Our speakers

Karan Behal, Founder / CEO, PrettySecrets.com

Karan is the Founder & CEO of PrettySecrets, India’s first online exclusive lingerie brand. He has over 9 years of entrepreneurial experience in lingerie retail and is an active member of the industry. He founded PrettySecrets; a ladies sleepwear brand in 2005 and also a chain of lingerie stores; Lace - the lingerie club in 2008.

In 2012, Karan founded PrettySecrets.com, an online lingerie brand with a vision to become market leader in the online lingerie category. PrettySecrets retails on all major E-commerce sites and is the current category market leader. The company has raised multiple round of angel & venture capital and is in the midst of a large scale up.

Karan was schooled at The Lawrence School Sanawar (India) and completed his Bachelors Degree from Franklin & Marshall College (USA) with a double major in Business Management & International Relations.

Karan Bhatia, CEO, LendEast

Karan is the CEO & Co-Founder of Lend East, a digital lending platform focused on providing structured financing solutions to alternative lenders in Southeast Asia and India. He is driving financial inclusion in the region, by bringing global institutional capital to growing Emerging Asia lenders.

With over 15 years of experience in financial services Karan brings a wealth of credit, structuring, investment and operational experience across Asia and the US. Most recently he was the Founder & CEO of X10 Finance, an alternative lending NBFC focused on supply chain finance solutions for SMEs in India.

X10 managed USD 80 MM of lending with no NPAs, in a short span of 2 years. Karan led the successfully sale of the X10 portfolio to a leading Indian NBFC in 2017.

Prior to X10, Karan worked at Deutsche Bank, part of the Strategic Investment Group, focusing on investments in special situations across Asia. He managed a large credit focused portfolio across SE Asia with a strong focus on India. Previously in his career, he worked with Mason Capital and Puma, two credit funds based in New York, with focus on high yield and special situations credit investments.

Karan brings an extensive credit and investment experience across global markets, deep knowledge of credit products and an excellent ability to interpret market trends. He has unique combination of experience as a investment professional and an entrepreneur who understands credit, building partnerships, mitigating risk and operational issues and challenges in emerging markets.

Mr. Bhatia is a CFA charter holder and has an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business. He completed his Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

He lives in Singapore with his wife and two children. He is an avid reader, a technology enthusiast and a keen (but struggling) golfer.

Karan is the CEO & Co-Founder of Lend East, a digital lending platform focused on providing structured financing solutions to alternative lenders in Southeast Asia and India. He is driving financial inclusion in the region, by bringing global institutional capital to growing Emerging Asia lenders.

With over 15 years of experience in financial services Karan brings a wealth of credit, structuring, investment and operational experience across Asia and the US. Most recently he was the Founder & CEO of X10 Finance, an alternative lending NBFC focused on supply chain finance solutions for SMEs in India.

X10 managed USD 80 MM of lending with no NPAs, in a short span of 2 years. Karan led the successfully sale of the X10 portfolio to a leading Indian NBFC in 2017.

Prior to X10, Karan worked at Deutsche Bank, part of the Strategic Investment Group, focusing on investments in special situations across Asia. He managed a large credit focused portfolio across SE Asia with a strong focus on India. Previously in his career, he worked with Mason Capital and Puma, two credit funds based in New York, with focus on high yield and special situations credit investments.

Karan brings an extensive credit and investment experience across global markets, deep knowledge of credit products and an excellent ability to interpret market trends. He has unique combination of experience as a investment professional and an entrepreneur who understands credit, building partnerships, mitigating risk and operational issues and challenges in emerging markets.

Mr. Bhatia is a CFA charter holder and has an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business. He completed his Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

He lives in Singapore with his wife and two children. He is an avid reader, a technology enthusiast and a keen (but struggling) golfer.

Karan Gambhir, Industry Head, Technology, Google

Karan Gambhir is the Industry Head for Technology at Google India. Having been with Google for almost 3 years, he works closely with large brands in the Devices (Smartphones, PCs, Consumer Durables) and SaaS space to drive industry initiatives on the digital medium, and innovative marketing practices.

Prior to Google Karan has worked with One97 Communications leading their Telecom Marketing business with all large telecom operators in India and abroad. In the past he has also worked with GE and Adobe.

Karan is an engineer from Delhi College of Engineering and a management grad from IIM Calcutta. In his free time he loves to drive, sing/listen to music and is an experimental cook, especially with non vegetarian food.

Karan Kadaba, President & Director, 3ev Industries & 3eco Systems

Karan Kalra, Founder, Bombay Law Chambers

Karan is the founder of Bombay Law Chambers and has over 15 years of experience in the legal industry, having worked in house as well as with one of Indian most prestigious law firm Nishith Desai Associates, where along with being a leader of the M&A and PE practices, he also led the banking and financial services vertical.

