As head of Google India and Southeast Asia, his mandate was to bring a billion Indians online (the figure stands at a staggering 800 million and growing). At Sequoia Capital, he sought to accelerate innovation by investing in early startups in the region. Now, he’s managing director at PeakXV Partners (formerly Sequoia Asia & SEA) & Surge – looking to be wowed by the next quality idea that will crack the “must-solve problems” of our times.
Meet Rajan Anandan, moonshot matchmaker: present him with the next big idea, and he’ll give you the seed money.
With roots in Sri Lanka – coming to age amidst the civil war – and a home in India, Anandan’s venture capital career is backed by a bountiful background in Big Tech. He has worked with, and learned from, the likes of Michael Dell, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, and Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Today, he is bullish about India. Why India? Because it has the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, after the US and China, with over 100 unicorns and almost 100,000 start-ups. The largest number of software developers after the US. Software products and burgeoning consumer brands aside, bright spots include AI and a gaming industry on the rise. Climate-tech is a particularly promising field – from electric vehicles to green batteries, from food to fertilizer. And Peak XV is taking note: its climate-tech portfolio in India has expanded from none to nearly a dozen in just the last couple of years.
No wonder, then, as Anandan says, “now is the best time to invest, the best time to build companies in India". Anandan has been powering the exuberance of a billion-plus population that's betting big on technology -- from bringing small businesses online, to paving the pathway for women to become entrepreneurs. Today, Peak XV Partners has Rs 20,000 crore in the kitty just for India.
He is also a prolific investor in his own right. He's backed more than 80 Indian startups so far, several of which have achieved unicorn status, such as Unacademy, InnovAccer – and Rapido is scaling up fast. From edtech to fintech, his investments span across multiple emerging, 21st century industries. And while AI may be the new gold rush, Anandan has his eyes on a technology powering our lives: semiconductors.
And it's not just money he's putting on the table, but mentorship. Building a startup is tough, and Rajan Anandan knows this inside out. So he helps founders get access to community, capital and cross-border experience. This comes at a price: he works 20-hour days and expects founders to clock 24. “If I call at 12.30 at night and they don’t pick up, they’re either sleeping or partying, and a company doesn’t get built that way,” he once told Mint.
At SYNAPSE, at a time of exponential change, Anandan will assess how India will be impacted by a raft of technologies, how it will cope in a new world order, and why against the backdrop of global slowdown, layoffs, and a funding winter, he thinks India can deliver big.