India’s Largest Angel Network

Afzal Oomerbhoy

Afzal Oomerbhoy, is the third generation businessman from the 96
year old Ahmed Oomerbhoy Group, manufacturers of the first consumer
packaged Edible Oil brand known as Postman Oil. Working as a partner
along with his brothers Afzal Oomerbhoy was responsible for expanding
the AO Group from Edible Oils to cosmetics, frozen foods and a large
scale distribution house. Under their management and entrepreneurial
efforts, the brand of Postman oil commanded the largest market share
seen in the Indian Food Industry and became synonymous with the word
Cooking Oil in India and the Middle East. Taking on from the Edible
Oil business, he expanded the Oil portfolio to include India’s first
(Even before Marico) consumer packaged coconut oil known as AO Coconut
Oil. Another collaborative industry set up under Mr. Oomerbhoy was the
formation of Bombay Soap Factory or BSF. Initiated on the basis of
created a all round FMCG group, this company became the outsourcing hub
for soaps, cosmetics and glycerine for multinational houses such as
Johnson & Johnson, Parke Davis & Mueller Phipps. However the largest
entrepreneurial and independent venture undertaken by Afzal Oomerbhoy
was the formation of India’s first large scale Export Oriented Cold
Storage facility known as Hindustan Cold Storage or HCS located in Thane.
HCS specialized in processing and exporting its entire production of
frozen food meat, fish and shrimp products to the Gulf, Japan, USA and
Europe and till today is involved in heavy trade within this sector.
Currently away from family business, Afzal Oomerbhoy and his Son have
leveraged the established reputation and contacts and capitalized on
developing trade operations in current and new markets and develop new
product lines. Mr. Oomerbhoy has also been a mentor and an inspiration
for many small scale industries within the community who have expressed
the desire to explore the export market and become established and
consistent food companies. Mr. Oomerbhoy has done his College from
St.Xaviers College, Mumbai and B.B.A. from University of Houston, Texas.

Areas of Interest :

 

Ajai Chowdhry

Ajay Garg

Ajay has founded Equirus Capital, which today has operations in Mumbai ,Bangalore and New York with 20 investment professionals and good domain expertise in technology, financial services, engineering , infrastructure and life sciences.  The group is well positioned to assist various companies for their M&A, private equity raising and structured finance requirements and alternate investment advisory.  Ajay is an established investment banker and has been associated with lot of landmark transactions during his days with DSP Merrill Lynch and as a co-founder of boutique investment bank.  Among the prominent deals include are sale of India World to Sat yam Info way for Rs. 5,000mn, US$ 30 mn private placement of Venture Infotek with Warburg Pincus, AirFreight PE deal with Bankers Trust, STAR TV's strategic investment in Hathway Cable and more recently further investment by Chryscapital in Hathway, Sale of Sharekhan to Citiventures, Investment by ICICI Ventures in Topsgrup. Ajay has a first degree in engineering and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.

Areas of Interest:

• IT products and services
• High end BPO Services
• Retail
• Consolidation opportunities in domestic IT products and services
• Media & Entertainment
• Education

Ajay P Lavakare

Ajay Lavakare is the Executive Chairman and founder of RMSI Pvt. Ltd, one of India’s leading geospatial information services and solutions companies. He established RMSI in 1992 as a joint venture with Risk Management Solutions (RMS), California, USA.  
Ajay is also senior vice president and managing director of RMS. From 2006 to 2009, he spent three years in California developing a new business initiative for RMS, focused on creating a range of data services, products and solutions to help insurance and reinsurance companies improve the quality of their exposure data used in catastrophe risk modeling.
Prior to founding RMSI, Ajay worked in Tokyo with Kumagai Gumi Ltd., a leading Japanese architecture/engineering/construction company.
Ajay has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (New Delhi, India) and a Masters degree in Structural Engineering from Stanford University (California, USA).
Ajay is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Delhi chapter. He speaks Japanese and his other interests include travelling, tennis, entrepreneurship, and Indian & Western classical and jazz music. He lives in New Delhi with his family.

Areas of Interest:

• IT products and services
• HIgh end BPO services
• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Retail
• Consolidation opportunities in domestic IT products and services
• New Media

Ajoy Khandheria

Mr Khandheria has over 15 years of experience in building telecommunications businesses. Mr Khandheria has invested in several successful companies, including Advanced Fibre Corporation (AFCI). He has also been an active angel investor for the past four years. Besides investing, Mr. Khandheria has built successful global businesses for large corporations, such as Harris Corporation, ItalCable, and small companies including ConvergeLabs, where he was the founder and CEO. He currently advises several large successful companies including U T Starcom, Hughes Software Systems, and ipUnity. He was also one of the founders of a successful telephone company in India.

Ajoy has an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley and an electrical engineering degree from M.S. University, Baroda, India.

