As a part of the series Indian Startup Hubs, we've added to the fore the aspiring and the dark horse startups trying to make it big, ones which have struck top greenback and witnessed mega greenback exits.This time we thought of losing light at the human beings behind the vivacious and the shimmering startup community of Pune. Presenting a complete listing of Influencers, Mentors, Investors and Organizations:
It is a acknowledged reality that no startup can feature without the experienced understanding of Mentors. The wisdom that mentors carry to the desk is going an extended manner in instilling higher knowledge of the environment. The domain expertise similarly provides immeasurable value to the startup’s journey. Here is a peek into the mentor world that is so instrumental in making the Pune startup atmosphere grow with the aid of leaps and boundaries:
Mentors – Advanced Stage
Karamveer Singh
KaramVeer SAn electrical engineer, an alumnus of IIT Bombay, Karamveer Singh is currently the Co-founding father of Medifee.Com. He has worked as a software engineer for Veritas earlier than taking the entrepreneurial plunge and subsequently founding a number of businesses along with Androit Web Solutions, Mantra HR, Ayush Software Pvt Ltd, Citrus Web Solutions and Akube Technologies. Having deep know-how in B2C on line ad supported on line content material corporations, Karamveer is an super mentor for startups for enterprise improvement, net analytics, product control and Web 2.Zero among, he is likewise an angel investor.
Shridhar Shukla is the founder and present day MD of GS labs and kpoint technology. Previously, he was associated with Persistent Systems as a Director and liable for strategic path & organizational growth, for extra than 8 years. His specialities encompass growing next technology core network factors, Identity control infrastructure, and building an revolutionary employer.
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Founder and CEO of Persistent Systems, Anand Deshpande is also the founding member of the iSPIRT basis, aside from being the board member of deAsra Foundation and trustee of computer records museum. He has labored with HP Laboratories in which he handled records management. He possesses a big selection of abilties from disbursed structures, cloud computing, software improvement to cellular programs, product improvement and scalability.
Angel investor and mentor to some of era startups, Maneesh Bhandari is currently the Director of Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), Pune operations. He additionally founded SENA structures, from which he later exited. Apart from serving because the Investor Director at Framebench and LetsIntern, he became the angel investor and mentor at CIIE for 4 years earlier than becoming its full time director.
Currently, the president of TiE, a non-earnings network of marketers, Vishwas Mahajan is an entrepreneur and a senior level supervisor with over 10 years enjoy within the software program industry. He started out his entrepreneurial force with Compulink and exited the business enterprise as its CEO/MD. He holds a number of vital positions; Director at Talentrackr, a recruitment automation software product and LifeLine Systech, an concept incubation and framework and help service, Advisor at ARTITUDE, a acting and numerous artwork education disseminator among youngsters.
Starting his career as a System engineer at Oracle, Gaurav Mehra is presently the President of Squer answers, an enterprise body aimed toward making Pune the startup preference for software program improvement. He co-based Saba Software in 1997 and cease the business enterprise closing yr. He additionally served as an angel investor in Indian Angel Network, in which he furnished mentorship and advice to young groups. Previously, he changed into the Managing Partner of FRMware, a software program offerings employer and Director of HTR Inc, where he led all aspects of the business enterprise’s for-income training commercial enterprise.
Ajay Bhagwat
An electrical and laptop engineering put up graduate from Iowa University, Ajay Bhagwat is the founding father of Renu Electronics. A platform offering products for the manufacturing unit floor automation industry. He is also a charter member of TiE, a non-profit global community of entrepreneurs and specialists, hooked up to foster entrepreneurship and nurture entrepreneurs. He has know-how in the digital sector and areas concerning production and hardware.
Technology entrepreneur and company leader, Kiran Deshapande is the cofounder and President of AirTight Networks, a startup that gives cozy cloud controlled Wi-fi facility. Before becoming a full time entrepreneur, Kiran became CEO at TechMahindra and institution leader at TCS, certainly one of India’s main software program corporation. He holds talents in areas spanning wi-fi Security technologies, going for walks a software services employer, compiler and language processing equipment and software program engineering tools.
