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Who's who of industry
Imran Jafar
Managing Partner, Gaja Capital
Imran Jafar
Managing Partner, Gaja Capital
Imran is a Managing Partner at Gaja Capital. Gaja is India’s leading mid-market growth capital firm. Gaja’s aim is to help create India’s next generation of market leaders in sectors such as Education, Consumer, Financial Services and Healthcare.
Imran has 19 years of experience in Private Equity, Pharmaceuticals and Technology services. Prior to Gaja, Imran worked in a variety of roles of increasing responsibility at Dr. Reddy’s and Wipro Technologies.
At Gaja, Imran leads investments in the Education and Consumer clusters. He has been closely involved with Gaja’s investments in Educational Initiatives (Ed-Tech), Kangaroo Kids (Pre-K and K-12), KOOH Sports (Performance Sports), SportzVillage (Youth Sports), EuroKids (Pre-K and K12), John Distilleries (AlcoBev), CL Educate (Supplemental Education) and Indus World Schools (K12).
Imran has post graduate degrees in software engineering from BITS-Pilani and an MBA from IIM-Bangalore.
Ankur Goyal
Founder & CEO, &Me
Ankur Goyal
Founder & CEO, &Me
Ankur is a recent MBA graduate from Stanford. He is passionate about Indian Consumer market and recently moved to India to start his food & beverage company. He is an Industrial engineer from IIT Delhi.
He has extensive experience in food & beverage world in India. He worked for 3 years with Nestle - setting up a Noodle R&D Center, transferring technology from Nestle Singapore and working on Product Development (Noodles). He also played instrumental role as Innovation Officer at PaperBoatDrinks - setting up a factory in Mysore, handling new product innovation and introducing new production technologies.
He is the founder of Merhaki Foods, that owns the brand &Me - Women's Health Drinks.
Riyaaz Amlani
CEO and Managing Director, Impresario
Riyaaz Amlani
CEO and Managing Director, Impresario
Riyaaz Amlani is an entrepreneur and a restaurateur based in Mumbai, India. He is the CEO and MD of Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. and the President of NRAI (National Restaurant Association of India). He is often referred to as eatopian, hospitality wiz and a coffee baron.
Starting out as an outsider to the hospitality industry, today Riyaaz is highly respected and well-known in the restaurant business in India. Having sold shoes as a teenager, Riyaaz completed his education in UCLA with a Masters in Entertainment Management. Paving his way through the business, he soon started working as the entertainment consultant for many location based entertainment centers. During this period, Amlani contributed to the building of India’s leading Family Entertainment Centers as well as set up a wellness centre. He soon took over the reins of a leading media company, but gave it all up to open a café partnership with Kiran Salaskar. His vision was a cafe that offered an experience beyond the ordinary. This gave birth to his maiden venture Mocha, considered a pioneering venture in the café industry.
Riyaaz Amlani has been recognized as the ‘Best Restaurateur’ by 'Time Out Food Awards 2011'. All his restaurants have not only won various awards in India including Best New Restaurant, Best Bar, Best European Restaurant and Best Coffee Shop, but have also been acknowledged internationally by being nominated for UK’s Restaurant & Bar Design Award as well as shortlisted for Miele’s Top 50 Restaurants in Asia and recognized in Time Out Mumbai’s Top 10 Best Restaurateurs in India.
Tarun Khanna
Partner, CX Partners
Tarun Khanna
Partner, CX Partners
Tarun is a partner with cx partners and has been with the firm since its inception in 2009. CX partners is a growth oriented mid market focused PE fund.
Within the fund Tarun focuses on the consumer sector and has led investments in businesses like Barbeque nation, sapphire foods and Mrs Bectors foods.
Ketki Paranjpe
Managing Director, India & West Asia, L Catterton Asia
Ketki Paranjpe
Managing Director, India & West Asia, L Catterton Asia
Ms. Paranjpe is Managing Director at L Catterton Asia, focusing on the India market. Ms. Paranjpe has over twelve years of experience in investment management and corporate advisory across Mumbai, Singapore and London.
Ms Paranjpe, joined L Catterton Asia in 2009 and worked on the first two investments made by the Fund in Sincere Watch Limited and Charles & Keith Group out of Singapore before relocating to India in 2011 to focus on India investments of the Fund. She has been involved in sourcing, executing, monitoring and exiting the Fund's investments in India.
Ms. Paranjpe holds a MSc. Finance and Economics, from The London School of Economics and Political Science; an MA Economics from University of Mumbai, and a BA in Economics from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, India.
