Stalwart Angel Investor Anand Chandrasekaran on His 'Midas Touch' and Building Products
10 of Anand Chandrasekaran's portfolio companies raised a series A or B round last year, we asked the Angel investor and Ex Facebook executive about what that secret formula is.
- He'd already been on the scene in Silicon Valley having founded mobile apps startup Aeroprise - later acquired by BMC Software - but 2014 was when he "seriously started" investing in Indian startups.
- Another factor, according to Chandrasekaran, was Indian entrepreneurs following Silicon Valley principles in building products.
- "I think 2014 was the start of that cycle as well where the products that were being built were for users in India rather than abroad, which was a significant shift also because very smart people who earlier used to move abroad and work at MNCs were starting to stay back in India and developing solutions," he added.
- Chandrasekaran has been at the forefront of that shift, building products for the Indian market since before 2014.
- He was the director of platforms and product partnerships for Facebook Messenger till November last year, having built products at Yahoo, Snapdeal and Airtel (Wynk Music and My Airtel apps) previously.