Team

Ankur is the Founder of Emergent Ventures. Previously, Ankur was a venture investor at Nexus Venture Partners investing in US and India. Prior to that, Ankur was venture investor at Blumberg Capital investing in US and Israel. Prior to that, Ankur did strategy consulting at Accenture across a range of verticals including healthcare, financial services and technology. Earlier, Ankur led product teams at Andiamo Systems and later Cisco which acquired Andiamo in 2004. Prior to that, Ankur held engineering roles at Softaware Networks and later at Digital Island, which acquired Softaware Networks in 2000. Ankur is also co-founder of Vama, an eco-technology company.

Ankur’s selected investments include Mertado (acquired by Groupon), Cyvera (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), Mobsmith (acquired by Rubicon Project), BringIT (acquired by International Gaming Technologies) and Arkin (acquired by VMWare).

Ankur holds a Bachelors in in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Delhi, a Masters in Computer Science from UCLA, and an MBA in Management from the Wharton School where he graduated as a Palmer Scholar. Ankur is also a co-inventor for five technology patents. Ankur is TiE Charter Member. Ankur has been a frequent speaker in conferences and forums such as TedX on investing, personal growth & consciousness and is a keen practitioner of yoga and meditation.

Prior to Emergent, Anupam founded NX Partners to help high-potential SaaS companies accelerate growth rates and outcomes, and worked closely with half a dozen startups across the enterprise landscape. Previously, Anupam held investing roles of increasing responsibility at NGP Capital, a global venture firm with $1.2B+ AUM. At NGP Capital, Anupam led the Intelligent Enterprise investing team, identifying and investing in companies at the intersection of data, IoT and machine intelligence. Earlier, he built the firm’s marketplaces investing practice globally across Asia, Europe and North America, and helped drive the firm’s smart mobility and logistics investment practice. Anupam also spearheaded the creation of the firm’s data-driven deal discovery platform, led the development of growth metrics frameworks, and helped develop and assess exit strategy for the firm’s large needle-moving outcomes.

Investments that Anupam originated, led, managed and/or supported include Deliveroo, Fetchr, Lime, GetYourGuide, NetMagic (acquired by NTT), Quikr, Teem (acquired by WeWork), Vizury, and Zoomcar.

Prior to his investing career, Anupam spent several years in the mobile, enterprise and data analytics spaces, bringing to market four new products, setting up a big data analytics stack in a Fortune 100 environment, and authoring five international patents and publications. Anupam holds Computer Science degrees from IIT Delhi and UT Austin, an MBA from The Wharton School, and studied Technology Commercialization at MIT.

Charles has worked on over 50 transactions spanning 8 countries and totaling over $14 billion in total value. He has closed successfully IPO’s, Private Equity and Venture investments, LBO’s and mergers and acquisitions of public and private companies. Charles comes to this experience through a unique blend of operational, legal and financial experience. This experience has spanned boardrooms in New York, and other global financial capitals, to small logistics and farming centres in rural parts of the worlds.

Prior to co-founding Emergent, Charles gained a uniquely robust experience in the global investing arena through legal, operational and finance roles. Most recently, Charles was the global head of Mergers & Acquisitions for Harman International, a Fortune 500 company and a leader in the Connected Car space. Harman was acquired Samsung in 2017, in the largest acquisition Samsung has made in order to gain access to the connected car assets at Harman International.

Prior to Harman, Charles spent several years at an Apollo portfolio company, United Agri Products, where he serviced as the Director fo Retail operations and Assistant General Counsel. Charles started his career as an attorney in New York, New York, at O’Melveny, where he practiced corporate transactional and corporate securities law.

Charles earned an MBA from Wharton, a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University.

Alok is a Partner at Emergent Ventures. Previously, Alok ran a product strategy consulting firm advising a number of high growth startups. Prior to that, Alok was a Director of Product at TempoAI and later at Salesforce which acquired TempoAI in 2016. Earlier, Alok led product teams at YuMe (IPO: NYSE) where he joined at an early stage and experienced its evolution into a public company. Prior to that, Alok held multiple product management roles at Microsoft, with the last one in Windows Azure. Alok was also co-founder of ToneThis a mobile technology startup.

Alok holds a Bachelors in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, a Masters and Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA. Alok is also a co-inventor for three technology patents.

Indra is a venture partner at Emergent Ventures. He brings over 30 years of broad experience in the technology industry. His proficiency is in grooming startups from inception through product development on to revenue. Indra enjoys implementing best practices for hands-off operation of scalable business processes across multiple functional areas that include legal, operations, contract negotiations, M&A, finance, accounting, HR, compensation and corporate governance. Indra helps Emergent Ventures’ portfolio companies leverage his experience to drive high quality execution and operational excellence.

Indra started at AMD in the late ‘80s and then transitioned to technical marketing at SynOptics (later Bay Networks). With two other colleagues from Bay Networks, Indra co-founded his first startup in 1995. In 1999, Indra joined the newly formed Bell Labs Silicon Valley in Palo Alto. In 2001, as CFO of Lightbit, an optical networking startup, Indra successfully navigated the carnage of the telecom bust. Indra has provided operational and strategic guidance to founders and CEOs at startups in varied sectors such as networking, semiconductor materials, medical devices, and biotech.

Indra holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and a Master’s from Penn State University. He volunteers as a mentor at Everwise. Indra holds a Yoga Alliance RYT-200 certification, teaches at Yoga Bharati, and serves as CFO to the IIT Bay Area Alumni non-profit. He is a self-proclaimed early adopter, gadget junkie, solar enthusiast, EV driver, and an avid hiker.

Aditya Nishtala is a digital and social media marketing strategist. He has founded a boutique digital media agency called Coolfire and helps brands leverage technology to market them, in turn helping them transform digitally and grow their business.

Prior to founding Coolfire, Aditya has worked as a marketer in residence with leading organizations and helped them build sustainable digital presence on the internet. Having worked across various sectors like lifestyle, education, retail, technology and non-profits, he advises companies on digital business design, digital transformation and social media marketing.