TCA Investors help
startups scale up

Subramanian D

Founder, CEO & MD Hinduja Tech Private Ltd

Subramanian D

Founder, CEO & MD Hinduja Tech Private Ltd

Subu D is the Founding CEO and Managing Director of Hinduja Tech, a Hinduja Group

Company. He was associated with this Company since its inception in 2009 till 2019. Under

his leadership, this company provided Product Design, Engineering and IoT Turn-Key

solutions to Global Automotive and Manufacturing Companies. He played a leading role to

rope in Renault-Nissan as a strategic investor and expanded the business presence in India,

USA, UK, Europe and Japan.

Subu specializes to provide IOT solutions to Global Automotive and Manufacturing

Companies. He has over 30 years of experience in the Automotive & IT Industries. He held

senior leadership positions in leading companies and successfully incubated and grown

many new regional, technology and vertical businesses with P & L responsibility in these

companies. He has grown many of them into world leading positions. Has lived and worked

in USA, Switzerland and India.

Subu set up a unique Automotive and Aerospace Engineering Innovation Center (ACE) in

Chennai, which was appreciated and inaugurated by Dr. Abdul Kalam, former President of

India. As the Chairman of CII – Southern Region � ICT, Subu conceptualized and provided

direction for the incubation of the ICT Academy � a PPP initiative to improve the IT talent

pool and employability in India. Subu also conceptualized the Chennai Aero-park to take

advantage of the exploding opportunities in the Aerospace sector.

Subu is passionate about Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Takes active

initiative to mentor several technology startups in Chennai Region. He lives in Chennai with

his wife and son. Likes playing Tennis and reading Management Books as Hobby.

Sundar Seth

CEO, Purple Drive Technologies

Sundar Seth

CEO, Purple Drive Technologies

Sundar Seth brings 20 years of marketing experience and has scaled successful global businesses. He combines entrepreneurial zeal with a corporate outlook that brings exponential growth to the innovative companies he manages.

He founded Purple Drive, a technology company that helps Purple global companies and system integrators in their digital transformation. Purple Drive’s growth is a product of Sundar’s relentless pursuit of business goals with his marquee team.

Prior to Purple Drive, in 2004, Sundar founded CTSIT, a competency-based technology firm with customers across the US, India, Singapore, and Australia. Under his strategic leadership, CTSIT had grown to a 1500+-employee company. In 2014, Innova Solutions acquired CTSIT.

Sundar is also an avid investor in various startups and mature companies across India and North America. He serves as an advisor for NY-based Startup Cube.

Sundar believes rural education to be an essential priority, which has helped him create ‘Diya Foundation’, a 501(C)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization. With this vision, Diya awards financial scholarships to children in need. Currently, the foundation has built classroom infrastructure for rural schools & supports many students’ school and college education.

Sunil Kumar

Mg Partner , South Handlooms & Singhvi Heritage LLP

Sunil Kumar

Mg Partner , South Handlooms & Singhvi Heritage LLP

Sunil Kumar is a second-generation entrepreneur from Singhvi Family. Born and brought up in Chennai, he has done his schooling at DAV, Gopalapuram, and graduated from RKM Vivekananda College in 2002.

Immediately upon graduation, he got involved with his family-owned handloom manufacturing business under the flagship brand SOUTH HANDLOOMS.

South Handlooms has been engaged in manufacturing and promoting handloom cotton fabrics and sarees for the last 3 decades. In the span of 15 years, he has graduated to the role of Managing Partner and is actively involved with the group’s business development.

Post his joining of the family business, the group has ventured into real estate in terms of land banking, joint-development, leasing, financing, and equity investments.

Suresh Bharathan 

Vice President, Temenos India Private ltd

Suresh Bharathan 

Vice President, Temenos India Private ltd

Mr. Suresh is a Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant by qualification and has worked in the Steel Manufacturing sector on Institutional Fundraising activities for large Integrated Steel Plant projects, prior to joining Temenos in 1999.

He started as a GL Consultant in the Services division, traveling across the world implementing software for 5 years. He moved to Support for the next 3 years managing global client support.

He then moved on to Client Custom development and built a 900 man team delivering a 30M revenue business before taking on the whole of product development operations offshore.

He was recently promoted to the Global Head of Product Development for Temenos and has been a Director on the Board of the India entity for over 5 years.

Temenos helps financial institutions of all sizes, in all sectors, around the world, to dramatically accelerate their digital transformation and achieve market-leading cost/income performance.

