TCA Investors help
startups scale up

Ashish Mehta is the Managing Director of Metexim Sourcing Pvt Ltd (manufacturer of automotive and engineering components), Managing Director of Flowmat Engg Pvt Ltd (manufacturer of instrumentation valves used in Oil and Gas industry).

He completed his B E (Hons) Mech Engg with M Sc (Hons) Economics from BITS Pilani (1993 – 1998). He also completed M S Industrial Administration from Purdue University (1999- 2000).

After studying Mechanical Engineering, Economics and Management, he led the company Metexim Sourcing Pvt Ltd to expand into Automotive component manufacturing, aerospace components and engineering sourcing. Also, he promoted the company, Flowmat Engg Pvt Ltd which designs, manufactures and sells high technology instrumentation valves with a specific focus on Cryogenic (low temperature) applications like LNG.

He was an active Round Tabler (Chairman of RT 30, 2014-15) and Rotarian (Rotary Club of Chennai Capital). Ashish is an active sportsman – he runs, practices yoga and is a passionate sailor. He is on the committee of the Royal Madras Yacht Club and Tamil Nadu Sailing Association. Ashish is also qualified as a National Measurer by the Yachting Association of India.

Azeez Mohammed is a business executive who has led multiple standalone industrial businesses with revenues ranging from $0.5B to $4B, with full P&L responsibilities, headquartered both in the United States and worldwide. He has served over 27 industry segments including power, oil &gas, marine, renewables (solar, wind, hydro, storage, electric vehicles), metals / mining and general industries. Azeez is currently the President & CEO of Covanta Holding Corporation.

Covanta is a world leader in providing sustainable waste and energy solutions. Waste-to-Energy is a vital part of the waste disposal value chain, offering a far more sustainable alternative to landfilling waste for communities and businesses, with a significantly smaller real estate footprint per ton disposed compared to traditional landfills. The process ensures optimal use of waste by: reducing waste volumes by 90 percent that would otherwise get landfilled; eliminating nearly one ton of greenhouse gases equivalent per ton of municipal solid waste; producing sustainable, highly reliable electricity, capacity, and steam for utilities and industrial customers; and recycling metals found within municipal solid waste.

Annually, Covanta’s modern Waste-to-Energy facilities safely convert approximately 21 million tons of waste from municipalities and businesses into clean, renewable electricity to power one million homes and recycle 600,000 tons of metal. Through a vast network of treatment and recycling facilities, Covanta also provides comprehensive industrial material management services to companies seeking solutions to some of today’s most complex environmental challenges.

Earlier, he was the Executive Vice President for Bloom Energy, a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) based energy company. He was responsible for the International Business and transformed Bloom to a become a global giant while enabling decarbonization for customers worldwide and ensured an orderly transition to the hydrogen economy.

He is also a senior advisor and investor through a firm Giantleap LLC (New York) which he co- founded in 2019. In this capacity, he actively invests in technology firms in the industrial space and advises Fortune 500 firms and private equity companies. His list of clients includes marquee names such as Blackstone, TPG, Heliogen, Neotribe ventures, JCI and SEC.

Azeez is a consummate operator and has a diverse and robust industrial background. He has led large businesses through multiple crises (great recession, O&G slump, mining slump) where he had to restructure his businesses organizationally, operationally, and financially followed by a push to growth. He has an impressive global experience having lived in and led businesses from USA, Latin America, Middle East and Europe, which in turn has helped him navigate cultural effects on team building and the customer. His depth of experience in technology, finance and operations allow him to be a system thinker who can connect the dots and open up new markets and concepts for growth. Azeez is an expert in the application of aftermarket services and digital IOT technologies which often recession proof a business.

For the past 15 years, Azeez has been a CEO of multiple businesses where he owned the business strategy and execution. Azeez was a GE Corporate officer and President & CEO of GE Power Conversion a global electrification business with $2B in revenue and employed 8000 people and operates in 110 countries and headquartered in Paris, France. Prior to that he led the $4B GE Power Services businesses for the Middle East and Africa business. Prior to this, he was the President & CEO of GE Energy Services for Latin America and before this, Azeez was the GM for business transformation of a $20B Energy Service business.

Azeez started his career at GE Research where he introduced innovative products and helped commercialize them in the field of power generation, aviation, healthcare and ecommerce. He was then selected for the prestigious academy leadership program, GE Corporate Audit Staff, where he led teams to solve financial, compliance and operational problems for large GE businesses. Azeez holds both a Master’s and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras. He also has 25 international patents and has been published in numerous journals.

