Anju is the President and co-founder of IvyCamp (A global IIT/IIM Alumni-based initiative of IvyCap Ventures) that leverages the Alumni Ecosystem to help founders enhance their skills, accelerate their businesses, engage in corporate innovation programs, and connect with investors. Anju focuses on working with founders to explore their potential to the fullest through mentoring, corporate engagements, accelerator programs, and more. She is strongly committed to helping build out the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Anju is an IITD and Stanford Alumnus. She has over 15 years of experience in product management and marketing in the financial software industry. After her Ph.D. at Stanford, she worked in several roles at Risk Management Solutions Inc., in California, the leading provider of catastrophe risk models for the global re/insurance industry. Her roles included building risk assessment models for earthquakes, leading RMS’s first ASP weather derivatives product, leading the product management team for RMS’s core catastrophe software product, and helping to lay the groundwork for RMS’s next-generation modeling platform. 

She has authored many publications in catastrophe risk management. She has worked on projects with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Office of Emergency Services, PG&E, Insurance companies, and risk managers in the commercial sector in the USA.

Venkataramani Prakash is a thought leader in the payments and cross border remittance space. And has worked extensively towards easing up cross border payments out of India. Prakash currently oversees payments strategy in India for Flywire. Before that Prakash has had extensive leadership stints in EBIXCASH and Thomas Cook. Prakash’s papers around evolving payments eco-system globally have been published in Journal of payment strategy and systems and Times of India. Prakash has been endorsed as a Global Talent by UK catalyst body Tech Nation (affiliated to the UK government).Prakash interests spans across card issuance,cross border payments and settlements and foreign exchange.

Prayag is passionate about investing and scaling consumer businesses. He has been investing in the early-stage ecosystem since 2013, and been involved as an investor with BiryaniByKilo, Bluestone, and Vinculum. 

He has been a Principal at IvyCap Ventures where he focused on consumer and enterprise technology startups. He has been an Investment Banker with SBI Capital Markets, as well as a software developer for Infosys Technologies.

At Fireside, Prayag works closely with MamaEarth, AlphaVector, Yogabar, Slurrp Farm, Wellbeing Nutrition, Smytten, and The Bakers Dozen.

Prayag holds an MBA from XIMB and a BE(Computer) from Pune University. 

Over 20 years, Abhinav has been instrumental in setting up new businesses and scaling them up.  

Abhinav joined Kaapi Machines in November 2017 and since then has been the force driving the growth of several new age coffee equipments in India.  

A true visionary in the coffee industry, Abhinav, over the years, elevated the company from a pureplay equipment supplier to a full-service coffee consulting, innovation and community-leading organization. During his leadership, the company launched several new-age coffee equipment in India such as Ripple Maker, PuqPress, Brood Nitro-Coffee and La Marzocco Modbar, with the purpose of elevating the coffee brewing and consumption experience. The brand is also providing consulting, training and other services to top coffee businesses like McCafe, Starbucks, Slay Coffee, Third Wave Coffee Roasters, Araku Coffee and many more.    

Passionate about promoting and enabling fresh and good coffee to all coffee lovers, Abhinav started India’s first ecommerce portal for all things coffee – Something’s Brewing in Year 2020. The home brewers community took to the brand instantly due to a one stop solution for all things coffee under one platform, meetsups and events. 

In the vast career spanning 18+ years, Abhinav has performed various roles in the product, marketing, key account management, operations and sales & distribution, working in diverse sectors including Consumer Durables and FMCG. He started his career with Wipro Lighting as an Area Manager and then moved to Philips, setting up a new Trade Marketing function with a focus towards Modern Retail. He worked for Stanley Black & Decker, setting up its Modern Retail, Ecommerce and consumer business before moving to Indulge Beverages, a start-up into the coffee capsule space. Prior to his stint at Kaapi Machines, Abhinav was the Vice President at Stovekraft in Bangalore where he oversaw product, marketing, modern retail, and e-commerce functions for the company.  

For him ‘dreaming big’ means to make Kaapi Machines India’s Premier Coffee Equipments Company. 

Overall, with a rich experience of 15years in sales and marketing, Abhinav wants to continue setting up growth-driven businesses and initiatives.  

He has earned an MBA degree in Marketing and Operations from XLRI, Jamshedpur.  

Arjun Vaidya is the Founder at Dr. Vaidya’s: New Age Ayurveda. Prior to his entrepreneurial stint, Arjun graduated from Brown University, USA with a BA with honors in International Relations and Economics. He then worked in private equity at a consumer sector focused fund, L Capital Asia (the private equity arm of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy Group) where he focused specifically on consumer brands and consumer tech.

In October 2016, Arjun quit his job to take on his 150-year-old family legacy of Ayurvedic formulations that his grandfather left behind. Dr. Vaidya’s repackaged the ancient Indian science of Ayurveda and emerged as India’s largest Ayurveda brand online. The brand successfully reached 2m+ consumers across 500+ cities and 16,500+ pin codes in India. Arjun was the first Ayurvedic Entrepreneur to be featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia List for and Business World 40 Under 40 List! Dr. Vaidya’s also won Youth SMB of the Year from Amazon and the Retail Startup Award from the Retailers Association of India. In June 2019, Dr. Vaidya’s partnered with the USD 4b RP Sanjiv Goenka Group and has now been acquired by the group – making it one of India’s first successful D2C exits.

Currently, Arjun leads venture investing for Verlinvest ((one of the world’s largest consumer brand focused funds) in India through a new fund called V3 Ventures. Here he focusses on investing in early-stage consumer facing businesses. He is also an active angel investor (with 80+ portfolio companies) and a mentor to brands in India’s D2C and ecommerce ecosystem.

Outside of work, Arjun hosts a podcast called ‘Direct to A Billion Consumers’ and one of India’s largest cohort-based courses on D2C. He is also a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a member of Brown University’s Young Alumni Advisory Council.

Being a firm believer in the impact of communication, raising awareness, and education being the foundation of change, Mehul Manjeshwar has always been passionate about sustainability. Mehul completed his MBA in the field which has enabled him to distinguish between environmentally friendly practices and those that harm the environment, and has taught him how to encourage businesses, individuals and households to adopt behaviours that preserve our planet for future generations. Mehul is a Climate Reality Leader having had the opportunity to be trained during the Climate Reality Leadership Corps with former Vice President Al Gore among other knowledgeable experts in the sustainability field.

Currently, he works as the Chief Marketing and Sustainability Communications Officer at Bare Necessities Zero Waste Solutions, contributing to sustainable innovation, marketing authentically to raise awareness of sustainability, and  building  educational platforms to create content that promotes a green lifestyle.

Most recently, Mehul is a Certified Health + Wellness Coach and strongly believes in bridging the gap between our lifestyles and how it can help build a sustainable environment.

Mehul’s work experience as one of the first few employees in a unicorn startup company in Canada has taught him to adapt to a constantly changing environment and understand various aspects of running a successful business. He is excited to engage with organisations that aim for a green future and emphasises environmental sustainability, considering challenges as catalysts for creativity and positive change.