His practice focuses largely on domestic and cross border venture capital and private equity transactions, M&As, JVs and structured finance along with providing regulatory and general corporate advice. Karan works across sectors and has domain expertise in financial services, technology, e-commerce, healthcare, renewables and core manufacturing. Further, Karan also has the experience working with one of the largest private banks in India, working across various verticals.

Karan completed his B.SL. 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 regularly been recognised by various legal directories such as IFLR 1000, Legal 500 and the Financial Times - RSG Consulting Survey.

Karan Kirpalani, Associate Vice President - Products & Services, Netmagic

Karan Kirpalani, is the Associate Vice President - Product Management at Netmagic, an NTT Communications Company. Joining Netmagic when the company was in its nascent stage, Karan has played two pivotal roles for over a decade and a half. He joined as the Director for Business Development at Netmagic USA responsible for developing the company’s business overseas. He is currently responsible for end-to-end Product Conceptualization and Management for several critical and high impact product lines including Cloud Services, Managed Hosting, Network Storage and Services, and Application Services.

Prior to Netmagic, Karan was associated with ICICI Bank as part of the online content and web application team. Karan is a graduate in Economics from Mumbai University. He is a guest lecturer at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, enlightening engineering students on cloud and other IT infrastructure technologies.

Karan’s dedication to what he does and business insight makes him a visionary and thought leader in the field. He is an avid reader, and has written articles, whitepapers and blogs on various technologies.

Karan Mehrotra, Co-founder & CEO, Localbanya.com

Karan, a Computer Engineer by degree, completed his education from RGIT (Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology) in 2007.

Working since he was 18, his career began with a hospitality company catering to BPO’S and MNC’S in Mumbai and Pune.He then moved on to set up India’s first water jet cutting plant in Umargaonpost which he went on to manage Kenwood marketing for food distribution.

Karan’s motivation to start LocalBanya stemmed from the network of food distribution he was a part of. That, coupled with the rapid growth of e-commerce in India, excited him to enter the e-grocery space.

His title at LocalBanyais the co-founder & Chief Executive Officer but his role changes constantly. Currently, his focus lies on the Logistics & Operations side of the business and the aim is to scale up operations and reach more households, more cities, and maybe even beyond.

Karan Mehta, Founder and CTO, Kissht and Ring

Karan Mohla, Executive Director, IDG Ventures India

Mr. Karan Mohla is Executive Director at IDG Ventures India Advisors and is involved with the investments in  Brainbees (Firstcry.com), Yatra.com, Vserv, Peel-Works, HealthifyMe, POPxo, Aurus (Superprofs.com), Tripoto, LittleBlackBook and Silverpush. He has been investing in Indian companies since 2009 and leads the sector coverage in Digital Consumer investments at IDG Ventures.

Prior to IDG Ventures, Karan worked with QVT Finance LP, a US based hedge fund and was a founding member of their Asia-Pacific practice heading investments in technology companies in the region. He earlier worked in the technology banking group at Jefferies & Company (formerly Broadview International) in Silicon Valley, where he helped several emerging technology companies in capital raising, M&A and strategic partnerships. Later, Karan helped start the Jefferies India office.

@KaranMohla

Karan Mohla, Partner, Chiratae Ventures

Karan Mohla is a Partner at Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India) as well as the Head of Consumer Technology & Media where he heads the sector focus and strategy. He also leads fundraising and partnerships for the firm in the Asia region. Karan was recognised by BusinessWorld Magazine as one of the 40 under 40 leaders for 2018, as well as one of the 40 under 40 Alternate Investment Professionals by the Indian Association of Alternative Investment Funds (IAAIF).

Karan has been part of the technology and startup ecosystem since 2003 with experience spanning investment advisory, finance, portfolio management, fundraising and M&A. he has worked on investments in companies including Bounce, FirstCry, HealthifyMe, Xpressbees, Peel-Works, POPxo, LittleBlackBook, CropIn, Tripoto and Yatra.com (NASDAQ: YTRA).

Prior to IDG Ventures, Karan worked with QVT Finance LP, a US based hedge fund and was a founding member of their Asia-Pacific practice. He earlier worked in the TMT investment banking group at Jefferies & Company (formerly Broadview International) in Silicon Valley, where he advised several technology companies in Internet, Mobile and Enterprise Software on capital raising, M&A as well as strategic partnerships. Later, Karan helped start the India office for Jefferies where he advised and executed financing strategies for companies in the Technology, Media, Telecom, CleanTech and Education sectors. He has successfully completed over 20 transactions covering M&A and helped raised over $1 Billion in capital for corporates across India and the US.

Karan holds a Bachelors degree in Business Administration (BBA) from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an EMBA from INSEAD, where he was the youngest graduate in the program's history.