Karan Kalra
Senior Member, Nishith Desai Associates
Karan Kalra
Senior Member, Nishith Desai Associates
Karan is a leader in the M&A and Private Equity practices at Nishith Desai Associates. He also heads the firm’s banking and financial services industry. Karan focuses largely on domestic and cross border M&As, JVs, private equity transactions and structured finance along with providing regulatory and general corporate advice across sectors.
Prior to joining Nishith Desai Associates, Karan has experience working with one of the largest private banks in India. Karan completed his LL.B. from Symbiosis Law School, Pune and has also pursued a masters from Northwestern University – Pritzer School of Law and Kellogg School of Management. He is eligible to practice law both in India and New York, USA. Karan has been credited for his work in IFLR 1000, Legal 500 and the Financial Times - RSG Consulting Survey.
Karan is a leader in the M&A and Private Equity practices at Nishith Desai Associates. He also heads the firm’s banking and financial services industry. Karan focuses largely on domestic and cross border M&As, JVs, private equity transactions and structured finance along with providing regulatory and general corporate advice across sectors.
Prior to joining Nishith Desai Associates, Karan has experience working with one of the largest private banks in India. Karan completed his LL.B. from Symbiosis Law School, Pune and has also pursued a masters from Northwestern University – Pritzer School of Law and Kellogg School of Management. He is eligible to practice law both in India and New York, USA. Karan has been credited for his work in IFLR 1000, Legal 500 and the Financial Times - RSG Consulting Survey.
Prashant Mehra
Partner, Transaction Advisory Services, Grant Thornton India
Prashant Mehra
Partner, Transaction Advisory Services, Grant Thornton India
Prashant's experience in Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) spans over 12 years, of which the two years have been with Grant Thornton, UK. After moving to TAS in Grant Thornton in 2002, his experience has been diverse, including viability reviews, financial due diligence in connection with acquisitions and fundraising, floatation and public company transactions.
Prashant focuses on buy-side and fundraising transactions for venture capital and private equity houses, banks and corporates. Prashant has led teams on all aspects of Transaction Services work including a number of cross border assignments. He has managed a wide variety of AIM (London Stock Exchange) transactions, including flotations, acquisitions, reversals and fund-raisings, as well as corporate and private equity backed transactions.
Prashant has extensive experience in acquisition, pre-sale and pre-lending due diligence, buy side assistance, deal and negotiation support, forecast assessment and evaluation and transaction project management. He has advised clients on business restructuring including business feasibility strategy, corporate structure and investment advice.
Sector experience includes across Apparel, Consumer Retail, Education, Food, IT & ITES, Lifesciences, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, Real Estate and Construction and Telecom. Prashant is based in New Delhi.
Vaibhav Kakkar
Partner, Regulatory Practices & General Corporate, L&L Partners
Vaibhav Kakkar
Partner, Regulatory Practices & General Corporate, L&L Partners
Vaibhav Kakkar is a Partner in the Corporate and Regulatory Practices Team of L&L Partners, New Delhi and has nearly ten years of experience. He has a unique mix of extensive regulatory and transactional expertise, and specializes in structuring transactions (especially cross-border), and advising on foreign investment/exchange laws, company law and securities laws.
As part of his profile, he has advised several global corporations on appropriate strategies in relation to investments in India and domestic and multinational clients on significant and complex corporate matters including cross border mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity transactions. He has also taken the lead in drafting and negotiating the entire spectrum of definitive agreements and commercial contracts in relation to the same. He has in-depth experience with industry-specific legal and regulatory issues in sectors including retail, real estate, telecommunications, gaming, hospitals, pharma, education mutual funds, education and the financial sector (banking and non-banking). He regularly advises and works with the Government on policy issues relating to company law, exchange control, and is key member of the Firm’s advocacy and policy development team.
On the transactional side, he has advised on many notable joint ventures including Tata-Starbucks, DLF-Pramerica Mutual Fund and Khazanah-IDFC road venture. He has advised clients including DLF, Moser Baer Group and Devyani International in raising capital totaling nearly USD 600 million from top-flight PE and financial investors. Some of the prominent M&A deals that he has been involved in the last few years include:
(i) Cairn India in relation to the acquisition of a controlling stake in Cairn India by Vedanta Resources;
(ii) buy-out of Fallaron Capital’s investment in seven projects of Indiabulls Real Estate Limited worth USD 190 million;
(iii) Mylan Inc. on the acquisition of Agila Specialities Division from Strides Acrolab, India for approx USD 1.6 billion;
(iv) Ranbaxy Laboratories in relation to their recent merger with Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd worth USD 3.2 billion.