Areas of Interest:

• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Consolidation opportunities in domestic IT products and services

Contact Coordinates
Mobile: +91-98102 92569

Algy Williams

In 1999 Algy Williams (50) set up Babel Media, the leading services company to the interactive entertainment industry. For the past 20 years Algy has worked in video games, graphic design, television animation, special effects and post production.

Under Algy’s leadership, Babel has grown from three employees on the South Coast of the UK to the current headcount of 400 (FTE) in Brighton, Montreal, Delhi and Los Angeles . He has been a leading advocate of the outsourcing business model to the games industry and continues to shape the outsourcing agenda with international publishers, hardware manufacturers and mobile carriers.

Babel works for almost every major company in interactive entertainment including Sony, Sega, Microsoft, Disney, LucasArts, Nokia, Warner Bros, Vodafone, Nintendo, Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard. The company has been voted Best Games Outsourcing Company in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008.

In June 2008, Babel Media was sold to Quatrro BPO Solutions, led by Raman Roy. Algy remains on the Board of the Company and is a significant shareholder.

Prior to Babel, Algy set up Labyrinth Productions in 1993, from which he produced a major CD ROM game called “Drowned God” for Time Warner Interactive as well as educational and themed entertainment installations. Previous to Labyrinth, Algy was Managing Director of CAL Ltd, one of Europe's leading television design and post-production companies working for the BBC, Channel Four, Amblin Entertainment and numerous international advertising agencies.

Algy holds degrees in English and History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. He is married with two children.

Motivation for joining the India Angel Network

I opened the Babel India office in 2004. Since that time, I have always been fascinated by the country, her people, the rich history and culture, and the phenomenal opportunities arising from India’s meteoric financial development.

 Having sold my business to Quatrro, I would like to leverage my experience of building fast growth, early stage companies with my expanding network of Indian friends and associates. I cannot think of a richer vein of investment opportunities than in India, and I would welcome the chance of being involved with young Indian companies in a financial as well as a mentoring role – as they develop they will be keen to expand internationally and I believe that I can help them do so.

Areas of Interest:

• IT products and Services
• High end BPO Services
• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Retails
• Construction oppertunities in domestic IT products and services
• Media & Entertainment
• New Media
• Education

Alok Mittal

Alok is a first generation entrepreneur, now in the venture capital business. Alok heads up venture operations for Canaan Partners in India, with focus on internet, technology and BPO space. Alok is also a founding member of Band of Angels India - an organization comprising successful entrepreneurs looking to invest in seed stage businesses. Prior to this, Alok cofounded JobsAhead.com, a leading job portal which was acquired by Monster.com. Alok is an active charter member of TiE Delhi. Alok is a computer science graduate from IIT Delhi and, postgraduate from UC, Berkeley.

Areas of Interest:

• IT products and services
• High end BPO services
• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Internet, Wireless, Mobile

Amal Pramanik

Amal heads up the UK business of Imperial Tobacco, one of the leading global tobacco companies. UK is Imperial Tobacco’s home market where it has a market leading position with yearly local profit of over Rs. 4800cr (at £600m, it is over 20% of Imperial’s global profit). Prior to UK, Amal was the head of Imperial’s Netherlands business and was also a director of various international subsidiaries.

Amal graduated from IIT Kharagpur and did his post graduation degree from IIM Ahmedabad. In his very successful career spanning over c25 years, Amal has held various senior sales and marketing and IT roles in ITC, NIIT, Pepsi, Gillette and now Imperial Tobacco and worked in India, Australia, Netherlands and UK.

Before immigrating with his family to Australia in 2000, Amal was the head of oral care business (Oral B) of Gillette for India and neighboring countries.

Amal has key strengths in his ability to negotiate large commercial arrangements/ deals, his ability to test robustness of ideas and proposals, his commercial acumen and thorough understanding of business processes & culture in different parts of the world and also his ability to help teams set strategic direction and enhance performance.

Areas of Interest:

Amit Sharma
to be updated soon

Amitabh Shrivastava

Amitabh Shrivastava runs an angel stage investment firm called Rhombus Investments, since 2007.  Rhombus Investments has a diverse portfolio of investments, ranging from IT, ITES, Robotic Solutions, Medical Diagnostics, HR, Hospitality and Real Estate. Currently, Amitabh is on the board of some of these companies in exec and in non-exec capacities. Apart from making investments, Amitabh works with the management teams of his investee companies to strategize and develop unique competitive advantage in the market.  Amitabh actively looks for new investments and M&A opportunities, and has access to vast network of co-investors, buyers of business, solution providers, human capital, etc.  Prior to 2007, Amitabh held senior positions with HCL, Infosys, and Xansa.

Areas of Interests:

• IT products and services
• High end BPO services
• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Retail
• Consolidation opportunities in domestic IT products and services
• Media & Entertainment
• New Media
• Education

Contact Coordinates
Mobile: