Rajiv Srivatsa
Investor at Antler
Rajiv Srivatsa
Investor at Antler
Bengaluru, Karnataka
Overview
Work Experience
Partner / Investor
2020 - Current
As Partner at Antler India, I will be in charge of leading the deployment and operations of Antler, a global early-stage VC firm which will build the next set of outstanding founders and startups from India. This involves raising local funds, building a local Antler team, identifying great founders, and working with mentors and functional specialists to groom and build outstanding startups. Antler partners with early stage founders to build scalable startups, by guiding them through the entire process from inception to raising a Series A. We offer a strong stipend and a pre-seed fund after 10 weeks for selected startups. We are sector-agnostic and want to build real, sustainable and scalable businesses from India for India and the globe. For more details on program including the global team and startups, check http://antler.co/india
Podcaster / Blogger
2020
My personal hobby is to share my learnings on happiness, careers and startups. I will be sharing an 8-step framework on everything happiness, potential, purpose, life, work, relationships and more via weekly episodes on Podcast / Youtube / Medium. This is a new night-time hobby that I spend 3/4 hours a week to get out the most important learnings of what I have experiences across these topics, and also try to digest the best of information that I come across in any of these. Check out the links below for Spotify, Youtube, Medium. It's also available on other podcast platforms by searching for 'OneLife Theory'. You can find me on @telljeeves on all social platforms - Instagram, Twitter, Facebook for more.
Figuring Out Next Steps...
2019 - 2020
Learning from a variety of people - CEOs, founders, mentors, 1st and 2nd time entrepreneurs, top recruitment consultants etc. (and it's quite humbling and mind-boggling - the kind of work that's been done across the ecosystem) Understanding and studying different sectors (B2C Tech, D2C brands, media, education, healthcare, travel etc.) and markets (India, China, Silicon Valley, Europe etc.) Writing and sharing thoughts, learnings from the UL experience (including possibly a book!) on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium + share other thoughts on life in general, happiness etc. Figuring out next steps in life over the course of Nov 2019 - Apr 2020
Co-Founder, CPTO
2012 - 2019
(Acquired by Reliance in 2020) Co-Founder Urban Ladder; Raised $100+Mn venture capital from marquee investors to build India's most favourite furniture brand with highest Net Promoter Score (75+); Pioneered digital innovation on web, mobile, AR, VR to build outstanding customer experiences to initiate Indians buying furniture and big-ticket products online for the first time 2019: Business focused on profitability, expansion in retail (via franchise mechanisms) and continued focus on product and service; Moved out of an operation leadership role after getting business to operational profitability; continue to be a Shareholder and a member of the Board of Directors 2017-18: Raised $25Mn to pivot business to be an omni-channel single brand retailer; Built up a new retail organisation with the help of experienced leaders from outside; Brought down monthly burn by 75% while growing revenue 30% over an 18-24 month period; Tweaked the values to formulate a renewed culture inside the org to move towards profitability 2015-16: Raised $70+Mn from Steadview Partners, Sequoia Capital, Mr. Ratan Tata, Anand & Venky - to hyper-scale Urban Ladder; Revenue grew ~10X in 24 months; Built a team of ~1000+ across different verticals including an 80+ tech and product team; Pioneered new technologies such as AR/VR in the business; Scaled vision, values, culture across remote operations org spread in ~20 different cities; Brought in experienced senior leaders to manage technology and marketing 2012-14: Co-founded and launched Urban Ladder in July 2012 with my IIMB batchmate Ashish Goel; Raised $7+Mn from Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners to build India's favourite online brand with the highest Net Promoter Score (NPS) of ~80; Innovated on the digital product and marketing to become the first global furniture brand that could sell big-ticket furniture online across any country; Responsible for technology, product, marketing, merchandising, customer service and HR
Senior Product Manager
2008 - 2012
Recipient of the highest honor in Yahoo! world-wide 'Yahoo! Superstar' award from the CEO as key part of the Yahoo! Cricket product team; Won Yahoo! India level recognition 'You Rock' award twice for different initiatives (both team and individual) 2011 - Senior Product Manager with Yahoo! Emerging Markets: Launching a new visually rich global-ready entertainment destination anchored around celebrities called 'Yahoo! Stars'; Developing the Yahoo! India mobile strategy and implementing the various initiatives across global and regional properties; Continuing progress on the Yahoo! Education portal to #2 in Comscore by June 2011 with ~2 Million users; continuously enhancing the portal to become the choice destination for students by end-2011; Championing knowledge sharing, innovation seminars and initiatives across Yahoo! 2010 - Senior Product Manager with Yahoo! Media Products and Solutions (Emerging Markets): Building out a new education portal for Y! India that went live November 2010 at in.education.yahoo.com; Anchored product right from conceptualization, user research, business case definition till execution ground-up 2009 - Product Manager with Yahoo! India: Product management and product marketing responsibilities for all media properties including Y! India Cricket, News, Movies, Finance & Y! India - Jagran and other regional language websites; Also built innumerable micro-sites for IIFA, Elections 2009, Wills Fashion Week etc.; Championed the Yahoo! - ICC partnership from the product side - built the first joint site for the ICC Twenty20 World Cup and then subsequently for the Champions Trophy; By 2009 end, Cricket, News, Movies, Languages, Micro-sites became #1 by a big margin; Finance was #2 in UU 2008 - Product Manager with Yahoo! India. Based out of Bangalore. Product Management responsibility for Y! India News, Movies, Finance; News and Movies moved into #1 while Finance was #3 in UU but was completely revamped and relaunched in just 3 months
Account Manager (Consulting, BD, Business Analysis)
2004 - 2008
Recognition from CEO at Cognizant for blog on company strategic initiatives; Invited to Orlando to present views to entire top management team 2007 - Account Manager - Client interfacing; Client delivery and account relationship management for a key logistics client in Basel (Switzerland) + interfacing with key ERP partner (Waldorf, Germany) on the warehouse management system module 2006 - Assistant Manager Business Development - Developing winning solutions including responding to client requests for proposals and managing client visits as part of evaluation; Analyst presentations; Product Management (India, USA) for a solution in the Manufacturing and Logistics vertical 2005 - Senior Business Analyst - Product Requirements Gathering and Interfacing with engineering Team (India, USA) for factory manufacturing systems 2004 - Senior Business Analyst - Business Analysis; Sales Support; Business Development Support; Marketing Support; (India)
Software Engineer
2000 - 2002
Built one of the most popular personal websites across the entire Infosys org 2001/02 - Module leader on web-based loyalty management system for key networking client; Lead engineer on loan processing module for home reinsurance client 2000/01 - Software Engineer (Trainee) responsible for business rule extraction, use-case writing, development, testing for a key module in a documents management system for aviation client
Education
MBA
2002 - 2004
Bachelor of Technology - BTech
1996 - 2000
Bachelor of Technology - BTech
1996 - 2000
B Tech
1996 - 2000
N/A
1995 - 1996
Investments
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