Veteran Investor Dr. Ashish Gupta joins Prime Venture Partners as Partner Emeritus

Will play an active role on Investment Committee and Portfolio Management

Bengaluru, August 12, 2020: Prime Venture Partners announced the addition of Dr. Ashish Gupta as Partner Emeritus to further strengthen its investment team. Based in the US, Ashish is a renowned serial entrepreneur, angel investor and VC, having co-founded Helion Ventures in 2005. At Prime, Ashish will be part of the Investment Committee and actively involved in the decision making process of all future investments at Prime. He will also serve as a mentor and advisor to the entire portfolio, the fund’s future strategies and guide the team on several aspects of venture capital investing and portfolio management.

Ashish Gupta is a well-known and highly respected figure both in the Indian startup ecosystem and in Silicon Valley. He is a Kauffman Fellow, holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University, and a BTech from IIT Kanpur where he received the President’s Gold medal and is on its list of 50 illustrious alumni. His first entrepreneurial venture, Junglee (a price-comparison platform) was acquired by Amazon in 1998 following which he founded Tavant Technologies in the year 2000. Known for being a prolific investor, Gupta has been an early investor in startups that went on to have very successful exits, such as Flipkart and MuSigma. Ashish is the co-founder of Helion Venture Partners and serves on several boards including Ezetap, Pubmatic, Simplilearn, SMSGupshup and Naukri. Some of his past investments include Qwikcilver (acquired by Pinelabs), Daksh (acquired by IBM), MakeMyTrip, Upwork, Perfios, and Redbus.

Prime Venture Partners is an early-stage VC fund led by Sanjay Swamy, Shripati Acharya & Amit Somani. The fund also has well-known serial entrepreneur, investor and Aadhaar volunteer, Raj Mashruwala, as a Partner Emeritus. Started in 2012 with the objective of bringing Silicon Valley style professionalism to venture investing and building world class companies out of India, Prime is often the first institutional investor in category-creating technology startups. With more than 25 companies in its portfolio, Prime is addressing a much-needed gap in the Indian startup ecosystem by bringing a combination of first-hand entrepreneurial experience, operating expertise and meaningful capital. With the addition of Ashish Gupta, Prime is looking to further boost its portfolio with early-stage investments in Fintech, SaaS, Enterprise, Healthcare, Education and Logistics.

Supporting Quotes:

Ashish Gupta, Partner Emeritus, Prime Venture Partners

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.

Shripati Acharya, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners

Ashish is just an incredible all-round person. As an entrepreneur, investor, mentor and a friend, he has been the first person we’ve turned to for brainstorming over the years. 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.