Mentors – Early Stage
Founder of ViralMint, Rohan Dighe is a web developer-cum-serial entrepreneur. After finishing his computer technological know-how diploma from Pune University, Rohan labored for an 12 months at Codewalla as a Facebook developer and afterwards joined Webchutney, a startup imparting internet layout, net advertising and web advertising offerings. Later on, he founded any other startup by means of the call of Social Web Factory on comparable lines. Rohan possesses knowledge of ecommerce, the net enterprise and ways to bootstrap a startup. He is likewise an notable marketing mentor.
Baishampayan Ghose
BaishampayanCo-founding father of Helpshift Technologies, Baishampayan Ghose is a hardcore entrepreneur with startups along with ocricket, a recreation-primarily based social community corporation and Paisa.Com additionally to his credit score. A pc engineering graduate from Shivaji University, Baishampayan worked with Cleartrip Travel Services as a returned-quit and front-give up developer before deciding to launch his personal ventures. He has a significant quantity of experience within the layout and implementation of search engines, transaction processing structures, policies engines, dispensed systems which make him an awesome technology and product control mentor. Baishampayan is likewise an active member of the Free & Open Source Software community and has contributed to many projects inclusive of Clojure, Ubuntu, Python and Django
Navin Kabra
Navin KNavin Kabra is a software program generation expert with over 15 years of enjoy inside the enterprise. He is currently the co-founder and CTO at ReliScore.Com, a platform for task-seekers to showcase their talents with the aid of solving issues, finishing programming challenges and wherein required, submitting the software code. He is likewise the author of PuneTech.Com, a portal for the tech community in Pune, India. He has executed product improvement and research; besides writing patron and agency software program. Navin is a relatively networked entrepreneur with connections spanning throughout the spectrum of pune startups and the tech surroundings.
Shashank Deshpande
Having more than 20 years of revel in in designing interactive structures, Shashank Deshpande is the Co-founder and cutting-edge President of Clarice Technologies, a consulting firm specialising in layout. Earlier, he worked as senior supervisor in Symantec and become Chief of Technical Staff at Human Factors International. He took his first entrepreneurial steps by beginning Quipus Design, a small multimedia design organization in 1992. His pinnacle abilities consist of User Interface and User Experience layout.
Founder and now the CEO of online meals ordering company TastyKhana, Shachin Bharadwaj is a expert software engineer. He has labored as senior fine manipulate specialist at Synygy Inc. TastyKhana become obtained via Foodpanda in November 2014 and can be merged with the worldwide meals delivery market.
Amit Paranjape
Amit PranjpeeAmit Paranjape is a era expert and entrepreneur with management experience across Product Management, Marketing, Strategy, Business Development, Consulting and Outsourcing. Presently, he's worried with some of startups as the founding father of Reliscore, BharatHealth . PuneTech, a repository of software program technology facts associated with Pune, become Amit’s first task as an entrepreneur. He has a very strong community of influencers in Pune, India and inside the US.
Mukul Kumar
Mukul KumarCo-founder and Senior Vice President Engineering of Pubmatic, Mukul Kumar started his profession as a software developer in Wipro and moved into control as he have become a senior supervisor in Symantec. Soon after his managerial stint, he evolved relatively scalable and performant garage appliance with Panta Systems. Pubmatic has been concerned with a number of acquisitions, incredible one being that of MobiPrimo, a cell improvement generation firm.
Starting as an applications engineer, Rahul Kulkarni has been a product manager for most a part of his career. After running with Google for nearly six years, he shifted to Sokrati, a virtual media control platform. In January, this 12 months, he founded Early Stage Social Enterprise to growth employability and foster product innovation in India. He counts customer behavior, cloud computing, statistics mining, social, mobile, advert concentrated on, virtual advertising, analytics amongst his corpus of abilities.
Arun, an avid Internet geek runs Trak.In, that is counted amongst one of the rising tech blogs within the us of a. He could be very an awful lot energetic within the tech/startup in Pune. Besides, he is also the co-founder of My Open Campus, a loose collaboration platform on cloud that makes speaking and getting to know inside a university at ease and clean.
