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JPIN Venture Catalyst UK
Euro-Asian Corridor of Angels

India’s Biggest and One of Asia’s Top 5 Investment Incubators Venture Catalysts with JPIN is building the Largest Euro-Asian Corridor of Angels. JPIN Venture Catalyst UK wants to make a grand impact in Europe’s most promising start-up ecosystem with an aim to develop a 500+strong investor network and US$ 65mn worth of corpus to offer during funding rounds by 2020

JPIN Venture Catalysts UK will oversee the expansion process to ensure seamless client acquisition, achieving swifter turnaround times and develop better business terms to develop a strong VCats community while providing access to exciting and promising startups across Europe.

VCATS clever model of leveraging its strong and vast network of investors, to grow its portfolio companies, has demonstrated a good growth trajectory to its existing portfolio companies while providing good investor returns.

To learn more about VCATS please visit: http://venturecatalysts.in/

JPIN

Partners / Team Members

Nayan Gala

Founding Partner

Angel investor into early-stage businesses and activementor, Nayan hasover a decade of experience in Leadership, Strategy and Business Development. Nayan has advised governments & CXOs of the largest brands globally to build and sell businesses, including at Siemens, Rolls-Royce, Wood Group & Champion Technologies. With a Masters in International Marketing Management from Aberdeen Business School & Finance from London School of Business, Nayan started LK Housing, now a global real estate development business. With the vision of building the largest Euro-Asia investment and growth corridor, Nayan is at the forefront of many Euro–Asia initiatives. Nayan is also an FA trained football coach supporting grassroots football clubs in the UK.

Gaurav Singh

Founding Partner

An active investor into young companies, business turnaround artist, startup mentor and growth leader, Gaurav has helped startups as well as large corporate leadership achieve exponential growth across industries. He has a strong network of family offices, leading corporate houses, retail and investment banks, asset managers, hedge funds and advisory firms in Asia, Americas and Europe. With a Distinction in Masters-International Business from Aberdeen Business School, Scotland, he has won several awards for Excellence throughout his career. He is at the forefront of building the largest Euro-Asia investment and growth corridor. Gaurav leads Media & Health tech verticals and has a portfolio of block chain, telco, robotics and fintech in his investment portfolio, one of which is now a UNICORN.

Kamlesh Gangar

Partner, Mumbai

An avid and a very successful entrepreneur, Kamlesh has over 25 years of experience in marine, construction and automation. Well respected and established within business communities across India, Kamlesh leads the sourcing activity and engaging with vast HNI network. He has a strong passion for startups and regularly provides a lens on financial planning, stability and trends to allow businesses to adjust their trajectory and achieve continued success.

Satish P.V.

Partner, Mumbai

With over 25 Years in CIDCO (Govt. of Maharashtra), P.V. Satish retired as Chief Economist, with an incredible legacy of townships developed in Navi Mumbai. A Gold Medalist in Economics from Calicut University, India, and expertise in export and import management, P.V. Satish specialises in evaluation and analysis of big residential, industrial, SEZ township, distressed asset turnaround. He is connected well within the public and private sector at the highest levels.

Pankaj Kumar

Partner, Singapore

With over 14 years of experience in international taxation, industry & equity research, management consulting, and structured finance, pankaj brings an expertise in advising individuals and corporate on formation of cross border corporations and business structures and structuring commercial transactions. Previously he has worked with Amicorp Group, DM Ventures, Gridstone Research, Amba Research (Singapore) and ICICI Bank. Pankaj is an established Chartered Accountant.

Piyush Gupta

Partner, Dubai

A deep understanding of International financial markets through his previous assignments in Hong Kong, Middle East and India, ranging from managing investments, offshore structuring, corporate finance and trade finance, Piyush is strong becoming a recognized name in business financial planning and trade finance in emerging markets. Previously, he has worked with Société Générale, SHK Asia Dynamic Fund, Kitara Capital, ICT Oman and Amicorp Group. He is an Aerospace Engineer from IIT Bombay.

