SANDEEP SINGHAL

Singhal did not inherit the Indian startup scene. He helped build it.

He studied electrical engineering at Stanford and earned an MBA from Wharton, then worked at McKinsey and in Silicon Valley tech. In 1999 he co-founded eVentures India, one of the country's earliest venture firms, and backed future giants like MakeMyTrip.

He also co-founded and ran Medusind, a healthcare outsourcing company. Then in 2006 he teamed up with Suvir Sujan and the late Naren Gupta to launch Nexus Venture Partners.

He grew Nexus to $1.5 billion in assets and stayed a general partner until 2021.

Nexus Venture Partners is the headline. Singhal co-founded the firm in 2006 and it now manages around $2.6 billion.

Its portfolio reads like a tour of Indian tech. Delhivery, the logistics company that went public.

Postman, the software tool used by tens of millions of developers. Zomato, the food-delivery giant.

Data companies like Druva and Hasura. Before Nexus he co-founded eVentures India in 1999 and ran Medusind, a healthcare outsourcing firm.

He has sat on more startup boards than most people have jobs.

Singhal invests early and bets on the founder first. His filter is passion.

If a founder cannot make him as excited about the problem as they are, he passes. He wants people who genuinely want to build something big, not people chasing a quick flip.

He is also blunt about the odds. Nexus says no quickly and accepts it will get some calls wrong.

In plain terms, he backs obsessed builders early, moves fast on decisions, and does not pretend anyone can pick only winners.

The clearest wins are the companies Nexus backed early that became household names. Delhivery, the logistics firm Nexus backed years before it went public in a listing valued in the billions.

Postman, now used by tens of millions of software developers worldwide. Zomato, the food-delivery giant that also went public.

Getting into these early, when Indian tech was still unproven, is the payoff for a decade of unfashionable bets. Singhal was building conviction in Indian founders while most global money still ignored the country.

Singhal has not put his failures on display, which is normal for a VC. Venture is a business where most bets fail by design, so the honest framing is not one dumb deal but the shape of the whole job.

For every Delhivery or Postman, a fund like Nexus backs many startups that quietly go nowhere. Singhal himself says they know they will get things wrong.

The real risk he took was earlier and bigger. He bet his career on Indian venture capital in 1999, when the market barely existed and plenty of people thought it never would.

Singhal's philosophy starts with the founder, not the spreadsheet. He believes good entrepreneurs just want to build something big, and that passion is the thing you cannot fake.

He tells founders not to lead with valuation demands and to let the market decide what they are worth. He prizes the ability to listen, because in his view the market and the competition are always telling you something if you pay attention.

And he is honest that saying no fast and being wrong sometimes is part of the game. Back the person, listen hard, move quickly.

Singhal keeps his family life private, which fits his generally low public profile. What is well documented is his path between two countries.

He was educated in the United States, at Stanford and Wharton, and worked in Silicon Valley before building his career around Indian startups. That mix of American training and Indian focus defines his professional life.

Beyond that, he lets his work stay in the spotlight and himself stay out of it.

Singhal has a serious academic pedigree. He earned a BS in electrical engineering from Stanford, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi, two honor societies you do not get into by coasting.

He followed that with an MBA, with Distinction, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in finance and marketing. Engineer first, financier second.

That combination is exactly what venture capital rewards.

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