He has also been nominated as a leading lawyer by Asialaw in 2012 and 2013 in the following areas:
(i) General Corporate;
(ii) Regulatory Practices;
(iii) Corporate Governance. He has also been recently mentioned in the 2015 RSG Report (a report based on independent client recommendations) as a ‘Recommended Lawyer’ in the area of corporate and commercial laws.
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Market leader: Adfactors PR is India’s largest PR firm by revenue. The Holmes Report, in its global rankings 2018, ranked us amongst the top ten Asian PR firms and among the top 75 in the world.
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TransUnion CIBIL Limited
We are India’s leading credit information company with one of the largest collections of consumer information.
We aim to be more than just a credit reporting agency. We are a sophisticated, global risk information provider striving to use information for good. For consumers, we provide information and tools for gaining a clear understanding of their credit history and financial reputation, and guarding against the theft of personal information and potential fraud.
For businesses, we provide powerful information solutions, backed by professional service and current, comprehensive data, for making better, more informed decisions.
Our solutions help build credit economies worldwide
TransUnion has been operating internationally for over 30 years in over 30 countries. We connect businesses and consumers through data, technology and analytics, to help build credit economies worldwide. We’re a leader in risk and information solutions within the markets we serve.
Our technology and analytics platform expansion enables rapid and effective transfer of our most advanced global solutions (CreditVision®, IDVisionSM, DecisionEdge® and our newest groundbreaking PramaSM suite) across regions, while offering local solutions to meet the unique needs of our clients. We offer specialized solutions to serve a broad variety of industries, such as financial services, insurance, retail, telco, and government, to help businesses operate, compete and grow within each vertical. Our consumer empowerment solutions continue to expand outside the U.S., currently offering consumer products in India, Hong Kong, South Africa and Canada through direct and indirect channels.
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True North
True North traces its origins back to 1999, when it was originally named India Value Fund. Today is one of India’s leading home grown private equity funds, founded with a focus on investing in and transforming mid-sized profitable businesses into world-class industry leaders, built on the strong foundation of True North Values which are embodied within the principles of ‘The Right Way’.
True North has built deep knowledge and skills in the Indian markets and has successfully launched six separate investment funds with a combined corpus of over US$ 2.8 billion including co-investments. True North’s insights and understanding of India has been sharpened over the last two decades by investing in more than 40 Indian businesses. It has successfully guided these companies in making the transition into well-established and large businesses that are valuable, enduring and socially responsible.
The company has significant focus on and extensive experience of evaluating and investing in multiple businesses across a range of segments in the Indian healthcare sector having invested over US$ 520 million across 10 companies.
The True North team has been structured with a balanced mix of 13 Investment Managers and 18 Business Managers, who bring with them several hundred man-years of industry experience.
Indium Capital
Indium Capital is an Investment Bank focusing on Fund-Raising, Mergers & Acquisitions and Growth Strategy Advisory. We provide end-to-end services across our focus sectors: Healthcare, Consumer Brands & Technology. Indium has had significant depth of experience in these sectors, with expertise across all segments of Healthcare Delivery (hospitals, medical devices, diagnostics chains and single speciality centers), Consumer Brands (apparel, accessories, foods and other retail brands) & Technology (edu-tech, fin-tech, health-tech, etc.).
The Indium team comes from a diverse background with experience across Corporate Finance, Business Consulting & Strategy; and in the past have advised on multiple M&A and Fundraising transactions with total transaction value of over US$ 3 billion.
AZB & Partners
AZB & Partners is one of the prominent Indian law firms in India. It was founded in 2004 with a clear purpose to provide reliable, practical and full-service advice to clients based on an in-depth knowledge of the legal, regulatory and commercial environment within which our clients operate and a full understanding of their overall business objectives. The firm now has 6 offices across Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, and Pune, with a driven team of 450+ lawyers.
The firm has been involved in advising in the field of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and general corporate, regulatory practice and securities laws, private equity, capital markets, funds practice, banking and finance, infrastructure and project finance, real estate, media and entertainment, employment, insurance, intellectual property, taxation, aviation, competition law, and litigation and arbitration.
The Firm has received wide national and international acclaim within the legal sphere, some of which include ‘Ranked No.1’ by RSG Top 40 India law firm ranking, 2017; ‘Best Law Firm of the Year – India’ by Corporate USA Today – Law Awards 2018; ‘Law Firm for the Year 2017-18’, and ‘Best Overall Law Firm – 2017-18’ by India Business Law Journal.
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Sequoia, CapitalG, Accel lead $150 mn funding round in Freshworks
Narinder Kapur | 14 Nov, 2019
Prime Venture Partners, GlobalLogic co-founder invest in ed-tech startup Sunstone
Narinder Kapur | 14 Nov, 2019
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