Sudhir Rao has over 40 years of Enterprise-building experience as an Entrepreneur, Scale-Up Advisor and Venture capital Fund manager. He is Managing Partner of Celesta Capital – India, a Global Technology Venture Fund platform. He is a Chartered Accountant (ICAI) and a Chartered Management Accountant (CIMA).
Celesta, through their Funds in the USA and India currently manage over a billion dollars targeted at Early to Growth Stage Technology enterprises. They work on scaling up disruptive technology companies globally. Their DeepTech and Industry Transformer investments are currently in Semiconductors, Systems, Sensors, Robotics, Drones, 5G technologies & Data engineering. The technology stacks are applied over a range of industries including Agriculture, Construction, Healthcare & Bio-convergence, Education, Advanced Manufacturing & Integrated Supply chains for flexible Demand fulfilment.
Between 1989 and 1999 he was Founder Director of Karvy Investor Services Ltd. involved in scaling up their Investor Services, Merchant Banking and Retail Financial services portfolio. Karvy then managed over 20 Mn Shareholder Services Accounts for over 250 Corporate & Mutual Fund clients with over 4000+ colleagues across India.
He is an Independent Director on several Boards including Aditya Birla Money Ltd., RBL FinServe Ltd. and Radhakrishna Foodland Pvt Ltd apart from being a Nominee Director in companies invested into by the Fund.
He lives in Bengaluru with his wife Sadhana, an Arts & Culture Curator, Writer & Educationist and their son Arnav, a trained Lawyer, Stand-Up comedian & Screenwriter.
He’s a Charter Member of TiE and The Chennai Angels. He is also Professor of Practice at the IFMR Graduate School of Business, Krea University and runs a course on StartUp Boards.