Azeez is active in external stakeholder management and communications and is often invited to address investors and trade shows about business strategy and emerging trends. He has been quoted and interviewed multiple times in trade journals, government events, conferences and media publications. Azeez plays an active role in the communities he serves in, through Junior Achievement, Habitat for Humanity, and Corporate Volunteers. Through his family trust he supports women empowerment and children in need.

First generation entrepreneur and Business Evangelist with a successful track record of promoting and managing Industrial ventures in different countries. Strong expertise in manufacturing, management, business development, education and entrepreneurship with a focused commitment to social initiatives. Has three decades of experience in the manufacturing sector

Mr. S. Balakrishnan is the Founder and CEO of ANB Systems, a Texas corporation with an offshore development center in Chennai, India. Mr. Balakrishnan has forty years of experience in technical analysis and software development in the areas of energy efficiency, renewables, demand side management, load profiling, distributed generation, retail electric and gas deregulated markets, and retail energy risk management.

At ANB Systems, he led the development of energy efficiency program management software solutions for electric and gas utilities. In the past decade, he has overseen the release of the cloud-based workflow management product, eTRACK+, for a number of utilities and organizations around the USA.

He has organically grown ANB from scratch to a 140 person company today. Prior to founding ANB, Mr. Balakrishnan held positions at various companies such as Synergic Resources Corporation, Reliant Energy and ICF Consulting.

He is a resident of Houston, Texas and spends a significant amount of time at ANB’s Chennai center.

Mr. Balakrishnan has a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from University of Bombay, India, and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA.

Baskar Ceri is currently the Director of Apna Technologies & Solutions (ApnaTech – www.apnatech.com), the company he founded in 2004 and the Global Director of Business Development for Aerospace, Defense & Govt Business Unit of NI (www.ni.com).

Baskar started his career at NI in Austin, USA and was part of the 2-member team that started NI operations in India growing the revenue to multi million dollars and the team in India.

He later started ApnaTech, a Knowledge Engineering company, the first & still the only Indian company to build products & systems that improve Safety & Efficiency of Railway Assets (like wayside systems to determine wheel, bearing, axle faults on a running train).

Baskar has been involved in several acquisitions & divestments during his experience & currently serves on the board of several companies and has keen interest in mentoring & building world changing companies.

Baskar holds an Electrical & Electronics Engineering degree from BITS-Pilani, India and a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, USA.

Brief about Business/Work Experience:

NI, USA (www.ni.com), Global Director of Business Development, Aerospace, Defense & Govt Business Unit.

He started the branch of NI in India as a part of a two-member Start-up team and successfully grew it to a multi-million-dollar business & built a strong team establishing a national footprint.

Baskar currently serves a dual role in Corporate as Global Director of Business Development of ADG BU to build strategies and execute the growth of the BU across the globe with Regional Sales, and in India as Site Leader of NI-India, responsible for NI India growth and development.

Apna Technologies & Solutions, India (www.apnatech.com), Director & Founder

He founded the company and started as a specialist company in System Integration involving Electrical, Electronic, Instrumentation, Mechatronic subsystems along with Signal Processing and IT skills to provide Custom Engineering Solutions for Automotive, Manufacturing & Defense.

Later, he strategized and executed the transition of the Company from a Custom Solutions Provider to an Innovative Product Company, a one of its kind in the country and the only way-side product supplier for Indian Railways.

Baskar ensured the successful development, deployment and use of the products built and established branch offices and support centres at Delhi, Lucknow and other key Railway centres for close coordination of products developed being deployed successfully deriving maximum benefit for customers.

Bharat Garg was born in Chennai, and did his primary and senior schooling from Don Bosco Egmore, Chennai (Batch of 1990). He completed his Bachelor’s in Commerce from DG Vaishnav College (Madras University), Chennai (Batch of 1993). He also completed his Executive MBA (PGPMAX 2014) from Indian School of Business (ISB). As a part of his MBA program, he had international immersions in Whatron School of University of Pennsylvania, and Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University, Illinois.

Bharat has over 27 years experience in the steel industry. He has been involved in the manufacturing of long steel products (TMT/Reinforcement steel bars). He is currently a director at Pulkit TMT. He also has experience in manufacturing, sales & marketing of these products in the five southern states of India.