Mentor – US primarily based
These are US-based human beings who have sturdy ties to Pune and are recognised to assist Pune-primarily based marketers:
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Nickhil Jakatdar is presently CEO and co-founder of Vuclip, a cell video search and shipping carrier. Prior to Vuclip, he has based or run diverse startups, inclusive of Timbre Technologies, CommandCAD & Praesagus and led them to a hit exits. Recently, Vuclip has opened a R&D centre in Pune.
Founder of Kale Logistics Solutions, an IT answers agency focused on logistics and the airport industry, Narendra Kale is an entrepreneur who has built multi-million dollar agencies from scratch. He is actively involved in healthcare and academic activities for social uplift packages in India.
An electronic engineer by qualification, Bobby Jadhav has worked as a software program architect with companies such as TCS, TAB and ZSP Corp. He is the founder of some of ventures, SpotZot, a region based commerce platform that connects manufacturers & outlets with high cause mobile clients, being the pick out of the startups. It has been acquired by Valassis in which Bobby works as chief of Mobile gives.
Maneesh Bhandari is the Director of CIIE Pune wherein he become the angel investor of iAccelerator and mentor to Power of Ideas and Social Entrepreneurs. He is likewise an angel investor in Ideophone, Actionrun, Mobiotics, Framebench, other than being the marketing consultant of TookiTaki and LetsIntern.
Anil Paranjape is the owner of Grubshup, a restaurant chain startup apart from the Director of Aagami lights, an LED lights startup. Currently, he's Partner at assignment fund INFUSE, wherein he's concerned in investments in the smooth era area.
Ex-CEO of Idea Cellular, Birla Sun Life Insurance and Suzlon Green Power, Vikram Mehmi is likewise the founding father of Smartpluggers Innovation Labs, where he affords mentorship and aid to early-degree startups in category of B cities. He is also the co-founder of a gap CSR Strategic Advisory company called CHHAYA.
Founder of some of startups which includes Roamware and ReadyContacts and Nurture, Vaibhav Domkundwar has additionally started out his own small undertaking company by way of the call BetterLabs– which incubates early stage startups and does aggressive patron improvement. So a ways, he has invested in 6 startups–Simplewall, PicBackMan, Magik, DataDoctor and his very own ventures, ReadyContacts and Nurture.
Vishwas Mahajan is the President of The Indus entrepreneurs, the sector’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 schooling startup that seeks to profligate artwork and different acting artwork among standard school youngsters.
Evangelist Gaurav Mehra is a serial investor and founder of Saba software program. He has invested in startups which includes Candy Cane Club and Squer Solutions aside from being the advisory board member of Saviant consulting. He is also a member of India Angel Network(IAN) where he presents mentoring and advice to younger businesses.
Sunil Nikhar
Sunil NikharAs an entrepreneur and technocrat, Sunil Nikhar based the famous Ascent Computing Group in 1993, now received by means of Chinadotcom. He is also the founder of Pyxis Systems, which gives services to global investment banks. He became the Chief Mentor and Advisor to e-Zest Solution Limited primarily based in Pune, a startup targeted on Mobile Development, Cloud Computing and Business Intelligence. He is actively engaged with TiE Pune as an Angel investor.
Vikas Kumar and Koushik Sekhar are also concerned within the Pune Startup environment.
VC Firms with Pune Connections
nexusNexus: A VC firm primarily based inside the US, Nexus Venture Partners has invested in extra than 50 agencies of which 8 are from Pune which include Pubmatic, amongst others.
LightboxLightbox: A $100Mn VC firm primarily based in Mumbai has recently made funding in Pune primarily based Faasos.
LightspeedLightspeed: With assets of over $3Bn, Lightspeed Venture Partners has invested in extra than 200 corporations. Lightspeed has invested in variety of startups Phone.Com , Vee, ItzCash, Asklaila, Tutorvista, Fashion Ara, Phone Warrior and different worldwide startups. Dev Khare is a regular go to within the Pune Startup circle.
QualcommQualcomm Ventures: Launched in 2000, Qualcomm ventures makes strategic investments in early level excessive era ventures. So a ways it has invested in Housing.Com, Yebhi, MapMyIndia, Apalya, Deck, Portea, AppsDaily, Capillary and others. Varsha Tagare, Director Qualcomm visits Pune frequently to gauge the startup scene.