Dr. Apoorv Sharma

Venture Catalyst Partner

Dr. Apoorv Sharma is cofounder & president of Venture Catalysts India. He is one of the founding fathers of startup ecosystem in India, he has been instrumental in developing startup ecosystem since early 2000. He has been pioneer in establishing incubators in India. He has established over dozen incubators & accelerators, incubation funds and family office funds i.e. VentureNursery, Amity Innovation Incubator, Somaiya Incubator (RIDDLE), Mata Vaishno Devi University Incubator, Indian Angel Network Incubator. He is recipient of prestigious Best Incubator Award given by President of India, for outstanding performance of JSS Incubator. Dr. Apoorv Sharma is PhD in Incubation from Amity University, Noida and graduated in Engineering from HBTI, Kanpur and diploma in Mentor Studies of Berkley Institute of Management, University of California, USA. Dr. Apoorv Sharma is known as ‘Fund Manager with Highest Returns’. He is one of the top 10 angel investors in India, rated by VCCircle 2016. Over last two decades; he has curated, incubated & led seed investment of 100+ startups. OYO Rooms is the biggest success story of accelerators in India, followed by Beardo which is a recent acquisition by Marico Ltd. Both the startups were curated, mentored and seed sourced by Dr. Apoorv Sharma.

Anuj Golecha

Venture Catalyst Partner

An active angel investor himself, Anuj Golecha is a Co-founder at Venture Catalysts India. He is a certified Chartered Accountant and is also a 2nd Generation Partner of Banshi Jain & Associates (BJAA). Anuj is a seasoned professional with invaluable cross-industry experience. He has been actively involved in building businesses such as real estate, financial services, manufacturing, gold & diamond jewellery around the world into multi-million dollar enterprises. He has channelled this experience to establish BJAA as a one- stop financial solutions provider. Under his leadership, BJAA provides Advisory, Audit & Assurance Services to over 1200 corporate and non-corporate clients across 25 industries.

Anil Jain

Venture Catalyst Partner

A veteran of the industry, Anil Jain is a Co-founder at Venture Catalysts India. He has been deeply involved with the financial services and real estate industries for most of his career and has gained extensive knowledge of these market segments. Leveraging his in-depth understanding, Anil has driven his own businesses to great success. He co-founded Wallfort Financial Services Ltd and established it as one of the largest institutional broking firms in India. In 2002, he moved to co- found Wallfort Properties Ltd which has subsequently evolved into a leading real estate company with over 10 million sq ft in development in Chhattisgarh and 1 million sq ft in Mumbai, one of the largest metropolises in India.

Gaurav Jain

Venture Catalyst Partner

A new-age entrepreneur, Gaurav Jain is a Co-founder at Venture Catalysts India. He has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering from IIT-Roorkee, and is currently completing his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Gaurav brings a unique integration of technology, finance and a deep understanding of the start-up culture to VCats, and has significant experience in advising early stage start-ups as well as C-level executives. He has previously been associated with Fortune 500 companies such as Cisco in Silicon Valley and Reliance Industries in India, and was a founding member of GenNext Ventures, an early stage VC fund based in India. In his role at GenNext, Gaurav was deeply involved with investments in disruptive start ups across US, Israel and India. He has also been associated with leading global financial services company Credit Suisse as an investment banker.

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

Mark Runacres

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

Mark is a former British Diplomat and a successful entrepreneur. Some key appointments including Deputy British High Commissioner in India 2002-2006, and UK Mission to the UN(New York), Acting Head of South-East Asian Department. He established the Confederation of British Industry office in India and led the British Business Group in Delhi. He is on the Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS of AvianWE, India’s leading independent PR/Public Affairs firm, as well as Cognito Edge, a fast growing AI startup. Mark is Non-Executive Chair at Sustainability Advisors, a clean energy advisory. He is also currently a Non-Executive Director at Elara Capital (Asia) Mark was an Independent Director FCO’s Prosperity Fund in India.

Vijay Goel

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

Vijay Goel has been working at Singhania & Co for more than 15 years. At present, he is a senior partner for the London office of the firm. He has expertise in real estate and in advising clients on matters relating to corporate law, laws relating to joint ventures and foreign collaborations. He has extensive experience in advising on private equity funds for investment in India and has worked with American and Indian companies for their listing on AIM, London. He has also assisted Indian companies to acquire companies in the UK. Vijay has worked on a deal, where his client, a Government of India Company, provided approximately USD 500 million to Reliance for their power project in the year 2009.

