Mentor Profile

Shri Kumaran Venkatesh

Shri Kumaran Venkatesh

President & partner, AXLERATE Now, Bengaluru

Venki has over three decades of work experience in consulting, Business Development, sales management, marketing operations and executive leadership roles across IT, Semiconductors & Software at MNC's and Indian com panies at Hong Kong, Boston and India. Venki is a partner at AXLerateNOW focusing on scaling IOT startups. Prior to his current startup he was a Senior Director of Business Development at ARM (Softbank Group) developing IOT, AI/ML, Security, HPC & cloud data center market. Prior to ARM, Venki was with an Industry body on Electronics and Semiconductors where he passionately worked to grow the Electronic System Design & Manufacturing industry as well as created an IOT ecosystem in India. He curated 16 IOT startups across MedTech, Wearables, Spacetech and mentored, coached and advised them on Execution, Market and funding capital.

 

Prior to his current role, Venki was spearheading Intel's Wind River India business as India Country Manager. He passionately worked to open Wind River India Design Center, which helped Indian customers design world-class embedded solutions for Aerospace, Defence, Networking, Industrial and mobile market. Prior to Wind River, Venki was Regional Manager (US East and Canada) with Tata Elxsi in the US.

 

From 1987 to 2003, he held various senior management positions in India and overseas at Modi Olivetti, On Mobile, Motorola, and others.

 

He is also a well-known personality in the media. His article and opinions are often published in leading technology and business publications. He was also featured in "Next Big Thing" on NDTV Good Times channel as a thought leader

 

He is the co-chair of IOTNEXT, TIE Bangalore board member and founder member of NETRA Accelerator Foundation. Venki is also a corporate faculty of the ART OF LIVING and has taught to various sections of the society