ClarionClarion: Angel and Seed fund primarily based in India, for startups in organization era and solution services phase, Clarion Venture companions has invested in a number of startups. Iquotient, Planetria, Zingma and Saviant Consulting are the chief startups funded through Clarion. Ankur Agarwal, Managing Partner, Clarion ordinary Pune traveler.
Blume venturesBlume Ventures: A pre-Series A and early-level seed challenge fund primarily based out of Mumbai, Blume Ventures provides funding within the range of $50-a hundred Mn to tech enabled startups. It is an investor in eFarm, InMobi, FrameBench, HashCube, Polama, DataWeave among others.
Seedfund: Founded in 2006 via Bharati Jacob, Seedfund’s operations span Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore It has invested in a hit startups consisting of redBus, Edusports, Mydentist, SportsKeeda, ViralMint among others.
Helion challenge partnersHelion: An India concentrated VC company based in Mauritius,Helion Ventures invests in early to mid-degree corporations in India in sectors which includes Outsourcing, Internet, Mobile, Technology Products, Retail, Education and Financial Services. Helion’s investments consist of Makemytrip, redBus, Yepme, Pubmatic, Ezetap, TaxiforSure. It recently funded TrulyMadly, a web dating app.
Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at four.18.35 pmah! Ventures: A Sector agnostic investment organization, ah! Ventures has round a few 10 startups in its portfolio including Catapooolt, UFaber, Ketto, based totally out in Mumbai, ah! Additionally has a workplace in Pune.
POS Ventures is but another VC fund began with the aid of a Punekar which have made more than one nearby investments
Organizations
TiE Pune: Every yr, TiE hosts TiE Nurture which presents a 6-month mentorship program that enables startups in Pune to develop and entice funding. Its monthly packages “My Story” and “Breakfast with TiE” and different occasions are terrific. Vishwas Mahajan, is the present day President of TiE Pune and Mandar Joshi is the admin.
NASSCOM: NASSCOM hosts more than one startup, tech and software activities in Pune, consisting of NASSCOM Product Conclave– which presents a platform for showcasing product excellence, developing buzz, actionable workshops except offering curated perception and networking facilities. Another flagship software, the Game Developers Conference, affords devoted tracks on generation, sport design, game artwork and publishing and advertising. Darryl Zuzarte, Senior Associate of NASSCOM is the leader follower of the Pune startup scene.
CiieCIIE-Pune: Launched via IIM Ahmedabad school, alumni and other individuals and partners with like-minded enterprises to foster entrepreneurship, Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship hosts workshops, publications and academic projects. It presents mentorship and also enables within the atmosphere improvement of startups. Key Person: Maneesh Bhandari
Pune Open CoffeePune Open Coffee Club: Pune Open Coffee Club is the most important grassroots startup company in Pune. It serves as a not unusual area for the startup entrepreneurs to satisfy and make connections. One can locate startup jobs and facts on upcoming events. There is also a discussion board for sharing release bulletins and updates. The Club participants typically meet on the 1st Saturday of each month.
LeanRoundsLeanRounds.Com: A unique accelerator released with the aid of 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 marketing strategy, where investment is based totally upon the credibility of the investors
seapSEAP: Formed in 1998, as a collection of Pune’s large software program organizations, Software Exporters Association of Pune represents over a hundred twenty five software program groups in Pune. It has been website hosting startup-pleasant events and sports. It released PuneConnect in 2011 which attracted greater than a hundred startups. It has additionally been releasing a Pune focussed Compensation and Benefits Survey for the past three years. Ashutosh Parasnis, Saheli Daswani (admin).
Pune techPuneTech: PuneTech is a non-business forum shaped in 1998 by way of Amit Paranjape and Navin Kabra which brings collectively statistics approximately interesting software generation in Pune – the groups, the tech person organizations and organizations, the human beings, and the technologies, the information and the occasions. Pune Open Coffee Club has a close symbiotic courting with PuneTech.
