Our speakers

Gaurav Mathur, Founder & MD, Invent Capital

Gaurav Mathur is the founder of InVent Capital, a private equity fund focused on control investments in the Indian consumer sector. Previously, he was a co-founder and managing director at India Equity Partners, where he led investments in financial services, consumer goods and the HR services sector.

Prior to that, he worked with JPMorgan’s private equity division and Deutsche Bank’s high yield capital markets group. He has served on the board of several Indian mid-market companies including well known consumer names such as Domino’s Pizza (Jubilant Foodworks), MTR Foods, Sumeru (Innovative Foods), Sagar Ratna Restaurants, Manappuram Finance and Sintex Industries. He holds an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and a Bachelor in Economics (Honours) from Delhi University.


Gaurav Mehra, Partner, Kaizen Private Equity

Gaurav joined Kaizen in 2015 and leads the fund’s Education Technology investments. Prior to joining Kaizen, he co-founded Saba and helped build it into a $150 million public company and a global leader in Talent Management software solutions. With 25 years in building technology and scaling global product and service operations, Gaurav helps portfolio companies shape defensible growth strategies. Gaurav holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University.


Gaurav Midha, CISO, GIC of India


Gaurav Nagar, Co-Founder & CEO, Evren


Gaurav Ranjan, Vice President, Prime Ventures


Gaurav Sachdeva, Managing Partner, JSW Ventures

Gaurav Sachdeva is Managing Partner at JSW Ventures - an early-stage technology-focused fund. Set up in 2015, JSW Ventures partners with passionate entrepreneurs focussed on leveraging technology to build capital efficient businesses.

In a career spanning more than 17 years, Gaurav has passionately built businesses across banking, technology and investing. Gaurav was a founding member of Corporate Finance teams at Citibank, N.A. & Bank of America and led sales for Infosys in Continental Europe. Gaurav is extremely passionate about the role of technology in transforming business models and building consumer experience. At JSW Ventures, he actively manages Purplle, Indus OS, LimeTray & Homelane.

Gaurav is an MBA from Indian School of Business.


Gaurav Saraf, Director, Epiphany Ventures

Gaurav launched Epiphany Ventures, focused on investing in early stage companies in 2008.
He started his career as a management consultant at Diamond Technology Partners Inc. (DTPI), a strategy consulting company, headquartered in Chicago. At DTPI, Gaurav advised fortune 500 clients on leveraging technology to further their business objectives and enhance efficiencies. There, he gained tremendous experience in a wide range of disciplines and sectors, including Retail, e-commerce, Knowledge Management, Merger Integrations, etc.

 

After his return to India, in 2004, Gaurav founded a business in the mining sector, to supply iron ore to steel manufacturers in India and abroad. He has also served as the Vice-President, M&A for the $250 million Facor Group. He sits on the boards of his portfolio companies, MXC Solutions (Cartrade.com), Brattle Foods, iLevel Solutions and Vserv.

 

Gaurav has a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from University of Pennsylvania, and M.Sc in Finance from City University, London. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and mentors them actively through his association with TiE as Charter Member. He is also a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which brings together the best young entrepreneurial talent across the globe, and a dynamic angel investor through his participation in Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels.


Gaurav Sekhri, MD, Tinna Viterra Trade Pvt. Ltd

GV started his career with his family promoted Tinna Group of companies in 1993.

GV is 39 years old and promoter of M/s Tinna Group. In 2009, GV was instrumental in formation of the joint venture with M/s Viterra Inc., of Canada in 2009. Viterra is one of the largest Agri businesses in the World.  Prior to this venture, GV was actively involved in the groups trading business dealing in procurement of various dry bulk commodities like Rice, Wheat, SBM and sugar.

In 1998, GV played a key role in identifying ADM as a partner and actively participated in formation and promotion of the joint venture with M/s Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). Until 2009, he oversaw running of all business verticals, including cargo handling operations, oil seed processing, branding and marketing of edible oils and marketing of  oil ingredients for the joint venture.  

Since 2009, GV is heading Tinna Viterra operations in India as its Managing Director. Based in Delhi, he works closely with Viterra in building Viterra's business in India.

GV is served as a trustee of Visakhapatman Port Trust Board during 2002-2010 and headed various council's in The Solvent Extractors Association. GV is also a member of the Delhi chapter of Young President's Organization.


Gaurav Sharma, Partner, Mckinsey

Gaurav coleads our Private Equity & Principal Investors Practice in India, serving the world’s leading investors on investment strategy, origination, portfolio value creation, and exits. Gaurav also leads our work for investments related with technology services as well as M&A and post-merger management in Asia. Gaurav’s current research focuses on capital-led value creation and returns maximization through M&A.

Examples of Gaurav’s recent work include the following:

  • developing investable themes for private equity and strategic clients in the technology services and business process outsourcing space
  • driving a post-merger management program—including value protection and synergy estimation—for a leading Indian IT services company
  • developing the strategic transformation and sales acceleration blueprint for a digital service company based in Silicon Valley
  • driving a comprehensive strategic and growth transformation program for a leading Indian IT services company

Gaurav joined McKinsey in New Delhi, where he was elected a partner. He has served clients across North America, Europe, Japan, and India. Prior to joining McKinsey, Gaurav was a consultant with PwC for three years.


Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder & CEO, BlueStone.com | @bluestone_com

Gaurav is a Computer Science graduate from IIT Delhi and brings almost 10 years of experience in the fields of Technology, E-Commerce and Internet Marketing.

A well known figure in the realm of start-ups, he has been an entrepreneur for almost half a decade. Before BlueStone, he served as the CEO of Chakpak, an online entertainment portal, which he co-founded in 2007. He grew Chakpak.com to over 3 Million unique users a month in less than 2 years and successfully raised two rounds of funding from Accel and Canaan Partners respectively.

Using his experience to his advantage, in this short span of time, he has advised many start-ups in the fields of SEO, SEM and Product Strategies. Gaurav started his career with Tavant Technologies, a global IT services & solutions provider and subsequently worked with Amazon for around 4 years. At Amazon, he was responsible for building web products for the US E-Commerce market.

Gaurav is the Chief Executive Officer of BlueStone.com, an ecommerce jewellery house that was founded with the intent of providing exquisite gold and diamond jewellery to the Indian consumers at affordable rates.

Gaurav believes that dreams can be easily fulfilled and his indomitable spirit is a source of inspiration for the team.