Naren Gupta

Nexus Venture Partners

Gupta founded Nexus Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley investment firm in 2007. This is a “homegrown Indian operation [with] extensive reach and experience overseas [most notably in] Silicon Valley.” It has made investments in a variety of technical and media startups around India and America. It boasts more than $1bn under management with an active portfolio of 60+ firms throughout the following industries: business services, consumer, internet and technology.

Gupta – via Nexus – has made “unique cloud investments” in Aryaka, DimDim, Druva, mCheck, PubMatic and Snapdeal. What distinguishes them from other such investments is that they were developed by entrepreneurs from India but serve international markets. Further, its investments have resulted in the acquisition of “numerous successful public offerings and M&A transactions.”

India’s future

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gupta said that, within a few years, India would be building “billion-dollar startups.” He said that the traditional approach to investment used in Silicon Valley is not really accepted in India. He sees a great deal of “untapped potential” in software industries like cloud computing and mobile apps. Yet there are “special challenges” for those investing in India. Gupta expanded: “Certainly fast-growing startups need more hand-holding than they need in the U.S. While we have quite a bit of technology talent in India, we don’t have leadership and marketing talent.” Plus, there is often a push from Indian entrepreneurs to sell early than they should, rather than waiting to develop a “billion dollar enterprise over many years.”

Through Nexus, Gupta has developed a greater sense of how to work within Indian culture. He said that, “most investors in the U.S. won’t understand how family-run businesses in India run.” Basically, Indian entrepreneurs have to get with the program in order to understand “what tickles the fancy of consumers,” since there has not been one independent firm that has emerged as a key player here, which Gupta says “makes no sense. Korea has done that, Japan has, China has, but not India.”

Regarding Indian e-commerce, Gupta said that this recently exploded. He explained that “every investor wanted to be an e-commerce investor – valuations were doubling every month. It was completely ridiculous.” Now that euphoria has dissipated.

Gupta concludes that: “Innovation is a state of mind, and he is saying, help him bring that state of mind to India. Big changes are pretty much impossible to make. What you need to do in a democracy is take a thousand little steps.”

Employment history

Gupta was a co-founder, CEO and President of Integrated Systems Inc. (ISI) for a decade-and-a-half. In 1990, he took it public, then merging it with Wind River Systems. He remained on that board until it was acquired by Intel. He boasts more than two decades of experience in the field of early and early-growth stage investment in both America and India.

Board memberships

Gupta is on the board of Red Hat, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology and the Asia Society of Northern California. He also sits on a variety of privately-held companies. He gives counsel to entrepreneurs throughout the world.

Education

Gupta has a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, a Master of Science from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D from Stanford University.

Awards and recognition

Gupta was the recipient of the President’s Gold Medal from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi as well. He was elected Fellow of the IEEE and received distinguished alumni awards from IIT and Caltech.