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meets Capital
Why SHAKTI
Our purpose is to deliver exceptional service to our two customers: Entrepreneurs and Limited Partners (LPs). We do this by ushering in a new model of venture capital to deliver a full service platform for entrepreneurs without burdening LPs with large funds/fees.
“Shakti” means primordial energy in Sanskrit—empowering creation at the beginning. We invest at the early stage—often the first check—and remain at the entrepreneur’s service providing our capital, network and experience throughout their journey.
Founders
We believe that entrepreneurs building category leading companies are like Olympic athletes aiming to win the gold medal. In such pursuits of excellence, the quality of coaching makes all the difference. Through our SHAKTI TITAN platform, we provide “Trillion dollar coaches” by connecting established founders/CEOs with emerging ones. TITANS are investors in our fund and act as a “friend, philosopher and guide” helping founders from start to exit.
Investors
For our LPs, we deliver better returns by taking 2-bites at the apple in the same vintage, investing in the symbiosis between the Consumer & Infrastructure layers that together reimagine a large global habit.
Focus
Our primary focus is on reimagination of three global habits that correspond to billions of users and trillions of dollars in GDP: Commerce, Mobility & Media. On any given day, people across the world are engaged in shopping, traveling and consuming media. Since the beginning of the internet, reimagining these habits has created the largest venture backed companies in the world. Once again, these habits are on the cusp of reimagination due to new innovations in AI, robotics, climate-tech and a new generation of consumers.
Alignment
We believe that providing exceptional mentorship to founders and high returns to LPs is not scalable. We can only do this with small funds, investing in a handful of companies each year. We did not start SHAKTI to generate lots of fees—we did it to generate a lot of carried interest. The only way we can do that is by succeeding in providing the best service to our two customers. Our interests are aligned entirely with yours.
Team
Together our team has invested in over 100+ companies over a decade, engaging at the earliest stages and staying involved with founders through IPOs/exits. We have been in your shoes as an entrepreneur and operator of venture backed companies. We bring complementary experiences and relationships dating back over three decades in Silicon Valley and across the globe through our TITANS. Our experience has grounded us in the belief that founders are the drivers of the car and we—as investors—are the passengers. We will support you in every way and when we disagree with your decisions, we will let you know, transparently and objectively. All along, we will treat you like our customers, serving you promptly, always earning the privilege to be your first call.
Partner
30+ yrs. as tech founder, exec & VC in Silicon Valley
Product Mgmt. leader at Google (joined pre-IPO)
GP at InterWest
Co-founder of Achex (sold profitably)
“6.0 Club” Lecturer at UC Berkeley on VC/PE
BSEE, MSCS, MBA
Titans
Inspired by our interactions with the late “Trillion Dollar Coach” Bill Campbell, and with guidance from our mentor Dr. Eric Schmidt, we built the SHAKTI TITAN platform to bring together a diverse group of established industry leaders who have built companies at scale to help startup founders with world class mentorship.
These coaches include founders and current/former CEOs and C-level leaders of companies such as Google, Dell, Amazon, YouTube, Nike, Ralph Lauren, Oracle, Salesforce, Verizon, Intuit, JP Morgan, Warburg Pincus, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, WW, HSN, The RealReal, Upstart, RingCentral and several others.
Fellows
SHAKTI fellows are domain experts who help us see around corners. They are our eyes and ears on the ground for what’s coming next in Consumer and Infrastructure tech.
AI Researcher at Apple, Stanford, Amazon
PhD Candidate NYU, MSCS/MBA Stanford, BA Yale
CxO at SWORD Health, Cleo
Product Lead at Atlassian, Classpass, Paperless Post
Entrepreneur
University of Cambridge, MBA, Harvard