Their products combine the richest end-to-end packaged country model bank functionality and the most advanced cloud-native, cloud-agnostic, AI, and API-first technology, helping our clients go live faster, giving them the freedom to innovate and deliver personalized experiences.

With the largest global community of banks, FinTechs, developers, and partners, they are bound by the belief that working together will make banking better.

Suresh Kalpathi

Chairman & CEO, Kalpathi Investments

Suresh Kalpathi

Chairman & CEO, Kalpathi Investments

In 1991, Kalpathi S. Suresh, after having just returned from the US, co-founded SSI Ltd., along with his two brothers, Kalpathi S. Aghoram and Kalpathi S. Ganesh, with a bold initiative to launch High-End Short Term IT Training courses, a concept that was unheard of in the Indian market.

For almost a decade and a half, SSI Education, the IT Training arm of SSI Ltd., became/remained India’s first and only High-End Short Term IT Training provider. 

Within a short period of 10 years, SSI grew from a one centre Education provider to a strong 1000-location organisation with a completely new offering in the marketplace.

By the mid-1990s, SSI offered shares to the public in a highly successful IPO, within 4 years of its incorporation.

In the late 1990s, SSI set up a technology arm, SSI Technologies which subsequently led to the creation of Indigo Markets, the much-talked-about Joint Venture with The NASDAQ Stock market. It was the software of SSI Technologies that powered some of the high profile stock exchanges globally.

At the turn of the century, SSI became the first Indian IT company to list in the main market on the London Stock Exchange with an offering of $100MM; later in one of the biggest acquisitions in the IT Industry, it acquired North America based Albion Orion.

In less than a decade, SSI had achieved significant milestones – MotilalOswal award for the biggest wealth creator along with Wipro, nominated for E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year award, Best Annual Report for a listed company and rated by S&P as the best in adopting corporate governance along with Infosys. 

While SSI Education had become one of India’s top 3 IT Training and Education brands with a national presence, SSI Technologies saw one of the fastest IT ramp-ups in the Indian Industry having achieved 0 to about $100MM in under 5years.

By 2004, SSI had successfully bought out Aptech and merged SSI’s education arm with Aptech, and sold the technology arm to Cambridge Technologies.  Subsequently, SSI also sold Aptech (now merged with SSI Education) to an investor group based out of Mumbai.

The Kalpathi Family then made an entry into the real estate space with the purchase of the 70 acres Binny Mills Property in North Madras. The group also purchased the marquee Dasaprakash Hotel in Ooty as a part of its property portfolio. Within 3 years, the group sold the real estate business, including this high profile property, in a deal worth around Rs.1000 crores.

Having built and created a hugely successful global brand, the Kalpathi Group has now turned its focus on encouraging young entrepreneurs to create new global brands with their flagship company Kalpathi Investments, a Chennai based VC Fund.  The group is also developing an entertainment business on its own under the brand of AGS that includes production, distribution, and exhibition.

Suresh Krishn

President, CREDAI, Tamil Nadu

Suresh Krishn

President, CREDAI, Tamil Nadu

Suresh Krishn is the President of CREDAI (Confederation of Real estate developers Association India), Tamilnadu and Chairman of the Infrastructure panel, CII (Confederation of Indian Industry). He was a past President of the Rotary Club of Madras North.

Suresh completed his undergraduate in Civil Engineering from PSG College of Technology in 1987 with Distinction and then went on to complete his post graduation in Structural Engineering with Distinction from Annamalai University in 1989.

He started his own construction firm in 1992 and Consulting Firm in 1994.

He began a property development Firm with his friends in 1997 and branched out in 2004 to start his own firm “ISHA HOMES (INDIA) PRIVATE LIMITED”

ISHA HOMES has completed more than Two million sq.ft. and also in the process of developing one million sq.ft. ISHA HOMES brought a lot of innovation into the construction Industry by building First Child Safety Homes, ISHA GITIKAA in Chennai and First Mega Villa Project, ISHA SIGNATURE VILLAS. 

ISHA HOMES also completed Platinum pre-certified Eco-Friendly Solar Powered Villa Project, MIA VILLAS in Chennai. This is the first Villa project in Tamilnadu to get the Platinum certification.

He has also invested in various other fields like Insurance Broking, Construction Material Manufacturing, Contracting and in an online meat delivery startup.

