16 Indian Americans Make it to Business Insiders’ ‘The Seed 100’

HI INDIA NEWS DESK
16 Indian Americans have made it to the Business Insider’s top early-stage investors — ‘The Seed 100’ list.

These are the investors who helped startup founders realize their dreams. This is the fourth edition of “the Seed 100” list

The Indian American early-stage investors on the 2024 ‘Seed 100’ list are:

Avichal Garg, managing partner, Electric Capital, Palo Alto, California

In addition with Electric Capital, Garg has been a successful angel investor and has been an early backer of Cruise, Deel, and Figma. He has also worked at both Facebook and Google and has founded multiple startups of his own.

Gaurav Jain, co-founder and managing partner, Afore Capital, San Francisco, California

In 2016, Jain launched Afore Capital in 2022 which has gone on to create one of the largest firms focusing on pre-seed investments. The firm closed a third $150 million fund.

Arjun Sethi, co-founder, Tribe Capital; cofounder, Termina, California

As the co-founder of Tribe Capital, Sethi takes a quantitative approach to seed investing. He led early investments in Applied Intuition, the self-driving-car software company that landed $250 million in funding in March, and Rippling, the workforce-management software company that’s had explosive growth even as business software spending has stalled.

Salil Deshpande, general partner, Uncorrelated Ventures, Palo Alto, California
Deshpande has invested in about “half a dozen” AI startups at the seed stage. His firm, Uncorrelated Ventures since its start has raised millions, “most recently, he raised $315 million at the beginning of 2024 for a new fund

Sheel Mohnot, cofounder and general partner, Better Tomorrow Ventures, San Francisco, California

Mohnot in 2020 cofounded Better Tomorrow Ventures, a fintech venture firm. Before that, he was an angel investor in companies like Flexport and Ironclad. He co-founded the food company Thistle before starting his venture capital career.

Shruti Gandhi, founder and general partner, Array Ventures, San Francisco, California
Gandhi’s fund, Array Ventures, helps technical founders with early sales and develop their go-to-market strategy.

Nikhil Basu Trivedi, co-founder and general partner, Footwork, San Francisco, California
Trivedi began his career as an early hire at Artsy, an online art marketplace. His investment in the graphic-design app Canva, was reportedly valued at $26 billion earlier this year.

He co-founded the venture firm Footwork in 2021 which makes seed and Series A investments out of a $175 million fund.

Anshu Sharma, co-founder and CEO, Skyflow, Mountain View, California
Amongst many achievements, Sharma also invested in Nutanix, whose initial public offering was in 2016 and was valued at over $2 billion.

Robin Vasan, managing partner, Mango Capital, Los Altos, California
Vasan founded the early-stage, enterprise-focused Mango Capital in 2018 and was an early investor in startups like the cloud database Couchbase and web-development platform Netifly.

Hemant Taneja, CEO and managing director, General Catalyst, San Francisco, California
Taneja announced the creation of the Health Assurance Transformation Company or HATco. The company was owned by the venture-capitalist firm General Catalyst. Taneja was an early investor in the diabetes company Livongo, which sold to Teladoc in 2020 for $13.9 billion.

Rayyan Islam, co-founder and general partner, 8090 Industries, Dallas, Texas
Islam cofounded 8090 Industries in 2020 to back founders building in “the new industrial revolution. The firm invests in partnership with more than two dozen energy and industry-focused family offices. He also co-founded the clean hydrogen company Gold Hydrogen in 2022.

Nitesh Banta, co-founder and CEO, B12, New York City
Banta co-founded B12, the professional services firm in 2016, which is his third venture as a serial entrepreneur. He previously co-founded the car-sharing app Getaround, and the student-focused venture firm Rough Draft Ventures.

Ankur Jain, founder and partner, Emergent Ventures, San Francisco, California
Jain founded Emergent in 2016. Since then, Jain has enjoyed a number of exits, with portfolio companies selling to enterprise giants like Databricks, Nutanix, SailPoint, and VMWare.

Abhishek Sharma, managing director, Nexus Venture Partners, Menlo Park, California
Sharma co-founded the startup HelloIntern.com. He earlier did a stint at eBay, and worked as an associate at the consulting firm Booz & Company.

Vivek Garipalli, investor, Wormhole Capital, New York City
Garipalli, co-founded and led the health-insurance-tech company Clover Health, which went public in a 2020 SPAC deal that valued the company at $3.7 billion.

He’s currently the executive chair of Clover Health’s board of directors and remains its largest shareholder. Before that, he co-founded the health system CarePoint Health and the revenue-services company Ensemble Health.

Ajay Agarwal, partner, Bain Capital Ventures, Boston, Massachusetts
Agarwal founded his first startup as a sophomore at Stanford and worked at Trilogy Software, where he ran product and sales for eight years until it reached $300 million in annual recurring revenue