People
Kanwal Singh
Kanwal has been passionate about mentoring and helping build consumer brands in India, and has been involved as an investor with brands like Paper Boat, ID Fresh, Epigamia, and Licious, before starting Fireside. He has been investing in the early stage ecosystem in India for the past 17 years, first as a Director at Carlyle Group, India, and later as a Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director of Helion Venture Partners. Prior to his investing career, Kanwal spent over 13 years in consumer marketing with Hindustan Unilever, and Intel India.
Vinay Singh
With 7+ years at Hindustan Unilever as Marketing Manager for a multi-crore brand, extensive expertise in digital marketing at McKinsey & Co., and Bankbazaar.com, Vinay has a unique perspective on the intersection between consumer brands and technology. He has also been an entrepreneur, as the founder and CEO of Stepni.com, which was acquired by Quikr.
VS Kannan Sitaram
Kannan has spent 36+ years across Sales, Marketing, and Strategy. He has been associated with Unilever, both, in India, and overseas. He has also been COO of Dabur India, and CEO of Innovative Foods. His ability to understand the finer nuances of brand-building at different stages of the brand evolution makes him ideally suited to the role of partner and mentor to young entrepreneurs and brand champions.
Dipanjan Basu
Dipanjan has over 17 years’ experience ranging across the e-commerce consumer space, digital brands, the start-up ecosystem, Investments and M&A apart from his deep knowledge in Finance, Technology and Operations. Prior to Fireside Ventures, in his role as CFO of Myntra and Jabong, he played a key role in driving a balanced and profitable growth and creating innovative brand building structures such as the Brand Accelerator and House of Brands. Before Myntra, he was the Chief Finance & Operating Officer for Wipro’s Digital & Consulting Business where he was responsible for setting up and building new businesses, as well as helming M&As and investments in digital startups. He was also part of the team setting up Wipro Ventures, the $100Mn fund for tech and digital businesses.
Prayag Mohanty
Prayag has spent over 11 years in venture capital, investment banking, and software development. Prior to Fireside Ventures, he was at IvyCap Ventures, focusing on early-stage consumer and enterprise technology startups, including BiryaniByKilo, Bluestone, Vinculum, GrabOnRent, FieldEz, and RMLAgtech. He also led the domestic institutional fund-raising activities for the Fund. At SBI Capital Markets, he was part of the ECM vertical where he was involved in the several closures, including the marquee follow-on public offering of $700 million by Tata Steel. Prayag also actively engaged with the Department of Disinvestment for managing the sale of shares by the Government of India including the $200 million stake sale in Engineers India through a follow-on public offering, and the $110 million stake sale in National Aluminium Company via an OFS.
Ankur Khaitan
Ankur has over 12 years’ experience helping consumer brands and the associated ecosystem drive large-scale business transformation. Prior to Fireside, he was part of the consumer markets leadership at KPMG where he worked closely with CXOs from startups, promoter-driven companies, as well as large MNCs in consumer tech, CPG, fashion, and healthcare in India and the Middle East, chalking out strategic initiatives for accelerated growth. Involved with the Indian digital ecosystem for over a decade across strategy consulting, performance improvement, and digital transformation, he has worked with several PE and VC firms on commercial due diligence for their proposed e-commerce investments.
Amit Kulkarni
With over eight years’ experience in statutory audit and corporate finance, Amit has worked with a variety of clients, including listed IT companies, startups, and retail clients. Prior to Fireside, he has gained extensive knowledge in financial accounting/ reporting at EY Statutory Audit. As AGM, Corporate Finance, at Manipal Health Enterprises, in addition to his Corporate Finance responsibilities, he participated in Project Dhrishti, focusing on finance automation. Amit is also a Chartered Accountant.
Shreyans Gangwal
Shreyans has spent 7 years in the private equity and investment banking ecosystem, focusing on digital and consumer businesses in various India-focused roles, and two years as a network engineer prior to his investment career. Prior to Fireside, he worked with Creaegis Advisors LLP, a digital- and tech-focused growth stage PE firm where he was the very first employee, and helped build thesis and pipeline across consumertech, fintech and healthtech sectors. He evaluated various consumer internet businesses and D2C brands, and was part of the investment team that led the $75Mn investment round in Medikabazaar, a healthtech B2B commerce company, on whose board he served as an observer. Earlier still, he spent close to four years in investment banking at Avendus Capital and Citigroup India, focusing on consumer and financial services sectors, assisting various companies in raising capital in excess of US$ 1.3bn.