Bharat’s interests include yoga, cycling, trekking, and good food. He is also an animal and art lover. Bharat’s wife, Preeti Garg has been in the art business since 2010. She is the co-founder of Chennai’s finest art gallery named M/s Gallery Veda ( galleryveda.com ), Rutland Gate, Nungambakkam. Preeti is an alumnus of Good Shepherd, Chennai, and Ethiraj College, Egmore, Chennai.

Bharat’s son, Advait Garg has finished his education from Sishya School, Chennai, and studied Mathematics and Economics from Emory University, Atlanta, GA. He is now working in the AI industry with Mad Street Den, a Chennai based tech startup.

Chandran Krishnan is a Graduate in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai and holds Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.

He is currently the CEO of SSN Incubation Foundation, part of SSN Institutions founded by Dr Shiv Nadar. His last assignment was as CEO of The Chennai Angels.

Chandran has over 35 years’ experience in IT/ITES, Financial Services, Investment Advisory, Automotive, Aerospace & Defence, Other Industrial Sectors and the Startup Ecosystem.

He has headed profit centers overseeing operations across India, Americas, UK,
Europe and ANZ. He has also led many cross-border and domestic M&A transactions.

Besides this, he has also managed Corporate Strategy, New Business Development, Marketing, Sourcing, IT and HR functions.

Organizations that he has worked for include The Chennai Angels, HCL Technologies, CK Birla Group, Rane Group, Ashok Leyland Finance, Reliance Life
Insurance and Elgi Equipments.

Dr. K.B. Chandrasekhar (Dr. Chandra�) is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Jamcracker. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of the Board of e4e Inc., a Business Services company, and Chairman svapas innovations, an incubator for startups.

He was Chairman of the Board of Aztec Software and Technology Services Limited, which merged with Mindtree, a global technology company listed on BSE.

In 1994, Dr. Chandra identified the potential of the Internet and founded Exodus Communications. Exodus went public in March of 1998 in one of the most successful IPOs of 1998.

In 1999, Dr. Chandra was honored as the Ernst & Young Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year.

Seeing the need for research and development in the areas of information sciences and life sciences, Dr. Chandra established the Anna University ‘K.B. Chandrasekhar Research Centre’ (AU-KBC Research Center) in 1999 at the Madras Institute of Technology (MIT) campus of Anna University, as a collaborative venture between Anna University, Chennai (Madras), and the K.B. Chandrasekhar Family Foundation. 

Dr. Chandra started his first entrepreneurial venture in 1992 with Fouress, Inc., a network software design and development firm with clients including Sun Microsystems, Adaptec, Toshiba, and Lockheed. 

Within two years, Fouress was a highly profitable company with sales of $1 million per year.

In 1990, Dr. Chandra moved to the United States as country manager for Rolta India, Ltd., where he was responsible for business development, marketing, and software consulting services. 

Dr. Chandra began his career in 1983 at Wipro, an Indian information technology company, as a customer support engineer. During his seven years with the company, he advanced through various sales, marketing, and support functions including building highly available networks for satellite applications and managing marketing for its European clients.

Dr. Chandra was born and raised in Chennai, India, and holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Anna University.

Chandrasekar Kandasamy is the Managing Partner of Stakeboat Capital  with a 26 year career in private equity and venture capital investments. He established operations in India on behalf of multiple funds managed by prestigious, primarily U.S. based organizations. He has sourced, led, invested and/or managed more than 60 investments (about USD 110 million) and has delivered a 26% USD IRR over the last 25 years.

Most recently, he was an Investment Director at Peepul Capital. Prior to Peepul, he was the Managing Partner of ePlanet Capital. He established and managed ePlanet’s operations in India and led various ePlanet investments including Manthan Systems, Trivitron Healthcare, Sree Ramcides Chemicals, Continental Warehousing, Delex Cargo and Medfort Hospitals.

Previously, he worked for five years with The Carlyle Group as a Director and in this capacity, Chandra was instrumental in setting up Carlyle’s India operations. He also held Board seats in various companies including Financial Software and Systems, Quest Global, New gen Knowledge works and Learningmate Solutions.

Prior to Carlyle, Chandra worked for Intel Capital, as Manager for Strategic Investments in India and was involved in the execution of successful transactions like Network Solutions, India Info line and Persistent Systems. Chandra began his career at ICICI Ventures where he worked for ten years and was instrumental in investing in more than 30 companies.