Mark Brownridge

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

Mark has over twenty years’ experience in Financial services. Prior to his current leadership role at the EIS Association, he was Head of Research and Development at Mazars, a leading UK financial planning firm where he was responsible for £100M of venture capital investment. Mark is highly qualified being a Certified Financial Planner, Chartered Financial Planner, Chartered Wealth Manager and Fellow of the Personal Finance Society and previously sat on the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments Accredited firms committee and TISA’s Distribution Policy Council. Mark also acts a Non-Executive Director to a number of UK venture capital businesses and chairs and sits on various investment committees.

Nina Amin

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

Nina has over 25 years of experience in providing commercial tax and financial advice across a broad range of areas including corporate Governance, M&A transactions, due diligence, reorganisations, and financing. She has been on the board of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) London since Jan 2015, where she sat for three years as their first female President. Originally, Nina is a qualified chartered accountant and an ex-Partner of KPMG, having overseen business development and expansion in the Asian markets for five years. As the winner of several awards, including the 2008 Professional of the Year and the 2009 Asian Who’s Who Leadership award, and the 2016 woman of the year award, her excellence has rightfully been noticed. She was appointed to the Prince’s Trust Women in Leadership Group and is on the board of trustees for Cancer Research UK, and was awarded an MBE in 2013 in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Subhash Thakrar

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

ubhash Thakrar is a professional chartered accountant with over 35 years of experience, aninternational businessman and is actively involved in the voluntary and charity sector.Subhash sits on the Boards of various companies in executive and non-executive positions.Some of which include London Chamber of Commerce (Past Chairman), India Value Investments Ltd (INVIL), Triangle Real Estate India Fund Managers Ltd, Attlee Centre, Let Britain Fly and Signature Africa Ventures Ltd. He was recently appointed by the UK Government as a Commissioner to advise the Secretary of State for International Development.

Chris Low

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

Chris is an international banking, digital transformation, risk management and disruptive innovation leader, with more than 30 years of proven strategic delivery at Board and C-suite levels. He has a specialist knowledge of, and history with, finance and microfinance startups in Africa and India, and has found repeated success in replicating and scaling successful FinTech business models throughout these markets. He is an expert in using tech to grow tech, disrupting the status quo, and finding continued commercial success in doing so; including leading Africa's first disruptor bank, and sitting as an advisor to several early stage FinTech startups.

Rajiv Kapahi

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

A Chartered Accountant by qualification and a seasoned business leader plus a start-up evangelist with over 3 decades of rich cross-functional and cross-industry experience in India & Overseas, across industries. Since April ’20 serving as a Director & Co-Founder of BOMA India (An associate of BOMA Global USA), Creating transformational leadership for a better tomorrow. In addition, he is actively engaged as a Board Member in strategizing, mentoring and guiding a few distinctive and diverse startups in the space of AI, MediaTech, Nutraceuticals, EduTech and AgriTech space. He has progressively held various CXO & Board level positions in both MNC’s and at Indian business houses, with over 3 decades of years of rich cross-functional and cross-industry experience in Consulting (E&Y), Office Automation (Ricoh), FMCG (Gillette), Manufacturing (Owens), Healthcare (Max), IT/ITES (Dell), Life Insurance (DLF Pramerica / Prudential, USA) & Medical Devices (Boston Scientific) sectors.

Deepak Kasthwal

Board of Advisors, JPIN VCATS

With 19 years of leadership experience and a degree in public policy from LSE, Deepak is an expert in corporate expansion and change management, with experience scaling up one of the world’s most valuable e-commerce organisations and Uber’s biggest rival in India - Ola ($8bn valuation). Most notable is his work with Cleartrip, which became India's biggest travel website, and his charitable volunteering with the children's charity Magicbus, which saw them go from helping 30 to 30,000 children. Throughout his career, he has worked closely with several leading VC funds - including the infamous Tiger Global, Lightbox, Lightspeed, Kleiner Perkins and Sherpalo; managing more than $100m of investment into various sectors over the years. These include the travel and hospitality, urban mobility, real estate, pharmaceutical, food and social development sectors.