Avaana Capital

Anjali Bansal

Anjali Bansal is the Founding Partner of Avaana Capital which manages Avaana Climate and Sustainability Fund, investing in technology and innovation-led start-ups catalysing climate solutions and sustainability and delivering exponential returns. Previously, Anjali has been the Non-Executive Chairperson of Dena Bank, appointed by the Government of India to steer the resolution of the stressed bank, eventually leading to a merger with the Bank of Baroda. Prior to that, Anjali was a Global Partner and Managing Director with TPG Growth PE, responsible for India, SE Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She started her career as a strategy consultant with McKinsey and Co. in New York.

Anjali has invested in and mentored various successful start-ups including Delhivery, Urban Company, Darwinbox, Nykaa, Lenskart and Coverstack. She also serves as an independent non-executive director on several leading boards including Tata Power (Chair, Sustainability Committee), Nestle (Member, CSR and Sustainability Committee), and Piramal Enterprises, and chairs the “Climate Special Interest Group” within Indian Venture Capital Association. She has previously chaired the India board of Women’s World Banking, a leading global livelihood-promoting institution, been a board member at GSK Pharma, Siemens, Voltas and Bata.

Anjali is a Member of the Niti Aayog Evolution Review Committee, India’s premier policy think tank chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister. She has been appointed on the Expert Advisory Committee for the Start Up India Seed Fund Scheme announced by the Honourable Prime Minister.

She is also a member of the Advisory Council for the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the world’s first open access infrastructure for digital commerce and serves on the CII National Committee on Corporate Governance. She has previously served as President of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce, and has co-founded and chaired the FICCI Center for Corporate Governance program for Women on Corporate Boards. She is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and a charter member of TiE. She has been listed as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Indian Business” by India’s leading publications, Business Today, and by Fortune India.

Swapna Gupta

Swapna Gupta is a Partner at Avaana Climate and Sustainability Fund, leading Investments into technology-led start-ups catalyzing climate solution and sustainability, and delivering exponential returns. Swapna has experience across investing, investment banking and corporate finance, in sectors including Supply Chains, Industry 4.0, Mobility and Agri-tech.

Prior to joining Avaana, Swapna led India investments at Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venture arm of one of the largest global semiconductor technology major Qualcomm, where she invested in various companies including Locus, Shadowfax, Ninjacart, Zuddl, Moveinsync, Reverie, and Stellapps. Swapna also launched Qualcomm Women Entrepreneurs India Network (Qwein), a first of its kind networking, learning, and mentoring program for deep-tech, early-stage female entrepreneurs in India.

Swapna’s stellar work in the ecosystem has been recognized worldwide and she was also recently recognized by GCV as a Top 50 emerging leader in the corporate venture community and was the only one from India on the list. Swapna is also part of class 25 at the prestigious Global Kauffman fellows program.

Previously, Swapna worked as a senior associate at Ernst & Young and as a corporate finance specialist at Vodafone India. She is an Engineer in ECE from NIT Nagpur and has specialized in MBA Finance from FMS Delhi.

Shruti Srivastava

Shruti manages investments at Avaana and brings over 10 years of experience across early stage investing, private equity and development finance. Prior to joining Avaana, Shruti worked with Omnivore, an agritech-focused venture fund where she looked at investments across agricultural technologies, innovative foods and rural fintech. Before that, she worked with Acumen, a global impact venture fund, where she focused on startups enhancing access to utilities, healthcare and retail for low income consumers.

Earlier in her career, she worked with the International Finance Corporation, which is the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group, looking at investments in manufacturing, agribusinesses and service sectors in South Asia. Shruti started her career on the sell side with JP Morgan.

Shruti strongly believes that technology, fueled by the power of conscious commercial capital, can play a significant role in addressing broader development goals. She graduated with a Bachelors and Masters in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Rahul Bhapkar

Rahul is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Avaana. In his previous role, he was the CFO of Avanse Financial Services Ltd, a Warburg Pincus and IFC-backed education NBFC, wherein he played a pivotal part in the company’s crucial financial decision making and thereby directing the company towards its ultimate financial goals. Rahul brings 15+years of deep domain work experience across the entire gamut of Financial Management and has worked with organizations such as Wadhawan Global Capital, Wadia Group, Idea Cellular and Boston Analytics. He possesses competent, well-deliberated forward thinking and holistic understanding of corporate finance and played significant role in strategizing, building strong P&Ls and balance sheets for the organizations he worked for.