Chandra was a World Bank sponsored intern at Poly Ventures in New York, holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Anna University in Chennai, India, and an M.B.A from BIM, India.

Chandu has over 30 years of experience in industry, consultancy, media, and information services. A co-founder of Scope e-Knowledge Center, a pioneering knowledge process outsourcing company that scaled up to 1000+ people before his exit, his areas of focus were business development and fundraising, and his passion was enterprise building and transformation.

Chandu has direct experience in angel, VC, and strategic investor funding and has also been a part of two exits. He was also involved in the creation of other enterprises, most of which were ho-hum or failed.

A key focus for him now is entrepreneurship and helping strengthen the entrepreneur ecosystem. He advises entrepreneurs and enterprises in creating and building their business. He has also invested in some start-ups and the jury is still out on their fate. He is also on the advisory board of a Chennai based private equity firm. He is an active charter member of TiE Chennai and has been closely involved with its mentoring initiative.

A Postgraduate in Management from IIM, Ahmedabad, he has been a member of various industry panels both in India and overseas as also a visiting faculty in various business schools.

Dr. Ravi Ramalingam is currently the senior ENT and Head & Neck Surgeon, and Managing Director of the KKR ENT Hospital & Research Institute, and its 3 ENT Hospitals and 6 Peripheral clinics in Chennai.

The KKR ENT Hospital & Research Institute was founded in 1973 and Dr. Ravi Ramalingam has grown this enterprise to be the largest private ENT Health care Organization in the country. Dr. Ravi Ramalingam heads a team of 18 ENT Surgeons and other allied specialists.

Dr. Ravi Ramalingam completed his MBBS in Madras Medical College, completed his Masters from Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, and his Diplomat National Board of Examination.

In recognition of his contribution in the field of ENT, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons, Glasgow.

He is a well known speaker. He lectures and demonstrates live surgeries all over India and abroad. He has travelled to over 25 countries and has lectured and demonstrated live surgery in Otology, Otoneurology, Cochlear Implant and Endoscopic Sinus Surgery.

He is the Incoming President of the Indian Society of Otology, the largest organization of Ear Specialists doctors in India.

He was the Past President of the Association of Otorhinolaryngologists in India and is currently the Honorary ENT Consultant Surgeon for the Government of Mauritius.

He was recently awarded “Best Doctor” award by the Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University.

He has been trained in various specialties in the field of ENT and his current interests are Endoscopic Sinus Surgery, Micro Ear Surgery and Cochlear Implantation.

Dr. Ravi Ramalingam works closely with the Government of Tamilnadu for the implementation and successful running of the Cochlear Implantation project for deaf children. He is a well known and leading Cochlear Implant Surgeon in India and has currently performed one of the largest series of cochlear implantations in India.

He heads the Cochlear Implant team at the KKR Cochlear Implantation Centre which has a team of over 25 professionals and has performed more than 2500 Cochlear Implant Surgeries.

Dr. Ravi Ramalingam is the Managing Trustee for Chinnammal ENT Medical Education & Research Foundation. This is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of ENT diseases, and has been active in conducting research and free health care work with various NGOs such as Rotary Clubs.

Dr. Sudhir Ravindran, attorney-at-law, solicitor (England & Wales), founder of Altacit Global, a leading Indian law firm. An engineer & lawyer, he has a master’s degree in both streams from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

He had been awarded A doctorate (PhD) in intellectual property risk management From Nalsar University, India. He is currently pursuing his post-Doctoral research (LLD).

He is a regular speaker at several Universities, national and international conferences and has been recognized as one of the 100 legal luminaries of India.

Altacit Global is a boutique legal firm specializing in Intellectual Property, Corporate Law, Real Estate, and Franchising. They have a strong international flavor in their work practices addressing the needs of individual industry groups.

Their core team is professionals who come from multidisciplinary and diverse backgrounds such as science, engineering, law, chemical, pharmaceutical, medical and business administration. There are absolutely no boundaries to their operations, through their exclusive worldwide network of associates, they are able to take up work in every continent.

They are situated in important cities of Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, and Cochin which are home to Intellectual Property & Trademark Office [Branch], Intellectual Property Appellate Board, High Court of Madras, High Court of Karnataka, High Court of Kerala, High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad and Indian Geographical Indications Registry.