Kick-start your day with Power Breakfast Mornings at TiE Mumbai, where startups and mentors gather before the hustle of everyday work.

The session will be hosted by Vinod Keni, Growth Partner- Artha Venture Funds & Anirudh Damani, Managing Partner - Artha Venture Fund.

About The Speakers :

Vinod Keni

Vinod Keni is the Growth Partner at Artha Venture Fund, and the Co-Founder & Partner at Peachtree Management Advisors, a global consulting boutique that provides CFO Advisory & Finance Transformation services. He is the co-founder of BOTtomLiNE, a Robo Accounting platform. With more than 25 years of international experience in the US, India & SE Asia, Vinod has built, scaled and successfully exited ventures in services, outsourcing and technology. As a corporate finance professional, he has helped build companies, led an NASDAQ IPO, and executed several fund raising, M&A & Corporate Development initiatives. An active angel investor, mentor and advisor, Vinod has invested in healthcare, technology, services, cybersecurity, retail & manufacturing.

Vinod brings a unique perspective that combines best practices, practical solutions, demonstrated execution capabilities with experience, expertise and extensive networks.

His prior experience includes advising and help launch the IAN Fund, an early stage venture fund sponsored by the Indian Angel Network, India’s largest angel investment network. He has held leadership positions at Aavishkaar, one of the largest impact funds in India, SCP Private Equity, part of the Safeguard family of funds.

As an entrepreneur, he has co-founded, raised capital, scaled up and profitably exited businesses in services, outsourcing, technology and healthcare. As a CFO, he led HomeCom’s IPO listing on NASDAQ, filed for CareerBuilder’s IPO on NASDAQ and helped restructure Cortera, a fintech pioneer. He has advised and consulted with several mid-sized and large organizations in India and the US, providing solutions spanning business advisory, CFO, COO and M&A. He was part of the founding team at VerticalOne, a fintech pioneer, which was acquired within 18 months of its founding by S1 Corporation. He was part of finance teams at Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, HCA and IVF America. Vinod worked with S.R. Batliboi, the Indian affiliate of E&Y, where he was deputed to Texas Instruments, and later to Intel to manage their financial operations, reporting and recruitment. He helped Intel with setting up their subsidiary in India.

Vinod chairs the Fintech SIG of TiE Mumbai and is member of the Board of Trustees of TiE Mumbai. He is one of the co-founders of the Atlanta chapter of TiE and is a global Charter Member. He was the cofounder and a Director of the Atlanta CEO HiTech Council. Vinod has an MBA from Alan Shawn Feinstein Graduate School, Johnson & Wales University & Bentley College. He is a CPA(inactive). He has completed the PE/VC programs from ISB & Harvard, and corporate finance programs from Harvard Business School & Institute of Management Accountants.

Anirudh Damani:

Anirudh has been an angel investor in India since 2011, prior to which he was an entrepreneur in the energy sector in the US and in India. Some of the key winners in his portfolio include Oyo Rooms, NowFloats, Exotel, Tala, Purplle, Coutloot, and LenDenClub.

Anirudh a.k.a aD began his professional journey as a door to door salesman in the arid climatic region of West Texas, where he would go knocking on 80-100 doors per day, convincing home owners to switch their electricity provider. His natural penchant for sales coupled with the ability to recruit, train and motivate others led to his quick rise in the ranks of the company.

His direct efforts in successfully setting up the B2B sales division brought the company a nationwide sales contract with Suez Energy (now called Engie), the world’s largest utility provider with over $180 billion in assets in 2006. After his promotion to the Director of Sales, Anirudh played a crucial role in expanding the company to Chicago, New York, Dallas, Houston, Corpus Christi, Midland, etc. He successfully led a nationwide sales force of over 500 agents.

During the Great Recession, a conflux of reasons led Anirudh’s employer to the brink of filing for bankruptcy. He and two of his colleagues took over the debt-ridden company and rechristened it as Pioneer Energy Resources. In just under 2 years, not only did they make it profitable but also cleared all the debts of their former employer.

In 2012, Anirudh left Texas and PER to return to his home base in Mumbai. His previous experience in the energy sector and the scope of renewable energy assets to deliver long term stable cash-flows drove his decision to buy a windmill. He deployed the cash-flows from this windmill into early-stage start-ups.

Anirudh strongly believes that investing in start-ups at an early stage creates the maximum impact in their lifecycle. He aims to drive growth by mentoring decisions that involve sales, marketing, recruiting, finance and operations. He works closely with founders to help them develop prototypes, find their first customer, decipher unit economics, recruit the second line of management and prepare the company for rapid scaling up. He is a part of a vast network of global mentors & advisors that he ropes in to provide connections, support and guidance to the founders in his portfolio.

Anirudh’s unique funding strategy helped him create an impressive portfolio of over 70 start-ups that are almost completely funded by a renewable energy asset in Rajasthan. His knack for picking winners is evident from the 3.5x multiple that his portfolio has delivered so far and the tremendous success that his fundraising efforts have generated for Artha Venture Fund.