Scale Ventures appoints CP Gurnani as Chairman (Advisory)

Scale Ventures has announced that CP Gurnani, CEO & MD of Tech Mahindra, and present Chairman of NASSCOM, has joined Scale Ventures as their Chairman (Advisory). Gurnani is one of the most respected CEOs of our country. He brings with him more than three decades of vast experience on table for Scale Ventures.

Gurnani, a chemical engineer from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, has over 35 years of experience in the industry. He has previously worked at Hewlett Packard, Perot Systems (India) and HCL Corporation, and led the merger of Tech Mahindra with Satyam. CP has been chosen as the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year [Manager]”, CNBC Asia’s “India Business Leader of the Year”, Dataquest “IT Person of the Year” – for the year 2013 and Business Standard “CEO of the Year” for 2014. He was also recently awarded the “Best CEO of the Year” at the Forbes India Leadership Awards 2015. Recently added to the bucket was “Asia One Global Indian of the Year – Technology” 2016.

“I feel very excited and glad to be given this opportunity. Innovative start-ups and disruptive technology have together created exciting times for our country. Here at Scale Ventures, I will continue to drive greater engagement with the team and will share my industry experiences in terms of accelerating, advising and incubating start-ups,” said  CP Gurnani .He further added, “It is high time that we celebrate failures and highlight the experimentations done. Start-up base of India is the third-largest worldwide, but we will still have to learn on how to highlight the spirit of starting a firm, failing and experimenting with ideas. I am very excited to work with Rahul, Nilesh and sanjay.”

Nilesh Rathi of the Rathi Group of Companies and Rahul Narvekar, ex-CEO, IndianRoots, are founders at Scale Ventures. Both the founders started the company with the same mindset of not just funding the start-ups but giving the right kind of mentorship which is far more vital at an early stage of a start-up. Rahul and Nilesh are both batch mates from IIM, Calcutta.

Co-Founder of Scale Ventures Rahul Narvekar stated, "Gurnani is an inspiration for Indian start-up ecosystem and we are immensely glad to have him on board.  He is going to share his valuable experiences in managing complex businesses and will also be advising us towards right incubations, investments and expansion strategies. Under his guidance, Scale Ventures will surely reach the next level and we look forward to learn under him.”

"Gurnani has made an implausible career of taking businesses and scaling them to new heights," said Nilesh Rathi, Co-Founder, Scale Ventures. He further added, “We needed a strong leader keeping in mind the ongoing start-up disruption. CP Sir with his clear vision will help us adapt the finest strategies and incubate the best start-ups possible.”

Scale Ventures is sector agnostic and will be investing in over 30 early-stage start-ups by the end of the year. The investment will be between Rs.30 lakh to Rs.4 crore. With this, the venture firm will be launching an accelerator programme in the coming time which will be a physical campus focussing on start-ups in the Tier-II, Tier-III and Tier-IV cities.

"Being an incubation centre, Scale always welcomes seasoned entrepreneurs to mentor the new crop of start-ups. Gurnani will add value to Scale by imparting his expertise to the ever- evolving start-up community," mentioned Sanjay Sachdev, Director, Scale Ventures. 

CP was appointed Chairman of NASSCOM for 2016-2017. CP Gurnani has also been felicitated with an honorary Doctorate degree by Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology.

He was also recently being featured among the top 100 global CEOs as part of The Wall Street Journal CEO Council 2016. CP strongly believes in promoting child education. He is an active member of the Tech Mahindra Foundation – launched in 2007 to help the underprivileged children with 116,000 beneficiaries and counting. CP, along with his wife Anita, have founded “Titliyan”, an NGO located in Noida spreading smiles, happiness and education to more than 140 underprivileged children – a dream project for the Gurnanis.