Sme joinupSMEJoinup: As a market for wanna-be marketers, SMEJoinup guides entrepreneurs via various stages of beginning a small and medium enterprise. It allows them find a strong investor, strategize their access and get the treasured leads so required to end up a successful entrepreneur. Through its tie-u.S.A.With trusted Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists, leading entrepreneurs, new generation Techies, emblem developers, innovators, designers, researchers, SMEJoinup allows startups get a firm footing to transport beforehand in the business world.
Startup leadershipSLP: The Pune bankruptcy of Startup Leadership Program began in 2012. It is 6-month incredibly selective, training software and lifelong network for tremendous founders and innovators. SLP has a globally defined curriculum, however supplies mentorship/workshops regionally. It has supplied mentorship to some of entrepreneurs. Sanjeevani Nene, Binit Vishviker, Sohel Bohra, Ashish Bogawat, Abhishek Vallabh are just a number of the many big Pune-startup names who've handed as SLP fellows.
IANIAN: Started in April 2006, the Indian Angel Network, similarly to money, provides constant access to high first-rate mentoring, massive networks and inputs on method as well as execution to early stage groups which have the capacity to create disproportionate fee. Vikas Kumar and Gaurav Mehra are involved in IAN’s Pune bankruptcy.
Pune connectPuneConnect: One of Pune’s largest startup exhibit applications, PuneConnect takes region in November each year. It gives young startups the publicity to angel investors and VC’s. Companies which includes Rolocule, Zingma, Sapience, Framebench etc have exhibited themselves and raised cash at the application. Gaurav Mehra, Navin Kabra, Amit Paranjape, Saheli Daswani are a number of the wonderful faces of PuneConnect.
Suppose puneThinkPune: Launched by using the founders of CIIE Pune in collaboration with different Pune begin-up ecosystems which includes PuneTech, TIE, NASSCOM, SEAP, POCC, MCCIA, NEN and so forth, ThinkPune prepares a report highlighting the characteristics of Corporate Innovation Centres and Start-united states of americain Pune. It is a have to read for everybody who’s inquisitive about this location. More sports are anticipated to get announced quickly by way of ThinkPune. Maneesh Bhandari and Mainak Bhattacharya are concerned with ThinkPune.
Venture CenterVenture Center: Venture Center is a generation business incubator that specialize in technology startups providing products and services exploiting clinical understanding in the regions of materials, chemical compounds and organic sciences & engineering. It affords top notch aid in pitching for authorities offers, investment, loans,applying for patent/IP help, particularly to startups in chemical/existence sciences segment.
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 diverse Indian universities ( useful in non-software regions), and gives credibility if you’re promoting products/services to Indian government bodies. Looking into subjects of Ventures that promote the commercialization of technology is one of its fundamental obligations as a central authority corporation.
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Admin-ajaxIIT-Bombay Alumni Association (IITBAA): The Pune bankruptcy of IITBAA which started out in 2002, incorporates of 1500+ alumni who are citizens of Pune. It used to prepare several events at some stage in the yr, the flagship event being Innovations Pune, which showcases novel thoughts in exercise. Inspite of the extent of participation at the startup scene diminishing, its mailing listing still includes quite a few influencers, the important thing humans being Suneet Chitale and Atul Narkhede.
Office Space/CoWorking
Pune IT Park: Launched by means of promoter of Vansum Industries, Pune IT Park is a model IT Park which offers infrastructural centers to IT & Software Companies. Pune IT Park is the brainchild of Sunil Vanarse, a Chemical Engineer from UDCT (Mumbai). It is tremendously startup friendly and offers “according to seat” fees along side Plug-n-Play facility. Great for terribly early stage startups.
LeanRounds.Com: A unique accelerator released with the aid of Vinayak Joglekar and other angels, LeanRounds is an alternative to standard seed buyers. By embracing the commercial enterprise concept itself, it treats every unit as a falsifiable hypothesis and no longer as a startup with a business plan, in which funding is based solely upon the credibility of the traders
Pune International Incubation Centre: An workplace space released by way of Synerzip, PIIC serves as an incubation centre and brainstorming hub for budding tech marketers. Most of the early level startups in Pune are placed in those regions: 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 listing of Startups which might be making huge inside the metropolis of Mumbai.