Rajesh Raju is the co-founder and Managing Director at Kalaari Capital, based in Bangalore, India. He is a pioneer in investing in the technology sector in India, and his expertise in investing in SaaS, supply chain, retail, fintech and edtech makes him a sought-after mentor and advisor.

He has been instrumental in raising and investing over a $Billion in capital in India over a career spanning 16 years in the VC industry. His investment He has been instrumental in raising and investing over a $Billion in capital in India over a career spanning 16 years in the VC industry. His investment experience spans over 100 portfolio companies and many successful exits with a top quartile performance in returns. Kalaari has been an early investor in some of the marquee startups, including Flipkart/Myntra, Snapdeal, Dream11, Simplilearn, Curefit and ElasticRun.

He currently serves on 12 company boards; his past and present portfolio companies include, Medplus, Simplilearn, ElasticRun, Jumbotail, Winzo, Mozark, Hiver and Shopalyst.

Rajesh has founded or steered a number of organizations including the India Alumni Club of the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business, TiE Hyderabad, TiE-ISB Connect, Hyderabad Angels and CEO Clubs of India.

Rajesh earned a Mechanical Engineering degree from BITS-Pilani, and then went to the United States for a master's degree in Industrial Systems Engineering from Marquette University. He worked at Sybase, earning the internal President's Award multiple times and eventually becoming Director of Strategic Alliances.

After earning an MBA with Honors from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, he entered the financial services sector. He worked in investment banking at Merrill Lynch, equity research at Robert W. Baird & Co., and private equity at Peepul Capital.