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As a part of the series Indian Startup Hubs, we have brought to the fore the aspiring and the dark horse startups looking to make it big, ones that have struck top dollar and witnessed mega buck exits.
This time we thought of shedding light on the people behind the vivacious and the shimmering startup community of Pune. Presenting a comprehensive list of Influencers, Mentors, Investors and Organizations:
It is a known fact that no startup can function without the experienced knowledge of Mentors. The wisdom that mentors bring to the table goes a long way in instilling better understanding of the ecosystem. The domain expertise further adds immeasurable value to the startup’s journey. Here is a peek into the mentor world that is so instrumental in making the Pune startup ecosystem grow by leaps and bounds:
Mentors – Advanced Stage
Shridhar Shukla is the founder and current MD of GS labs and kpoint technologies. Previously, he was associated with Persistent Systems as a Director and responsible for strategic direction & organizational growth, for more than 8 years. His specialities include creating next generation core network elements, Identity management infrastructure, and building an innovative organization.
Founder and CEO of Persistent Systems, Anand Deshpande is also the founding member of the iSPIRT foundation, apart from being the board member of deAsra Foundation and trustee of computer history museum. He has worked with HP Laboratories where he handled data management. He possesses a wide array of skills from distributed systems, cloud computing, software development to mobile applications, product development and scalability.
Angel investor and mentor to a number of technology startups, Maneesh Bhandari is currently the Director of Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), Pune operations. He also founded SENA systems, from which he later exited. Apart from serving as the Investor Director at Framebench and LetsIntern, he was the angel investor and mentor at CIIE for four years before becoming its full time director.
Currently, the president of TiE, a non-profit network of entrepreneurs, Vishwas Mahajan is an entrepreneur and a senior level manager with over 10 years experience in the software industry. He started his entrepreneurial drive with Compulink and exited the company as its CEO/MD. He holds a number of important positions; Director at Talentrackr, a recruitment automation software product and LifeLine Systech, an idea incubation and framework and support service, Advisor at ARTITUDE, a performing and various art education disseminator among kids.
Starting his career as a System engineer at Oracle, Gaurav Mehra is currently the President of Squer solutions, an industry body aimed at making Pune the startup choice for software development. He co-founded Saba Software in 1997 and quit the enterprise last year. He also served as an angel investor in Indian Angel Network, where he provided mentorship and advice to young companies. Previously, he was the Managing Partner of FRMware, a software services company and Director of HTR Inc, where he led all aspects of the company’s for-profit training business.
An electrical and computer engineering post graduate from Iowa University, Ajay Bhagwat is the founder of Renu Electronics. a platform providing products for the factory floor automation industry. He is also a charter member of TiE, a non-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals, established to foster entrepreneurship and nurture entrepreneurs. He has expertise in the electronic sector and areas involving manufacturing and hardware.
Technology entrepreneur and corporate leader, Kiran Deshapande is the cofounder and President of AirTight Networks, a startup that provides secure cloud managed Wi-fi facility. Before becoming a full time entrepreneur, Kiran was CEO at TechMahindra and group leader at TCS, one of India’s leading software company. He holds skills in areas spanning wireless Security technologies, running a software services company, compiler and language processing tools and software engineering tools.
Mentors – Early Stage
Founder of ViralMint, Rohan Dighe is a web developer-cum-serial entrepreneur. After completing his computer science degree from Pune University, Rohan worked for an year at Codewalla as a Facebook developer and afterwards joined Webchutney, a startup offering web design, web promotion and web marketing services. Later on, he founded another startup by the name of Social Web Factory on similar lines. Rohan possesses knowledge of ecommerce, the internet business and ways to bootstrap a startup. He is also an excellent marketing mentor.
Having more than 20 years of experience in designing interactive systems, Shashank Deshpande is the Co-founder and current President of Clarice Technologies, a consulting firm specialising in design. Earlier, he worked as senior manager in Symantec and was Chief of Technical Staff at Human Factors International. He took his first entrepreneurial steps by starting Quipus Design, a small multimedia design company in 1992. His top skills include User Interface and User Experience design.
Founder and now the CEO of online food ordering company TastyKhana, Shachin Bharadwaj is a professional software engineer. He has worked as senior quality control specialist at Synygy Inc. TastyKhana was acquired by Foodpanda in November 2014 and will be merged with the global food delivery marketplace.
Starting as an applications engineer, Rahul Kulkarni has been a product manager for most part of his career. After working with Google for almost six years, he shifted to Sokrati, a digital media management platform. In January, this year, he founded Early Stage Social Enterprise to increase employability and foster product innovation in India. He counts consumer behavior, cloud computing, data mining, social, mobile, ad targeting, digital marketing, analytics among his corpus of skills.
Arun, an avid Internet geek runs Trak.in, which is counted among one of the emerging tech blogs in the country. He is very much active in the tech/startup in Pune. Besides, he is also the co-founder of My Open Campus, a free collaboration platform on cloud that makes communicating and learning within a college secure and easy.
