Our speakers

Sarath Naru, Managing Partner, Ventureast

Sarath is the Founder and Managing Partner of Ventureast, one of India’s longest-standing venture capital institutions investing in pioneering sectors since the mid-90s. Ventureast manages over $300 million having made close to 100 investments. Sarath has successfully pioneered investments in new sectors and investing approaches that many others have shunned. But, he has also collected enough tips on perhaps what not to do, as one aspires to build a great company.

In the past, Sarath sold soap at Procter & Gamble USA, and worked in British American Tobacco subsidiary (VST Industries, Hyderabad). As an entrepreneur, he has built a trading business between India and the USA, covering engineering & fashion goods, and printing related services. He has a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and an MBA from Booth, University of Chicago. He has been associated at Board level positions with the IVCA, ABLE, IITM R&D Park, ICRISAT, Ascent Capital, etc.

Saravana Kumar, Board of Director & Chief Executive Officer, NSIC Venture Capital fund

Mr. Saravana Kumar is a Post graduate from IIM- Bangalore, holds degree in B.Tech., Risk management program from GARP- USA, CAIIB from Indian Institute of Bankers and attended Management Development Programme at Merrill Lynch Global Headquarters at New York. He has over 35 years of professional experience in Venture Capital, Private equity, AIF, AMC, Insurance Industry, PMS, SME sector, Finance & Accounts, Risk Management, Resource mobilisation, Treasury management and Corporate planning.

Mr.Kumar  is the CEO of the  NSIC Venture capital Funds. The above said Venture Capital Fund manages the Self Relaint India (SRI) Fund -a fund of funds scheme of Government of India for SMEs. He worked as a Senior management professional in ICICI Ventures and ICICI Bank and worked as Chief Investment Officer in SBI Funds Management, LIC Nomura Funds Management, etc.

He was a Consultative working group committee Member of (a) IRDAI on restructuring the investment for life insurance sector in 2011 (b) SEBI on developing the AIF funds and (c) Core investment committee member of American International Assurance (AIA)-Hong Kong. He had received in person the "World Finance" Award for the Best AIF Fund from London Stock exchange in March 2013. "World Finance" i.e. UK based investment publication had distributed above award.

Saravanan. M, Co-Founder & CEO, Bharath Home Medicare Pvt Ltd

A multi-faceted healthcare professional who has held senior management and leadership roles across India, far East and MENA regions in multinationals, such as Pfizer, Wanbury and Insta Health Solutions before laying the foundation for Bharath Home Medicare (Home Healthcare Company with pan India presence).

Sarit Chopra, Partner, Special Situations, Bain Capital

Sarth Jain, Managing Director, Xponents

Sasha Mirchandani, Founder & Managing Partner, Kae Capital

Sasha Mirchandani is Managing Director and Founder of Kae Capital and Co-founder Mumbai Angels. Previously, he was at Blue Run Ventures as Managing Director for the India operations. Before joining Blue Run Ventures he was CEO and Founder of Imercius Technologies, a BPO focused on the healthcare space. Earlier he was at Mirc Electronics (Onida) where he was Head of Corporate Affairs and new business. His investments include Fractal Analytics, Inmobi, Healthkart, Myntra, Greendust, Cloudbyte, Canvera and Mettl. Sasha sits on the Boards of Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited, Ador Welding and Mumbai Angels Venture Mentors among others.

Sasha completed his Business Administration from Strayer University and MMDP program at IIM, Ahmedabad. He is a Charter Member at TiE Mumbai. He is also Past President of Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) Mumbai and is a member of the Mumbai Chapter of the Young Presidents Organisation (YPO). He is also on the Board of Governors of the Universal Business School.

@SashaMirchi

Sashank Rishyasringa, Co-founder and MD, Capital Float

Sashank Rishyasringa co-founded Capital Float, a digital lending company in 2013. Under his direction, the company has grown to become the largest digital lender in India. With him as Managing Director, the company has pioneered technological innovations which have altered the lending landscape in the country. Prior to co-founding Capital Float, Sashank was a Senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, where he advised several Fortune 500 companies, national governments, and non-profits on business strategy, product innovation, and organizational design. He possesses an extensive understanding of the global Fintech space and has prior experience in investments, financial inclusion and mobile technology from his time at McKinsey.  Sashank holds an MBA from Stanford University and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Princeton University by specializing in Economics and Finance.

