Important Movers And Shakers Of The Week [Oct 28-Nov 2]

We bring to you the latest edition of movers and shakers of the week in the Indian startup ecosystem.

In one of the biggest news this week, former Paytm Mall chief operating officer (COO), Amit Sinha, moved back to his old project, Unnati, an agritech startup which plans to help farmers by improving their productivity. At Unnati, Sinha has joined back as cofounder and would be responsible to take the company into the fintech category by offering agricultural loans to farmers in partnership with non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) at a low monthly interest rate.

Sinha cofounded the agritech startup with his friend, Ashok Prasad, in 2017. He is currently planning to raise $6-$8 Mn in a Series A funding round for Unnati which is registered under the name of Akshamaala Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Sinha had joined One 97 Communications Pvt Ltd, Paytm’s parent company, in 2007 as vice president, business planning and people. Before leaving Paytm, Sinha was involved in building two large unicorns in India, Paytm and Paytm Mall. He has played multiple roles including Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Paytm, HR Head of Paytm, COO of Paytm Mall, Insurance Business Head of Paytm etc. Sinha is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C).

Here’s a look at other important movers and shakers of the week!

TO THE NEW Appoints Head Of Financial Services

TO THE NEW, a digital technology company has appointed Abhishek Goel to head their financial services business. Goel brings to the company over two decades of experience in the industry. In past, he has worked with technology giants such as TCS, Headstrong and IRIS Software helping them build and grow their financial services practice. 

Goel has also worked with major investment banks such as Barclays Capital and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and has successfully delivered low latency and large volume IT systems to the clients across the geography. 

He holds an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and is an alumnus of National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra. 

Ex-Future Group Chief Transformation Officer Joins Manthan Software 

Manthan Software, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cloud Analytics software company, has appointed Manoj Agarwal as COO. Agarwal brings with him an experience of more than 20 years in technology, retail and consumer markets. 

His responsibilities at Manthan Software will be to develop and direct the company’s strategies, structure, capacity, and teams towards revenue and growth objectives. Agarwal will report to Atul Jalan, founder and CEO of Manthan Software. 

Prior to his appointment as COO, Agarwal served as CTO at Future Group, where he was part of the IT Strategy team and had led technology-enabled initiatives, driving organization-wide change management. He has previously also worked in global companies like Procter & Gamble and Atos Origin in the US, where he played key roles in business transformation and information technology.

Stay tuned for the next week’s edition of Movers and Shakers of the week!