Mentor – US based
These are US-based people who have strong ties to Pune and are known to help Pune-based entrepreneurs:
Nickhil Jakatdar is currently CEO and co-founder of Vuclip, a mobile video search and delivery service. Prior to Vuclip, he has founded or run various startups, such as Timbre Technologies, CommandCAD & Praesagus and led them to successful exits. Recently, Vuclip has opened a R&D centre in Pune.
Founder of Kale Logistics Solutions, an IT solutions company focused on logistics and the airport industry, Narendra Kale is an entrepreneur who has built multi-million dollar companies from scratch. He is actively involved in healthcare and educational activities for social uplift programs in India.
An electronic engineer by qualification, Bobby Jadhav has worked as a software architect with firms such as TCS, TAB and ZSP Corp. He is the founder of a number of ventures, SpotZot, a location based commerce platform that connects brands & retailers with high intent mobile consumers, being the pick of the startups. It has been acquired by Valassis where Bobby works as chief of Mobile offers.
Angel Investors
Maneesh Bhandari is the Director of CIIE Pune where he was the angel investor of iAccelerator and mentor to Power of Ideas and Social Entrepreneurs. He is also an angel investor in Ideophone, Actionrun, Mobiotics, Framebench, apart from being the advisor of TookiTaki and LetsIntern.
Anil Paranjape is the owner of Grubshup, a restaurant chain startup apart from the Director of Aagami lighting, an LED lighting startup. Currently, he is Partner at venture fund INFUSE, where he is involved in investments in the clean technology domain.
Ex-CEO of Idea Cellular, Birla Sun Life Insurance and Suzlon Green Power, Vikram Mehmi is also the founder of Smartpluggers Innovation Labs, where he provides mentorship and support to early-stage startups in category of B towns. He is also the co-founder of a niche CSR Strategic Advisory organisation called CHHAYA.
Founder of a number of startups such as Roamware and ReadyContacts and Nurture, Vaibhav Domkundwar has also started his own small venture firm by the name BetterLabs– which incubates early stage startups and does aggressive customer development. So far, he has invested in 6 startups–Simplewall, PicBackMan, Magik, DataDoctor and his own ventures, ReadyContacts and Nurture.
Vishwas Mahajan is the President of The Indus entrepreneurs, the world’s largest Non-Profit Network of Entrepreneurs committed to fostering entrepreneurship in all forms. He is the Director of Talentrackr and LifeLine Systech and the adviser to ARTITUDE, an education startup that seeks to profligate art and other performing art among elementary school children.
Evangelist Gaurav Mehra is a serial investor and founder of Saba software. He has invested in startups such as Candy Cane Club and Squer Solutions apart from being the advisory board member of Saviant consulting. He is also a member of India Angel Network(IAN) where he provides mentoring and advice to young companies.
Vikas Kumar and Koushik Sekhar are also involved in the Pune Startup ecosystem.
VC Firms with Pune Connections
POS Ventures is yet another VC fund started by a Punekar which have made multiple local investments
Organizations
TiE Pune: Every year, TiE hosts TiE Nurture which provides a 6-month mentorship program that helps startups in Pune to grow and attract funding. Its monthly programs “My Story” and “Breakfast with TiE” and other events are excellent. Vishwas Mahajan, is the current President of TiE Pune and Mandar Joshi is the admin.
NASSCOM: NASSCOM hosts multiple startup, tech and software events in Pune, including NASSCOM Product Conclave– which provides a platform for showcasing product excellence, creating buzz, actionable workshops besides offering curated insight and networking facilities. Another flagship program, the Game Developers Conference, provides dedicated tracks on technology, game design, game art and publishing and advertising. Darryl Zuzarte, Senior Associate of NASSCOM is the chief follower of the Pune startup scene.
DST: Housed in University of Pune, Department of Science and Technology is a nodal department of the Ministry of Science & Development. It connects startups with researchers in various Indian universities ( useful in non-software areas), and gives credibility if you’re selling products/services to Indian government bodies. Looking into matters of Ventures that promote the commercialization of technology is one of its major responsibilities as a government organization.
Office Space/CoWorking
Pune IT Park: Launched by promoter of Vansum Industries, Pune IT Park is a model IT Park which offers infrastructural facilities to IT & Software Companies. Pune IT Park is the brainchild of Sunil Vanarse, a Chemical Engineer from UDCT (Mumbai). It is exceptionally startup friendly and provides “per seat” rates along with Plug-n-Play facility. Great for very early stage startups.
LeanRounds.com: A unique accelerator launched by Vinayak Joglekar and other angels, LeanRounds is an alternative to traditional seed investors. By embracing the business idea itself, it treats each unit as a falsifiable hypothesis and not as a startup with a business plan, where investment is based solely upon the credibility of the investors
Pune International Incubation Centre: An office space launched by Synerzip, PIIC serves as an incubation centre and brainstorming hub for budding tech entrepreneurs. Most of the early stage startups in Pune are located in these areas: Northwest–Aundh/Baner/Sus/Pashan, Northeast–Kalyani Nagar/Viman Nagar, Central–SB Road.
[Editor’s Note: A special thanks To Navin Kabra for helping us compile this article]
Stay tuned for the list of Startups that are making big in the city of Mumbai.
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