Gautam Shewakramani

Co-Founder & Partner

2022 - Current

Inuka Capital is a pre-seed and seed focused firm that partners with founders in India. Inuka's investment focus is companies that rely on product-led growth and product mechanics to build competitive advantage.

Partner

2021 - 2022

Helped build @beondeck On Deck’s mission is to expand the global startup economy. We help people start and scale companies. With the launch of ODX (beondeck.com/x) My primary responsibilities at On Deck were with ODX and On Deck's fund - leading expansion, business, and investing activities, with a focus on APAC + India.

Board Member

2020 - 2021

I invested in Exotel as part of their seed round ($500k) in 2011. I represented investor shareholders and worked with company leadership as a board member in 2020. Key focus areas: - Worked with leadership on COVID related business changes (March - April 2020). - Negotiated and steered company and early investors through shareholder agreement restructuring and partial exit for seed investors as part of a growth financing round in December 2020.

International Product & Growth

2020 - 2021

Skillshare is an online learning platform focused on creative and lifestyle classes. * I was the first and only product hire responsible for international product & growth initiatives; part of the product leadership team, helping the company as it progressed towards an IPO. * I led product initiatives that directly contributed to revenue growth, including defining a global payments platform strategy, and localizing payments in Europe and India. * Defined Skillshare's language localization and internationalization strategy, shipped several product localization initiatives to drive international usage * Developed and executed on strategic partnerships and growth marketing initiatives for India, one of the company's most important markets. I left Skillshare after a 3 quarters to join an earlier stage company whose team and mission I felt very strongly about; it felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity that I couldn't turn down.

International Product & Growth

2017 - 2020

First international growth leader at Quora, and only product and business leader that Quora brought on board to focus on India, one of the company’s top 3 markets. As the voice of hundreds of millions of Indian internet users, I worked closely with product managers, engineers, designers, sales & revenue leadership and the executive team to improve Quora for users and businesses across the world, with a special focus on India. During my time at Quora, I was directly involved in growing product usage and revenue, including: - Doubling India usage to more than 70 million monthly unique visitors - Launching Quora in 8 Indian languages (from 0) - Defining a go-to-market and strategy for India at Quora, setting up ad sales in India, hiring our founding sales team and community management team, and setting up Quora’s first international office - Launching and growing several product features to grow our number of users and usage per user in international markets, including launching and growing Quora Spaces, a community product that is a strategic initiative at the company - Evaluating and pursuing strategic product partnerships

Founder & CEO

2011 - 2017

AudioCompass turns smartphones into personal guides. The core product served as the entry point to driving in-destination transactions during travel - the largest spend component outside of booking. We started with providing do-it-yourself, audio guided experiences to travelers via a mobile app. Experiences are created by a marketplace of local experts who curate and tell stories about interesting neighborhoods, cities, monuments, museums and neighborhoods. AudioCompass has been included in every holiday package sold by the largest travel agencies in India, including MakeMyTrip, Yatra.com, Cox & Kings, among others. Recognized as official audio guide app by Incredible India, Singapore Tourism, and Tourism Oman, and as a company with a "game changing idea" that is "shaking up India's travel scene", by Conde Nast Traveller India. AudioCompass was selected as the Winner of People's Choice Award and Amadeus Next Award as the most innovative travel start up at the prestigous Phocuswright India conference. My role at AudioCompass included: * Conceptualizing the idea, product and business model * Driving distribution via partnerships, including the ones outlined above (where we saw a 50% customer conversion rate) * Building and defining the product roadmap and content development process * Fundraising and setting strategic direction for the company * Evaluating and formulating various exit structures for seed stage investors

Board of Advisors & Filtering Committee

2013 - 2017

TechU Angels LLC is a private, invite-only angel network founded by MIT alumni entrepreneurs and investors focused on funding truly unique disruptive technologies sourced through our exclusive networks. Our 10 partners are active across 6 cities across the globe including the Boston area, New York City, San Francisco / Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, Mumbai, and Singapore.

Director, Business Development

2009 - 2012

Primary Cuisine Pvt. Ltd. owns the Komala's Restaurants franchise in India. Komala's is a quick service chain specializing in authentic, vegetarian South Indian food served in restaurants and food courts.

Summer Associate

2008 - 2008

Product Specialist, Quantitative Strategies Group

Business Analyst

2005 - 2007