Suresh Krishn was awarded “OUTSTANDING ENTREPRENEUR AWARD OF 2010 FROM ENTERPRISE ASIA, MALAYSIA”.

Isha Homes received “BUILDER LINE AWARD” for the Best Independent Housing Project. They also received the “BUILDERS ASSOCIATION OF INDIA AWARD – 2012” for the Best Builder of the Year – Best Gated Community Provider.

Swetha Kochar

Associate Partner, PKC Management Consulting

Swetha Kochar

Associate Partner, PKC Management Consulting

Swetha Kochar is a Chartered Accountant with All India Rank 13 in CA Final in 2011 & All India Rank 41 in CA Intermediate. Post a stint with KPMG’s M&A Advisory services, Swetha is amongst the few CAs to be hired by McKinsey & Company in India. At McKinsey, she advised CEOs of Indian multinationals such as SBI, Sun Pharma, Mahindra Finance, Ashok Leyland, 3i Infotech, and others on 5-year strategy roadmaps, turnaround strategy, driving operational excellence, and cost reduction initiatives.

With a vision to bring cutting-edge consulting expertise to mid-sized companies & family-managed businesses in India, she set up PKC Management Consulting. PKC has over 150 consultants and has served 450 client groups on setting up systems & processes, production increase, software integration, improving profitability, tax & audit advisory, and fundraising. PKC has 100s of client success stories of exponential growth and seamless client operations through their model of advisory coupled with on-ground implementation at clients.

Swetha has won several entrepreneurship awards including the Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 – Consulting by Entrepreneur India. She is a speaker and member at forums such as Madras Chamber of Commerce, RAI (Retailers Association of India), Madras Management Association (MMA), and Association of International Wealth Management of India (AIWMI).

Outside of work, she has traveled to all 7 continents, is an avid reader of Jain philosophy, and works on empowering women to have the freedom of choice.

Tej Reddy

Nutech Associates

Tej Reddy

Nutech Associates

Nutech is a leading real estate development firm with over 30 years of experience and has completed over 150 projects in Chennai and Bangalore. The group also has interests in renewable energy and infrastructure projects.

He was previously working at Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian Private Equity Fund, in Mumbai and was responsible for all the real estate investment activities in India. He was actively involved in deploying ~$1B in India acquiring offices and hotels across the country.

Before Brookfield, he worked at Colony Capital, one of the largest Real Estate Investment Trusts in the United States, in New York overseeing a portfolio of 320 hotels in the US with a valuation of over $5B. He was primarily involved in strategic initiatives and portfolio management.

He is an alumnus of Cornell College of Business and College of Engineering, Guindy. During his free time, he enjoys reading, traveling, and outdoor activities like trekking and swimming.

Vardhman Jain

Director, Laurus Edutech Private Ltd

Vardhman Jain

Director, Laurus Edutech Private Ltd

Vardhman has set up and runs multiple businesses. He exited his first venture in 2010, a healthcare BPO to set up a vocational training company, LaurusEdutech. 

A serial entrepreneur, he and his brother have set up WorldHaus India, a company that caters to the low-cost housing market; and a telemedicine company that will make primary medical care accessible to rural India. Vardhman is also involved in Asia (Chennai) Engineering, his family’s construction business.

Vardhman is passionate about politics. Apart from his love for work and politics, Vardhman is a keen traveler and an absolute techie at heart. He is always on the lookout for the next gadget.

Aperture

Education: B.S. Computer Science – University of Texas, Austin. 

B.Sc, Statistics – Loyola College

Interests: Technology, Current affairs, Fitness, Cinema

Latest Fad: iPad, MacBook, UP by JawboneOne liner from friends: Quiet performer, Discreet, Reliable

Venkatesh Vijayaraghavan

Director & CEO, Cavinkare Private Ltd

Venkatesh Vijayaraghavan

Director & CEO, Cavinkare Private Ltd

Venkatesh, fondly known as Venky, currently serves Cavinkare as Director & CEO.  In addition to directly taking care of the largest SBU (Personal Care & Alliances), he also serves as a senior board member/director playing an active role in mentoring the various business verticals/SBUs on their strategy, go-to-market, and driving the overall strategic growth priorities of Cavinkare.

He also has an active interest in the startup ecosystem and has been making small angel investments & guiding some of the new economy startups. He is also an advisor on the board of one of the management programs offered by TAPMI.

