Naren Gupta, one of many oldest enterprise capitalists in India to have pioneered the trail of investments in startups, died on Saturday.
An alumni of IIT-Delhi, the 73-year-old Gupta is without doubt one of the co-founders of India and US-based outstanding early-stage enterprise capital fund Nexus Enterprise Companions, which at the moment manages over $2 billion in belongings underneath administration.
Gupta has personally overseen the expansion story of a number of the most interesting startups of their respective classes comparable to API platform Postman, on-line classifieds platform Olx, coding platform WhiteHat Jr, and edtech agency Unacademy. Postman additionally just lately turned probably the most valued software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform in India’s unicorn secure.
“Naren was a stalwart within the world expertise and entrepreneurial ecosystems and a pioneer of Indian enterprise capital. He was a mentor and an in depth buddy to all of us at Nexus and we’ll miss his ardour, caring nature and towering mind,” stated a Nexus spokesperson on the demise of Gupta.
Gupta had migrated to the US within the late 60s and floated a software program agency named Built-in Techniques, which was finally offered to Intel.
Put up that, Gupta was exploring funding alternatives and determined to wager on Indian startups in an period the place even the numbers of such new comers have been too lesser than as we speak and never too many takers to spend money on them.
In 2006, Gupta co-founded Nexus Enterprise Companions with Suvir Sujan and Sandeep Singhal, which made earliest bets within the likes of Snapdeal, Delhivery and ShopClues.
Enterprise capital executives and startup founders are mourning his loss.
“Actually saddened to be taught concerning the premature passing of Naren Gupta (@naren_nexus). He was a father determine to a technology of enterprise capitalists and founders” tweeted Kunal Bahl of Snapdeal.
“RIP Naren Gupta🙏🙏🙏 The India enterprise ecosystem you had a giant half in establishing has simply moved into excessive gear. You may be missed on this drive ahead,” tweeted Dev Khare, companion at VC fund Lightspeed India.
“Nexus did our seed spherical and that’s how I bought to know him. He was all the time very caring, all the time smiling and supporting individual every time I met him. Some of the humble, good and superb human beings and a VC. Huge huge loss, ” stated Swapnil Jain, CEO at Observe.ai.
Supply: Live Mint