BENGALURU: Early stage venture capital fund Prime Venture Partners has appointed Dr Ashish Gupta as Partner Emeritus to strengthen its investment team.
US-based Gupta is a venture capitalist and co-founded Helion Ventures in 2005. He has invested in several startups and businesses including Flipkart, MuSigma, MakeMyTrip and Infoedge, among others.
Gupta was also one of the first backers of Flipkart and invested close to ₹10 lakh in the e-commerce giant in 2009.
At Prime, Gupta will be a part of the investment committee and will be actively involved in the decision making process of all future investments. He will also serve as a mentor and advisor to Prime portfolio companies, while advising on the fund’s future strategies.
“The Indian startup ecosystem is in a very vibrant phase of its evolution and Prime is well positioned to be a key player in the building of Digital India. I’ve known all the partners Shripati, Amit, Sanjay and Raj for the better part of the last 30 years and am delighted to be working closely with them in helping shape Prime’s next phase of growth," said Gupta.
A Stanford University and IIT Kanpur alumni, Gupta’s first entrepreneurial venture, Junglee (a price-comparison platform) was acquired by Amazon in 1998 for $240 million, following which he founded Tavant Technologies in the year 2000.
Currently, the venture capitalist also serves on the board of several startups including Ezetap, Pubmatic, Simplilearn, SMSGupshup and Naukri. Some of his past investments also includes Qwikcilver (acquired by Pinelabs), Daksh (acquired by IBM), Upwork, Perfios, and Redbus.
“Ashish is just an incredible all-round person. Founders who interact with him even for a few minutes always appreciate his direct style and insights. We’re privileged to have him formally associated with Prime. This will be a huge step in helping us further improve the quality of our investment decisions, as well as an excellent value-add for our entrepreneurs building companies out of India and globally," said Shripati Acharya, co-founder and managing partner, Prime Venture Partners.
The eight year-old VC fund, which is currently on its third fund has invested in several startups including myGate, MoneyTap, Niyo, Traxcn, Perpule and Moneytap, among others.
Prime had announced its third $72 million fund back in 2018, and with the addition of Gupta, looks to further boost its portfolio with early-stage investments in fintech, software-as-a-service (SaaS), enterprise software, healthcare, education and logistics.
However, it will continue to back digital-first businesses, and will end the year with 5-6 investments, despite covid-19 .