Sashi Reddi, Founder, AppLabs

Sashi Reddi is the founder and executive chairman of AppLabs, the  world’s largest software testing and quality management company. Since its founding in April 2001, Sashi has grown AppLabs from a 3 person outfit in a shared office space in Philadelphia to its current size of 2,000 employees in the US, UK, and India.

A serial entrepreneur, Sashi has started two other companies prior to AppLabs. His first company was EZPower Systems, a developer of products for building and maintaining large-scale web applications. EZPower was acquired by DocuCorp and then eventually by Oracle. EZPower technology continues to be a part of Oracle’s document management offerings. Following EZPower, Sashi founded iCoop, a group purchasing dotcom company. He began his career consulting on technology and strategy to Fortune 500 companies in the travel, financial services, automotive and consumer packaged goods industries.

Sashi is also the founder and chairman of FXLabs, a leading developer of high quality game products for PC’s, consoles, and online. He is also the founder and chairman of Sricapital, a venture capital firm.

Sashi received his BTech degree in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. He went on to gain an MS in Computer Science from New York University and later a PhD from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Sateesh Andra, Managing Director, Endiya Partners

Sateesh Andra loves entrepreneurs with grit, clarity, and focus on execution. Technology start-ups with clear value proposition drive Sateesh. His investing, co-founding, leadership and engineering experience, for the past twenty-plus years in U.S/India, all veer around technology.

As the Managing Director at Endiya Partners, Sateesh serves on boards of AlphaICs, Darwinbox, and Kissht. Some of his past investments include Seclore, Little Eye Labs (Facebook) and mGinger (ValueFirst). Prior to Endiya, he was a Partner at Ventureast and DFJ.

Prior to DFJ, Sateesh was Founder/CEO of Euclid (Synnex), a Silicon Valley start-up, in the IT Management Software space and was instrumental in raising VC funding ($35 M+), besides acquiring and managing marquee customers and partners. He has also served in product marketing and engineering leadership roles at Tsqware (Synaptics), LSI Logic (Broadcom), and VLSI Technology (NXP).

Besides helping evolve ideas into real businesses, Sateesh is involved with the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy with the objective of popularizing sports and promoting awareness of chronic diseases in the corporate world. Sateesh was a top-ranked Table Tennis player representing A.P State in Nationals.

Sateesh holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering.

Sateesh Andra, Managing Partner, Ventureast Tenet Fund

Sateesh Andra is a Managing Partner at Ventureast, primarily overseeing the Ventureast Tenet Fund, a premier seed-stage VC Fund consisting of investments across technology (Mobility, Cloud, Internet) and technology-enabled (Education, Healthcare, Financial services, Cleantech and high-impact, invention-based social businesses) sectors. He has worked in or with venture-backed technology start-ups in U.S/India for the past fourteen years. With hands-on start-up experience and in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of VC funding, he looks for highly motivated and energetic entrepreneurs as partners.

Prior to joining Ventureast, Sateesh was Venture Partner and was one of the founding members of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), India. He helped launch Hyderabad Angels, a platform to provide seed capital to start ups. As a private investor earlier, Sateesh has also invested in early stage American and Indian venture capital funds.

Prior to DFJ, Sateesh co-founded Euclid, a leader in the IT Management Software space and was instrumental in raising VC funding ($35 M+), acquiring, and managing marquee customers and partners. He has also served in product marketing and engineering leadership roles at Tsqware (Conexant), LSI Logic, and VLSI Technology (Philips). Sateesh holds U.S. patents in Communications and Networking and has published several articles on Business - IT Alignment.

Sateesh has a B.Tech degree from JNTU, Hyderabad, and a Master's in Electrical Engineering from SIUE. He is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). He is actively involved with the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy with the objective of popularizing sports, and promoting fitness consciousness in the corporate world. Sateesh co-founded Health Awareness Promotion Project India (HAPPI), which creates awareness about Non Communicable Diseases  among IT professionals.