Dr Ashish Gupta, managing director at Helion Ventures Pvt Ltd, has co-founded two successful companies – Tavant Technologies and Junglee.com – few of the early firms that got engaged in comparison shopping on the Internet. He has also invested in more than a dozen companies as an angel besides working with Woodside Fund, Oracle Corporation and IBM Research.
Gupta's investing style suggests that he likes entrepreneurs who have the ability to change themselves according to the needs of the organisation. For instance, Daksh changed its business model from e-mail-based customer service to voice-based BPO even before they had hit the saturation point of the e-mail market. The same goes for MakeMyTrip that essentially began as an NRI ticketing portal and later changed itself into an online travel agent also providing holiday packages (Gupta could not be reached for comments till the time of publishing this profile).
Preferred Sectors: Technology and the Internet
Preferred Location: Agnostic
Key Investments: Daksh (IBM), Odesk, Obongo (AOL), Speedera (Akamai), MakeMyTrip, Merittrac (Manipal Group) and Kaboodle (Hearst).
Hits & Misses: Gupta's investment in Makemytrip and Daksh have proven to be multi-baggers, among others.