Rahul is a Chartered Accountant and MBA (Finance) by qualification

Vatsal Dusad

Vatsal is a Vice President at Avaana and an entrepreneur turned VC. He is passionate about early-stage startups, emerging technologies & social impact projects. He enjoys helping mission-driven founders who are solving for large problems.

Prior to joining Avaana, he was working on his own edtech startup where he learnt the challenges of building a startup firsthand. As a founding CEO, he led the overall strategy, fundraising & growth. His venture was backed by Omidyar Network, Sequoia Capital, notable angels and incubators.

He started his career at Avanti Fellows (a social edtech enterprise). At Avanti, he led different business teams and did rotational stints across functions and geographies. As an early-employee he was part of the startup’s journey from Seed to Series B, before he moved on to start his own venture.

He grew up in Jaipur and graduated with a BTech degree from IIT Delhi in 2014. In his spare time he enjoys long-distance running, hiking & trekking through mountain trails.

Saksham Mittal

Saksham is an Associate in the Investment team at Avaana, supporting on investment origination, evaluation and closure along with monitoring portfolio companies and managing media activities for Avaana Climate Corner.

Prior to joining Avaana, he was part of Flipkart’s Strategy team, where he worked to devise product and growth strategy for the marketplace business, with a focus on driving revenue growth and reducing fulfillment op-ex. He has also interned with Speciale Invest, a deeptech VC, where he worked on building investment thesis for semi-conductor and manufacturing tech.

He graduated from IIT Kanpur with a major in Chemical Engineering. During his undergrad, he led the Entrepreneurship Cell at IIT Kanpur, to introduce initiatives for developing the on-campus start-up ecosystem. He also co-founded the ShARE Global IIT Kanpur chapter to provide pro-bono consulting to corporates and start-ups. Additionally, he led the electrical development for an IEEE-recognized autonomous underwater vehicle.

Srishti Parikh

Srishti is the ESG, Impact and Partnerships Lead at Avaana Capital, driving ESG and Impact integration, measurement, reporting, and communication both at a Firm and Portfolio level.

Prior to joining Avaana, she was a Consultant at Sattva Consulting, where she undertook impact measurement and verification for Corporates, Funds and Social Enterprises. Srishti has provided advisory and strategy support to Global Impact investors including formulating investment thesis and devising sustainability strategy for their portfolio companies. Srishti has also worked with Technoserve wherein she provided employability support to students from Tier 3 & 4 colleges by facilitating placements in the BFSI Sector.

Srishti has graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai with a major in Economics.

Aastha Paliwal

Aastha is a Technology Associate at Avaana, helping with evaluating technology and strategic initiatives. Aastha brings over 7 years of experience in innovation, and technology development.

Prior to her role at Avaana Capital, Aastha completed her Ph.D. from the Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST), Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Her research endeavours focused on reducing biowaste carbon footprint and advancing clean energy initiatives, resulting in the development of novel prediction parameters and indexes that bridge critical knowledge gaps in bioenergy research.

During her Ph.D. journey, Aastha also interned at Niti Ayog’s Office of Principal Scientific Adviser (OPSA), where she mapped the climate tech policies of G20 countries. Additionally, she worked with the incubation centre of IISc – Foundation for Science, Innovation and Development (FSID, formally SID), as the youngest member.

Prasad Ghadi

Kashmira Contractor

Kashmira is the Executive Secretary to the Founder at Avaana Capital. She provides administrative support in managing Avaana’s day to day activities. She comes with prior experience in working in numerous industries and is skilled in calendar management, operations and office support.

Kashmira holds a B.Com. degree in Commerce from St. Andrew’s College, Bandra and a Diploma in Secretarial Practice from Daver’s College.