People | Nirvana Ventures

Team
Board

Team

The Team has a blend of experience in the IT, Consumer Internet, Hardware and Business Services areas. This extensive operating and investing experience has led to them building invaluable industry networks that portfolio companies can benefit from. This is especially useful to young companies looking to build out their teams, networks into strategic partners or raise future rounds of capital. Meet the team below...

Arihant Patni

Arihant is the Managing Director of Patni Financial Advisors (PFA), which is an advisory company he founded in 2004. Under his leadership, the firm is in charge of managing deployment of over $500 million USD of assets across listed securities, debt instruments, real estate and other alternate assets in India, UK and the US. Arihant actively manages the portfolio along with a team of professionals reporting to him and is singularly accountable for generating returns. Additionally, after the sale of Patni Computers in 2011, Arihant has been an active venture capitalist and directly engaged in three sector focused VC funds.

He is Managing Director and Co-founder of the Hive, a silicon valley ‘Big Data’ incubator with offices in Palo Alto, Mumbai and Bangalore. He is Director and Co-founder of Nirvana Ventures, a fund in the internet space. He is also launching Ideaspring Capital, a new early stage fund in collaboration with established IT entrepreneurs that will focus on enterprise technology. In all of the above entities Arihant plays an active management role in strategy planning and ground level tasks such as deal sourcing, deal evaluation, deal closure and subsequent monitoring. Most importantly, working closely with the founders of the portfolio companies to grow the business.

Arihant received his Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Chemical Engineering. He continued his education at Babson College, where he received his Masters of Business Administration (Magna Cum Laude), with a dual concentration in Entrepreneurship and Finance. He then received a separate Masters Degree in Statistics from Columbia University, with a concentration in Quantitative Finance.

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Amit Patni

Co-founder & Chairman

Amit is Co-founder & Chairman at Nirvana Venture Advisors and is a promoter shareholder of Patni Computers. Patni Computers Ltd. was a pioneer in Indian ITES. The promoter family stake in Patni Computers was divested in May 2011 in a sale to iGate Corporation at value of $1.5 billion. Amit has 22 years’ experience in technology, software and projects. He has extensive experience in the computer hardware and components market in India and overseas. In his various roles, Amit has independently ensured implementation of Greenfield projects and launched new business operations.

As a Whole time Director of PCS Technologies Ltd., a listed Indian company in the computer hardware and manufacturing space, Amit was responsible for setting-up the copper clad laminates business. Subsequently he was Managing Director of PCS International Pvt. Ltd. with the responsibility of expanding PCS Technologies hardware business in UAE and Africa. Thereafter, Amit developed Health Management Systems, a healthcare software product that was marketed by PCS Technologies Ltd.

Amit is a Director of the Board of Patni Financial Advisors the family office of the Patni Family. Amit has done his BS in Accounting and Masters from Babson College, USA.

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Rajan Mehra

Co-founder & Managing Director

Rajan is a Co-founder and Managing Director at Nirvana Venture Advisors. An MBA from the Darden Business School, USA, Rajan is an internet industry veteran, with 17 years of experience in consumer internet and business services. Before co-founding Nirvana, he was a venture partner at Clearstone Venture Advisors, the India Advisory of Clearstone Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Santa Monica, Ca. Prior to joining Clearstone, Rajan was Country Head for eBay in India and a member of the Asia Pacific Leadership Team of eBay, a role in which he ensured continued leadership for eBay India as the #1 e-commerce company in India.

Prior to becoming Country Head, Rajan was Country Manager (New Ventures and Payments), a role in which he launched the PaisaPay escrow payment service and the Kijiji Classifieds platform.

As Director - Motors and Business Development at eBay, Rajan built and grew a localized used auto marketplace. Rajan’s early years in the Indian internet were at the start-up Baazee.com where he was a member of the management team. Baazee was acquired by eBay in 2004 for $55mn in one of India’s earliest internet exits, Rajan has invested in/is a board member of Billdesk (India’s largest electronic transaction processor), Games2win (India’s leading Casual & Social gaming company) and Motorexchange.in (an online marketplace for autos). He was also a member of governing council of IAMAI (Internet & Mobile Association of India), an industry body with a mandate to expand and enhance the Indian online and mobile value added service sectors.

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Ritu Dhariwal

Chief Financial Officer & Company Secretary

Ritu is the Chief Financial Officer & Company Secretary of Nirvana Venture Advisors. Ritu is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary. Ritu has over 14 years of experience in Fund Raising, M&A, Structured Products, Accounting & Tax, Governance, Syndicated debts worth $250m and managing Investor Relations as CFO of Patni Energy Pvt. Ltd. Ritu was a core team member for financing and restructuring $650 million of debt of Essar Oil Ltd. She is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Modern Management, Pune, a Fellow Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Associate Company Secretary, The Institute of Company Secretaries of India, New Delhi, India
Abishek Balendran

Associate Vice President

Abishek is an Associate Vice President at Nirvana Venture Advisors. As an Investment Professional, Abishek has a deep experience of working across the value chain of a deal cycle having led investments across directs, funds and co-investment platforms. Prior to Nirvana, he has worked with Singapore Angel Network, a venture capital firm and Xander Private Equity, a South Asia focused Real Estate and Hospitality fund where he was instrumental in setting up Xander’s venture Industrials platform and implementing direct investments in India for the platform. On the sell-side, as an M&A/PE banker, he has advised on several marquee domestic and cross-border transactions across sectors including Healthcare/Pharma, Hospitality, Energy & Power. Abishek is an MBA in Finance from SIBM Pune and B. Tech in Electronics and Telecommunications from PICT, University of Pune.
Yoshihiko Tezuka

Yoshihiko is currently Manager of Overseas Business Administration Department at SBI Holdings, Inc. (8473.T) in Japan. He is the representative of SBI Holdings on the Board of Nirvana Venture Advisors Pvt. Ltd.

Yoshihiko handles global strategic/financial deals and also monitors the SBI Group’s portfolio companies mainly in the U.S. and Asia. Prior to the current position, he had a number of roles in the group, including Authorized Director of SBI Thai Online Securities Co., Ltd. in Thailand and Manager of SBI SECURITIES Co., Ltd. in Japan, specialized in corporate planning, product development and marketing.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Hitotsubashi University.

Team

Arihant Patni

Amit Patni

Co-founder & Chairman

Rajan Mehra

Co-founder & Managing Director

Ritu Dhariwal

Chief Financial Officer & Company Secretary

Abishek Balendran

Associate Vice President

Yoshihiko Tezuka

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Team

Arihant Patni

Amit Patni Co-founder & Chairman

Rajan Mehra Co-founder & Managing Director

Ritu Dhariwal Chief Financial Officer & Company Secretary

Abishek Balendran Associate Vice President

Yoshihiko Tezuka

Your plan has been submitted successfully!

Amit Patni

Co-founder & Chairman

Rajan Mehra

Co-founder & Managing Director

Ritu Dhariwal

Chief Financial Officer & Company Secretary

Abishek Balendran

Associate Vice President