture builder, and his life has been nothing short of an trial. While his shoes have been too big to fill and as they keep changing, he is currently pioneering a unique model with Growth Story in India, which is probably only made popular by Rocket Internet in the country.<br /><br />GrowthStory is the venture-builder platform that Ganesh and his wife, Meena set up in 2011 which has promoted some of India's most disruptive start-ups including Portea Medical, Big Basket, Fresh Menu, Home Lane, AcadGild, HouseJoy, Social Frontier and many more. 

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

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This model is unique due to the fact that while Ganesh and Meena come up with entrepreneurial ideas, they hire executives to pull it off. It is not primarily "investment" only, but where GrowthStory is the "promoter," but where the Partners are often the originators of the idea, work to get a founding team in place, drive fund raising early in the game, work closely with founders to scale the venture, guide strategic direction et al.<br /><br />This ‘express’ entrepreneurship that the power couple pull through is extraordinary and the back- story to it is a roller coaster that, you can’t forget.<br /><br /><strong>Early life and career<br /></strong><br />Ganesh’s father died in an accident when he was just nine years old and as the eldest of three siblings, he felt the need to set an example. His mother was a hard-working government servant and bought them up to the best of her capabilities.

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

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So Krishnan<strong>, </strong>became a mechanical engineer passed out from Delhi College of Engineering, and even got a post graduate degree from IIM before realizing that he didn’t want to be an engineer or just an MBA graduate.<br /><br />Ganesh credits his entrepreneurial trials to <keyword id="44903" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Shiv-Nadar">Shiv Nadar</keyword>, under whose guidance he experienced different business function, “I worked for five years in various functions and also as executive assistant to Shiv Nadar. My first venture started in 1990, a company called IT&amp;T where me and my friends pooled in money to get it started,” he told Business Insider.<br /><br />He ran the company till 1998 and remained the largest shareholder and director of the company till 2003 when it was sold to iGate.<br /><br />He went back to the corporate life but after two-years stint went back to entrepreneurship with his second business venture called CustomerAsset with Meena and another partner.<br /><br />It was later acquired by ICICI Bank in 2002 and Ganesh made $ 20 million for his stake in the company.

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

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In 2003 he stumbled upon an innovative new company called Marketics which was started by IIT and IIM graduates. Ganesh was approached for investment, mentoring and guidance. This company was also sold off to WNS, for $65 million where only half a million dollars were invested in this business without venture capital funding.<br /><br />Then Ganesh again started his own business with TutorVista in 2006 which was bought out completely by Pearson for Rs. 1000 crore. His multiple hits have led him to be where he is, but that isn’t without the missus by his side.<br /><br />When the the last acquisition happened, Ganesh and Meena decided to take the hard road and continue their entrepreneurship journey albeit this time, differently.<br /><br />"Only 5 per cent of start ups succeed and Ninety-five per cent end up failing. I see still young entrepreneurs after starting a company against all the odds. I'm addicted to fueling that until I can," says Krishnan when asked about why his family still makes risky businesses instead of just ‘settling down’.<br />

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

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<strong>The Perfect Pairing<br /></strong><br />When it comes to Meena and Krishnan Ganesh, their complementary skill sets have given fuel to the train that is Growth Story. Professionally, Meena is more lauded as the CEO of <span class="m_-1612048191318142896gmail-profileshighlight"><keyword id="6398216" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tesco">Tesco</keyword></span>,No.2 at <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> and now CEO at Portea, but Ganesh is the visonary that knows they can achieve so much together.<br /><br />As co-founders and life partners, they know that team work is the key to making a venture start and keep it running.<br /><br />

Exclusive: K. Ganesh Made BigBasket and Portea Medical Blockbusters in India, and This is his Unique Life-story

Senapathy ‘Kris’ <keyword id="9991" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gopalakrishnan">Gopalakrishnan</keyword> is a name that resonates with the growth of IT sector in India and the rise of <keyword id="6354512" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword>.<br /><br />‘Kris’ as he is known popularly was the second last founder-CEO of the home-grown IT giant that spearheaded entrepreneurship in the field of digital transformation through internet technology.<br /><br />While Kris quit the company’s board in 2014, he is far from retired from work. As an ex-president of CII and also the non-executive chairman of Axilor ventures, he promotes start-ups because starting his own business with six other friends in 1981 changed his life.<br /><br />Gopalakrishnan talked to Business Insider about his early life which has made him who he is today.

    

    

    

    

    

    <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58182579" title="Exclusive: Mahesh Murthy thinks that the future of investing in India isn’t the current Venture Capital Model" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Apr 14, 2017, 7:14 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div> “I was brought up in a world with no internet or even computers, so my knowledge was limited to studies and I devoured books both while studying and in different libraries. I studied at the <keyword id="4469078" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="university-of-trivandrum">University of Trivandrum</keyword> and I remember cycling everywhere to get books or to attend classes. My parents encouraged my obsession and even though they wanted me to be a doctor, IIT-Madras happened, and they were encouraging,” Kris explains how he ended up at an IIT.<br /><br />Gopalakrishnan was stoked at the institute where they had the access to the best computers and the college was encouraging innovation at all levels.<br />He recalls an incident where his professor caught him reading on a cycle. ” Professor Mahabala had started this new Fortran programming course that he knew I’d be interested in, and encouraged me to join. That course ignited my love for experimentation and I never looked back at anything else,” Kris says, fondly.<br />

    

    

    

    

    

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<strong>First Entrepreneurial Stint that Worked</strong><br /><br />When it comes to work, Gopalakrishnan counts his stars and says that he was lucky to find people who supported him, no matter what. “I started working at Patni computers in Pune where I met Narayana Murthy. He wanted to start his own venture and asked me to come on board; I couldn’t refuse because I looked up to him as a senior,” Kris recollects.<br /><br />With a dream team and a great manager like Murthy on board, Gopalakrishnan was not worried about him starting up at a young age of 27. He agrees that he was scared to tell his family and when he got married the same year as the incorporation of the company, he waited till the wedding to make the announcement. Luckily, everyone was unfazed and Kris started the first sailing course on the entrepreneurship, smooth.<br />

    

    

    

    

    

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Starting up from just Rs. 10,000, Infosys is now worth billions and Gopalakrishnan thinks that it’s all because the company built its way up slowly without any external funding and just focus on the product that they believed would change people’s lives. It did fast track his life and now he’s helping people to let go of their training wheels.<br />

Exclusive: Kris Gopalakrishnan Current Ace Investor and Infosys Founder Reflects Back on his Startup Days

<keyword id="913964" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Krishnan-Ganesh">Krishnan Ganesh</keyword>, needs no introduction as a serial entrepreneur and now his Growth Story does not seem to end. Over the past two decades, <keyword id="6356252" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ganesh">Ganesh</keyword> and his wife Meena have created, and exited from, four ventures and stuck to the India-domestic consumption story even as others rubbish the e-commerce as a viable business in the country.<br /> 

    

    

    

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<br /> Ganesh describes himself as a dreamer— focussing on networking, business strategy and looking at new business opportunities with investors and entrepreneurs. Meena, his wife is more of a technical person exploring how to hire, identifying operational glitches, how to scale up and so on.<br /> <br /> “We have incubated new companies in the internet and e-commerce sector that address Indian consumer challenges. In our country, there is a huge opportunity in every sector because there is a problem in every sector due to the sheer size of the population. We have been working hard to create solutions specific to India where we push the technology to solve the problems,” Ganesh told Business Insider talking about successes like Big Basket, Freshmenu, BlueStone and Portea Medical, the latter headed by his wife.<br /> 

    

    

    

    <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="58292743" title="Exclusive: K. Ganesh Made BigBasket and Portea Medical Blockbusters in India, and This is his Unique Life-story" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Apr 21, 2017, 12:00 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div> Ganesh believes that the last nine months have added fuel to the Indian start-ups, “Events like the launch of <keyword id="6354504" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Reliance-Jio">Reliance Jio</keyword>, Demonetization and recent round of <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> funding shows that the trust in internet companies in India have been increasing. Reliance Jio got the next 100 million online but we still have a long way to go. India needs internet companies as we lack infrastructure and can’t afford to keep a extensive range of products at one place.”<br /><br /> His latest bet are in B2B companies like GrowFit which is a healthy food and diet platform and Social Frontier which is a SAAS platform for managing social media for companies. <br />

    

    

    

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 This seasoned entrepreneur knows how to start-up and create a growth story and you can get in touch with him on Twitter at @ganeshk03.

Exclusive: K Ganesh's Growth Story with Start-ups is Never-ending and Here’s the Next Chapter

<keyword id="6530028" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Kris-Gopalakrishnan">Kris Gopalakrishnan</keyword> is a name that pops up when you’re talking about start-ups and for all the right reasons. From consulting the government regarding startup policies to mentoring start-ups at Axilor Ventures, Kris does it all while working on his philanthropic endeavors.<br /><br />He also works closely as a chief mentor at <keyword id="1075613" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startup-Village">Startup Village</keyword>, a Kochi-based not-for-profit technology business incubator which launched in 2012 on a private-public-partnership (PPP) model involving the state government’s department of science and technology.<br /><br />In 2014, shortly after leaving <keyword id="6354512" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword> board, he started the Pratiksha Trust which is the <keyword id="9991" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gopalakrishnan">Gopalakrishnan</keyword> family’s philanthropic foundation.<br />

    

    

    

    

    

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The fund granted $36 million to set up a Centre for Brain Research at IISc. For 10 years, the Centre will get support from the IISc’s Centre for Neuroscience to also get a chance to collaborate with hospitals to study the functioning of the brain and find cures for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and schizophrenia.<br />“I’m bullish about Brain Research as it is impertinent. Methods such as personalized medicine can have a significant impact in this field” says Gopalakrishnan.<br /><br />Kris Gopalakrishnan told Business Insider that he has been focusing on four sectors after leaving Infosys, “My areas of interests are Education, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Research, not particularly in that order. I’m always working like most entrepreneurs,” says the zesty 62-year old.<br />

    

    

    

    

    

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From supporting 160 students through scholarships to creating policies with CII, Gopalakrishnan is a busy man uplifting people as he moves forward.<br /><br /><strong>Original Indian Innovation<br /></strong><br />When it comes to entrepreneurship, Kris thinks that it can solve the country’s problems, “I think any small business incorporated under five years is a startup. If everyone become entrepreneurial, the problem unemployment and underemployment can be solved.”<br />

    

    

    

    

    

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From tea-shops to Kirana stores, every small business is adding the fuel to one of the world’s fastest growing economy.<br /><br />Gopalakrishnan also thinks that entrepreneurs should only be focused on serving more people, whether it comes to providing jobs or a service.<br /><br />“I expect to see more international innovation success stories from India in the next 30 years. This is just the beginning,” says the effervescent do-er in Gopalakrishnan.<br />

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