South Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
As a former founder, I bring infinite curiosity, energy and discipline to the investment process. I was fortunate to raise capital from wonderful investors (Y Combinator, Sequoia and Lightspeed) and get acquired within 2.5 years of starting Verak (YC W21) Along the company building journey, I discovered my interest in private markets investing by putting my own capital to work. I’m fortunate to now pursue my curiosity in this career arc as an investor. I invest in companies across several sectors: 1. Vertical AI (Healthcare, Financial Services, Construction, Logistics, etc.) 2. Consumer & Prosumer AI (Productivity tools, AI companions, etc.) 3. Consumer brands 4. BFSI and Fintech 5. DeepTech (Space, Semis, Defense, Drones, Bio etc) While I cover a wide range of sectors, I enjoy going deep into business models, markets and the mechanics of how companies are built. Outside of investing, I read a lot (150+ books now), write some essays (500+ now) & regularly hit the gym or go for an outdoor run. I spend time with my family in Mumbai, a few close friends & then in solitude on long flights without WiFi. My friends describe me as digitally omni-present but physically absent. Due to certain circumstances, I prioritize spending time with my family and therefore it may appear that I am ‘absent’ from time to time. You can find all of my book recommendations, book notes, podcast recommendations, historic investment memos & old blogs on my website which is linked in my profile. A complete list of investments (from DeVC & those made prior in personal capacity) can be found on my website. Views expressed on LinkedIn are my own and do not reflect those of DeVC, Z47 (f.k.a Matrix Partners India), fund LPs or any other affiliated partners. None of my posts should be treated as legal or financial advice. Endorsements are specifically called out.
Recent investments made: 1. DeepTech | Bio — Seed round 2. SaaS | Productivity — Seed round 3. VoiceBit - SaaS | Restaurant Automation — Seed round 4. SaaS | Healthcare IT — Pre-Series A round 5. SaaS | PSA — Seed round 6. D2C | Regional Snacks — Seed round (Follow-On) (please check the AVP stint to find out more)
During my 1.5 year stint as an AVP at DeVC, I focused on 3 broad areas: (I) Investing The list of attributable investments: 1. B2B | Specialty Chemicals — Pre-Seed round 2. D2C | Regional Snacks — Pre-Seed round 3. Smallest AI - SaaS | Voice AI — Seed round 4. BFSI | Fraud & Risk — Pre-Seed round 5. Riverline AI - BFSI | Collections Tech — Angel round 6. Frizzle (YC S25) - SaaS | EdTech — Seed round 7. VyomIC - DeepTech | Global Positioning — Seed round 8. Sol Foundry (fka Klaire) - Seed round (II) Fund OS - I built out our proprietary OS (tech + process) to handle deal flow, track portfolio & generate insights for the portfolio manager(s) - I am responsible for managing our AI Analyst (hence, we don't require human Analysts); this project was handed over to another team member for further development. (III) Community & Content - The DeVC community consists of our Collective (founders/executives who invest alongside us) & other well-wishers. I ran 20 editions of our DugOut event which saw 1,000+ unique attendees. - Anything you see posted on the DeVC page from April 2024 to November 2025 was written by me :)
Joined InsuranceDekho along with my team from Verak as part of our acquisition in April 2023. I was part of the team which started distribution of small business insurance ($ multi-million revenue line) and I kick-started our integrations with ONDC to offer embedded insurance options (1st to market).
I co-founded Verak Inc in October 2020; our first product - BimaPe - allowed customers to get a unified view of their family's insurance via a wallet offering. The product leveraged the India Stack to fetch policyholder details in an instant & used a proprietary machine learning model to decode the policy TnCs in simple words for consumers. Verak Inc raised a total of $1.85M in venture financing with participation from Sequoia Capital India & Lightspeed India Partners. We were also a part of Y Combinator's W21 accelerator programme. In September 2021, our first product - BimaPe was retired. And, the team focused on a new SMB insurance offering. We pioneered an end-to-end WhatsApp based journey for MSME owners in India with multi-lingual support from prospecting to purchase to after-sales support. The company on-boarded 5,000+ MSMEs in its first year of operations with a 8% self-serve purchase rate and subsequent 60% renewal rate. Verak was acquired by InsuranceDekho in April 2023.
I was the start-up lead in London for the FinTech Innovation Lab. This was a fun one year stint as the 3rd & junior most member. FIL is incubated by Accenture.
Asia InsurTech podcast is Asia's first podcast dedicated to InsurTech and innovation in insurance featuring entrepreneurs, thought leaders and investors. The podcast can be downloaded or streamed via your favorite application or may be accessed via the AIP website: https://asiainsurtechpodcast.com/