With a cumulative experience of over 25 years, Venky joined Cavinkare in April 2018 after an exciting, extensive leadership stint of almost 20 years in the telecom industry. 

Prior to joining CavinKare, Venky was with Airtel. A long-timer in Airtel, Venky has served in varied roles across strategy, operations. Earlier in his career, Venky has worked with Reliance Industries, Escotel Mobile communications.

A Chemical Engineer from Anna University, Chennai, Venky has done his PGDMM from Times School of Marketing, Delhi. He has also completed Executive Management Programs from Tepper School of Management, Carnegie Mellon University, and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. 

Venkatesh is a proud recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship awarded by the Board of Education & Cultural Affairs, USA.

Personally, an avid reader and a marathoner, Venky loves travelling. Having travelled across the globe and lived across almost 8 cities across India in the last 25 years, he counts this as a priceless experience of living/travelling amidst varied cultures & people.

Vikram Kailas

Vice Chairman and Managing Director – Mytrah Energy

Vikram Kailas

Vice Chairman and Managing Director - Mytrah Energy

Vikram is Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Mytrah Energy, one of India’s leading pure play renewable power generators with a focus on delivering sustainable, clean energy solutions in a world without subsidies.

Vikram founded and scaled Mytrah energy into India’s 3rd largest renewable energy company. Mytrah has raised over USD 3 billion of capital from Marquee investors since its founding in 2011 while still holding majority stake in the company. Mytrah’s primary investors are Goldman Sachs, APG (Dutch pension fund), capital international and the Piramal Group.

Mytrah has recently ventured into electric mobility, and designed and operated India’s first intercity electric bus. It’s one of the few companies that has confirmed orders for 500 electrical buses. The Mytrah group had revenues of USD 450 million in the year 2020, this has grown from zero in the year 2012.

Mytrah operates in about 12 states in India and is looking to spread into the UK.

Prior to co-founding Mytrah Energy, Vikram had previously worked with the Energy & Utilities Investment Banking group of Credit Suisse in New York and Deloitte Consulting in India. Apart from running a successful business, Vikram also oversees the firm’s social initiatives that are run through the Mytrah Foundation with partner institutions like UNICEF, Govt. of AP, SIDBI and the Gopichand Foundation.

Vikram was involved in preparation master plan for ‘New India’ across sectors under the initiative named “Champions of Change” with Hon’ble Prime Minister on Transforming India. Post this, Vikram also drafted Sectoral Strategy& Action Plan for 2 subgroups.

Vikram has been featured also as keynote speaker and as a panelist at various global business conventions including World Future Energy Summit, Abu Dhabi, Global Entrepreneurship Summit, Hyderabad, CNBC Power Conclave, New Delhi, Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, Lucknow, Power and Energy Week, Dhaka, Bangladesh, UN Young Change Makers Conclave, New Delhi, etc.

Vikram has been a member with YPO Hyderabad Chapter since 2011. He has been a prolific tech investor since early 2000 in the US and since mid-2010 in India. He has primarily invested through funds in the past and now is an active seed and pre-series A investor.

Vinod K Dasari

Director CEO, Royal Enfield India Ltd

Vinod K Dasari

Director CEO, Royal Enfield India Ltd

Mr.Vinod K Dasari is amongst the top few CEOs in India with a proven track record of managing complex businesses globally. Before joining Royal Enfield, he held the position of Managing Director & CEO, Ashok Leyland since 2011. He joined Ashok Leyland in 2005 as the Chief Operating Officer.

Mr. Vinod Dasari has held senior positions in Cummins India Limited, where he served as the President and went on to become its Joint Managing Director. 

He joined Timken Company, a world leader in bearings and steel, after starting his career with General Electric in 1986. He served as the Managing Director of Timken India and thereafter as the President of its Global Railroad business in the USA.

In his career, Vinod has received several accolades for his leadership including the “CEO of the Year” by Business Today and more recently Business Standard. He has also been honored as the “CV Man of the Year” by CV Magazine and “Autocar Professional of the Year”. 

Vinod has also served as the President of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) from 2015 to 2017 and as President of the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), from 2013 to 2015.

Vinod holds a Master’s degree in Engineering Management from the McCormick School of Engineering and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the Kellogg School of Management. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Louisville in1988 and a dual degree from Northwestern University.

Vinod is married to Sarita, a doctor with a specialisation in Nephrology and Hypertension.  They have two sons, Vishal and Sanjay. Vinod enjoys cricket, movies, and golf.

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