FORTESS hosted a phygital meeting on “Angel Investment” focussing on Social Enterprise on March 3rd 2022 at the IIT Madras Research Park in Chennai, which was attended by close to 40 FORTESS members with an equal number from different locations joining virtually via the ZOOM platform. The session was part of FORTESS’ Money Series.
About the session:
FORTESS member Kiran Deshpande has been leading an initiative towards nurturing & building a FORTESS Angel Network. He has hosted 2 sessions on this topic – one as an introduction to Angel Investment and the second, focusing on Mentoring as part of Angel Investment. Ramadorai, Lakshmi, C S Murali & other FORTESS members who are also prolific Angel investors have been part of our journey, sharing their experiences and insights.
The final session in this series – focused on Social Enterprise.
The event started with a conversation with a prolific social entrepreneur Dr. Pravin Bhagwat. Pravin is Founder of 14Trees.org, a not for profit Organization dedicated to constructing jungles over destroyed uncultivable barren land. 14Trees’ mission is global. Some of our Fortess members planted trees there. Pravin is a distinguished alumnus from IITK and a PhD from University of Maryland, College Park. Before 14Trees.org, Pravin founded Mojo Networks, a company that defined WiFi security space. He started his career at IBM TJ Watson Research Center. Pravin shared his perspective on building a social enterprise and all its nuances.
In the second part, Kiran hosted an engaging panel discussion with angel investors Ramadorai, Lakshmi Narayanan and Ravi Nigam, Co-Founder & CEO of Tastybite, a company that took ready to eat Indian meals global. Buying a company that was in bankruptcy, Ravi and his team transformed Tastybite to one of the most valued stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Ravi has been a prolific mentor, angel investor and was the President of TiE Pune from 2020 to 2021. Ram and Lakshmi do not require any introduction. The discussion was riveting with the eminent panel sharing their angel investment philosophies, approaches and overall experiences.
We would like to thank all members who participated in the event and made it a grand success. Members interested in pursuing their interests in the field of Angel Investing might drop a mail to generalmanager@fortess.org
About Kiran Deshpande –http://www.fortessgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Kiran-Bio-2020-12-1.pdf
Kiran can be reached at “kirand17@gmail.com”