Reemsha Reen
With over 7 years’ experience in social impact consulting, Reemsha brings with her a deep understanding of organization development, portfolio management and public policy. Prior to Fireside, Reemsha was at Dasra, a venture philanthropy firm, where she managed the portfolio of Gates Foundation, Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiative, Forbes Foundation, and the Nilekanis. She provided strategic and operational support across areas of fundraising, talent management, impact evaluation, and internal governance processes to Founders and CXOs of leading social enterprises.
Siddharth Gupta
With five years’ experience in M&A, Siddharth has worked across sectors on clients including listed IT companies, startups, and retail businesses. Prior to Fireside, Siddharth was at Ernst & Young LLP, where he advised corporates on M&A, and corporate development with a focus on tax and regulatory considerations particularly relevant in the context of inbound investments, acquisitions, divestitures and cross border reorganisations. He is a CA, and has also cleared two levels of CFA (US).
Shinjini Palit
An economics graduate from Presidency College, Shinjini has had experience across domains of public equity, venture capital and impact investing through her undergraduate years prior to starting her career at Anthill Ventures. At Anthill, she spent over a year managing the consumer accelerator of the India fund and led 4 consumer bets during her tenure. A CFA Level 2 candidate, she has also secured deferred MBA admits in her final year of undergraduate studies to premier B-Schools in US and Europe where she wishes to matriculate in the next few years.
Ishan Ambardar
With over two years in consulting, Ishan has acquired experience across retail and consumer products – which enable him to understand and appreciate the intersection of brands, retailers and consumers. At Bain, he was one of the founding members of the Retail Centre of Excellence, a team that has since scaled 10x. Working closely with multiple global retailers, he has helped solve problems ranging from assortment and channel strategies to supplier negotiations. Ishan has a deferred MBA admit from Columbia Business School, which he plans to pursue in the next few years.
Vasudha Mathur
Vasudha started her career at Landmark, Halliburton where she revamped the UI-UX of a legacy software and helped Landmark’s software portfolio with budgeting and forecasting. She then worked with World V Fund, where she analysed investments in the deep tech space across industries and technologies like AI, Robotics, AR/VR and IoT, before joining Fireside. She has a Bachelor’s in Economics from Cornell University.
Jyotbir Singh Khuman
Jyotbir has over five years’ experience in management consulting in the Indian and Middle East markets, assisting consumers and internet businesses on corporate strategy and operational excellence solutions. Prior to Fireside, he was at KPMG, where he gained strong market and customer perspectives working with global brands in FMCG, retail, and automobiles, as well as several early-stage startups in the D2C and e-commerce space. A BITS Pilani graduate, and a CFA level 2 candidate. He loves sport, travel, and trekking.
Sonia Abraham
A Mathematics graduate from St. Stephen's Delhi University, Sonia worked in Strategy & Sales at the CP Group, Thailand, where she was involved in projects focused on enhancing profitability for their QSR and Consumer Products subsidiaries. Prior to Fireside, she was an investment analyst at Kae Capital where she spent over two years evaluating early-stage startups in edtech, consumer tech, and D2C. She also supported the fundraise for their latest fund.
Ramya
With 10+ years at large MNCs like LeEco, Mercedes-Benz R&D India, P&G, and HP, Ramya has supported global and national leadership teams in Administration, HR, Procurement, Events and Budget functions in diverse cross-cultural environments. Passionate, self-driven, and creative, she is an exceptional organiser, and provides invaluable critical support to the entire Fireside team.
Richa Gupta
With over 12 years of experience in Hospitality and HR at Jet Airways, JW Marriott, and the Essar Group, Richa is a reliable team member with a positive outlook towards life. Obsessed with the idea of never-ending learning journeys, she constantly seeks to challenge her capabilities, and brings this zest to the Fireside team.
Shiva
With 18+ years of experience, Shiva has been at companies such as Helion Advisors, Carlyle Advisors, and Textual Analytics, handling a multitude of responsibilities spanning office administration, vendor relationship, and visitor management. His talents include multilinguism, and he is fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, and Tamil in addition to English. Inspired by the energy of the young entrepreneurs we partner with, Shiva is an essential part of the Fireside team.