Mr. Venkat Raju, based in Bangalore, is an active angel investor and serves as a mentor & advisor to his investee companies. His current portfolio covers a wide spectrum - spanning Cloud Computing & SaaS, Big Data & Analytics, Mobility & Payments, E-Commerce, Social Media & related Consumer Internet.
Mr. Raju is an accomplished entrepreneur & seasoned executive with strong business, technology and general management credentials. Most recently, he served as the India Country Head & Managing Director for ACI Worldwide Inc., a leading global payments solutions provider. He has held several roles including as – an Entrepreneur (CEO & Founder of startups backed by Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital etc. in Silicon Valley); an IT Executive (Managing Director & VP positions at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank) in Wall St; a Product Executive (GM & SVP Products at VerticalNet in San Francisco), Chief Technologist (Chief Architect for British Telecom in London); a Management/Strategy Consultant (Principal of a boutique firm focused on Cloud Computing & Saas in New York); and a Product & Services Delivery Head for APAC.
He has lived and worked in three continents and has run global teams. He is an alum of Boston University (Management & Business) and Indian Institute of Science (Electrical & Electronics Engineering).
As a past Fortune 500 Operational Executive, a Silicon Valley Technology Entrepreneur, an active Angel Investor in technology companies, a contributor to the startup ecosystem and Advisor to Venture Capital firms & Accelerators, he has been on both sides of the fence and brings a lot to the table.