Meet the Team

Ankur is co-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 Chair for TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) San Francisco.

Rahul Chandra is a co-founder and Managing Director of Helion and has 17 years of venture capital investing and corporate development experience in technology product and services companies in India and the US. He serves on the Boards of Seclore, Shubham, UnitedLex, Netambit, Mindworks and manages investments in Cucumber Town, EzeTap, Spandana and Equitas.

Between 2000 and 2006, Rahul was based in Silicon Valley as part of the investment team at Walden International, a global venture capital firm with more than $2B under management. Between 2004 and 2005 he also led the M&A efforts at e4e Inc., a Santa Clara, CA based BPO company with more than 4,000 employees across the globe.

Rahul started Venture Capital investing in 1996 in India as the first hire at Walden's India office. In this role he managed investments for Walden's India dedicated Fund between 1996 and 2000.

Rahul has invested in more than 30 early-to-mid-stage companies such as Mindtree, Ikanos (IKAN), e4e Inc and Techspan (Headstrong). Prior to Walden, he worked in the Capital Markets Group at Lazard India, and in the Primary Market Department at the Securities Exchange Board of India.

Rahul has an MBA from University of California, Berkeley and graduated from Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani in 1993.

Alok is a Principal 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.

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.