Karthik brings 30 years of deep tech experience to the table, with eight years as VP of Engineering at a deep tech startup. His wealth of experience includes an ML-powered EdTech company that he founded and led for five years in addition to a 17-year tenure across various leadership roles, from Engineering Head to Business Head, in both multinational corporations and startups specialising in IC design.
I have been passionate about building things from childhood and vividly recollect building my own telescope to view Halley’s comet when it made its appearance. Studying Electrical and Electronics Engineering at IIT Madras gave me a rigorous foundation in the mathematical, theoretical, and practical skills required to start my career.
My career started in Texas Instruments, where I designed Digital Signal Processors and led teams that delivered complex systems-on-chip. The technical and leadership skills that my stint there enabled me to develop have always proven invaluable. I spent time at an exciting startup Montalvo systems helping build a microprocessor, and at Cypress Semiconductor doing Technical Marketing, and Business Management.
I then co-founder and CTO of an AI-backed edtech enterprise, which in hindsight would have been better suited for the LLM era. I then moved to another exciting startup called Atonarp, where we built AI-powered spectrometers for Semiconductor Manufacturing and Medical Applications.
My technical and management journey has been varied and always exciting and built the platform for my transition into investment.
As an investor, I enjoy working with founders who are audacious, but bring deep knowledge and technical as well as business expertise and skills to realize that vision. Technology in India has gone through multiple phases, starting with MNCs and outsourcing, and then moving to eCommerce and other startups using software to serve the Indian market. The time is now ripe for deep-tech startups from India.
I believe Indian technologists have developed a good understanding of what it takes to build challenging products. Marrying that with good systems and business development skills is what will help create the best of the next generation of deep-tech startups. I look forward to being part of that journey!
