Tuesday, 25 June 2013 00:01
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With the finale of Venture Engine 2013 set for 26 June, the top 10 businesses have completed their last workshop and now move on to working on their final pitch which will be made to a distinguished judging panel of investors from the Indian Angel Network (IAN), who will be flying down for the event along with the Lankan Angel Network (LAN) panel.
The 13 member panel will feature three highly respected investors from the LAN, Eric B. Wikramanayake, Mafaz Ishaq and Ruwindu Peries as well as the sponsors Hanif Yusoof from Expolanka, Jeevan Gnanam from Orion City and Jeremy Huxtable from Dialog. The seven member IAN panel will consist of leading investors from multiple fields.
Rajan Anandan is an active angel investor in India and the US. He is currently the Vice President of Google Inc and Managing Director of Google India prior to which he has held senior roles in Microsoft, Dell and McKinsey & Company in Chicago. Rajan is also the Chairman of Blue Ocean Ventures.
Padmaja Ruparel has been a key player in the entrepreneurial eco system of India for 25 years. Having built and grown a real estate business multi-fold from US$ 1million to US$ 15 million, she is also President of the Indian Angel Network, an organisation she built from inception.
Mukund Mohan is the CEO-in-residence at the Microsoft Accelerator. He founded and sold BuzzGain, a leader in Do It Yourself PR, to Meltwater, prior to which that he also founded and sold two Silicon Valley start-ups in internet and enterprise software. He has also held executive and management roles in Hewlett Packard (Mercury) and Ariba (SAP).
Murali Sundar is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Marcatus QED Inc., a multi-national company with offices in the United Kingdom, Mexico, India, China and Canada. Murali has also worked as a consultant for a number of Fortune 500 companies to develop new consumer food products for their branded portfolio.
Ravi Gururaj is an active angel investor in India. He has founded multiple software ventures, two of which were acquired by US based NASDAQ listed technology companies. At present, Ravi is an Executive Council Member at NASSCOM and Vice President – Products, Cloud Platforms Group at Citrix.
Raj Chinai has spent over 14 years in the venture capital, investment banking and business development sectors. He is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the HBS Angels of India and is a member of the Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA). Earlier in his career, Raj was based in Silicon Valley, where he helped lead business development deals at Yahoo! and Scient.
Shravan Shroff, after taking over Shringar Films, the family run film distribution business in 1997, introduced the concept of outsourced screen programming and multiplex cinemas, and today, the company boasts a chain of 25 multiplexes across India. He is currently the Managing Partner of South Yarra Holdings, and is looking at investments in various sectors.
“This impressive lineup speaks volumes not only of our commitment to creating a strong platform for generating investment opportunities but more importantly of the quality of business plans developed by the participating entrepreneurs,” said Prajeeth Balasubramanium, Co-Founder of Blue Ocean Ventures.
Sponsored by Expolanka Holdings, Orion City and Dialog, Venture Engine aims to enable and empower the vast entrepreneurial potential in Sri Lanka by creating a real opportunity for businesses to gain access to funding. For more information on Venture Engine visit www.ventureengine.com.
