Not a prodigy. Not a dropout. A son who watched his father build, fail, and build again — and decided that hunger was the only inheritance worth keeping.
My father was an entrepreneur — and my hero. Growing up, I watched him build businesses, face failures, and start over without blinking. When I asked him what he did for a living, he said he was building a startup. That was the first time I ever heard the word.
Every night when he came home, I had a new problem-solution idea waiting for him. He'd listen carefully, and then smile and say — "Beta, this is exactly what an investor pitch looks like." He was training me without me even knowing it. That hunger he had — to build, to solve, to never stop — I feel it in me every single day.
In 2021, I lost my father to COVID. And with him, I lost my sense of direction. I was living without purpose — confused, hollow, going through the motions. My mother held everything together through that time, carrying the weight of our family with a strength I still struggle to put into words.
Then I found his DSLR — the one he bought in 2016 and never got time to use. I picked it up, walked out the door, and started shooting the streets of Delhi. It was the first thing that made me feel alive again. I founded a photography club in college, built a side hustle around it, and for a while, I was sure that was my path.
But somewhere after graduation, I realized photography wasn't the destination — it was the recovery. My father hadn't raised me to just capture the world. He raised me to build in it.
I prepared for CAT with everything I had — a promise I'd made to my father that even if engineering college wasn't tier-1, MBA would be. I studied harder than I ever had in my life. I fell short of the top colleges, but the process forged something in me that no MBA could have.
I joined Enerjazz (YC S21) as their fifth hire. With a team of five, there were no departments — just problems that needed solving. I did HR, sales, finance, and marketing simultaneously. It was chaotic and clarifying. It's also where I met Pratik Ranjan Das, whose recommendation later opened the door to Delhi Angels.
At Delhi Angels, working alongside Mr. Kunwer Sachdev and Shivam Ahuja, I finally found the intersection I was always meant to operate in — where deals get sourced, founders get backed, and ecosystems get built. This is my arena.
"His absence taught me more than his presence ever could. And that's something I'll never stop being grateful for."
— On losing my father, and finding myselfI used to think I was shy. Not a public speaker. Not the kind of person who walks into a room and commands it. But the right environment changes you. At Delhi Angels, with the right mentors and the right challenges, I've learned that growth isn't about becoming someone else — it's about becoming more of yourself, faster.
I'm a quick learner, never tired of work, and always questioning. I read obsessively — books, research, case studies on the Indian startup ecosystem. I build AI automations on the side because if a task is repeatable, I'd rather spend that time thinking about the next thing.
I've seen the Indian startup ecosystem since childhood — not from a conference stage, but from the dinner table. That connection is real, and it's what drives everything I do.