Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma

Dr. Apoorva Sharma is co-founder and president of Venture Catalysts – India’s first integrated incubator. Venture Catalysts has been ranked world’s 7th Largest Incubator and Early Stage Investor by TechCrunch in 2019. In India, it has been successively ranked as No. 1 early stage player in 2018 and 2019. He is also a Board Member at TiE Mumbai.

Dr. Sharma is one of the founding fathers of the startup ecosystem in India. He has been instrumental in developing the startup ecosystem since early 2000. He has been a pioneer in establishing incubators in India. He has established over a dozen incubators and accelerators, incubation funds and family office funds i.e. VentureNursery, Amity Innovation Incubator, Somaiya Incubator (RIDDLE), Mata Vaishno Devi University Incubator, and Indian Angel Network Incubator. He is the recipient of prestigious Best Incubator Award given by President of India, for outstanding performance of JSS Incubator. Having been associated with the Indian start-up industry since it came into being, Dr. Apoorva has gained vital insights and practical, in-depth understanding of the Indian start-up ecosystem. He has led several investment drives into becoming thriving ventures, and has a portfolio including more than 10 companies with more than 100 crore valuation.

Dr. Apoorva Sharma has a PhD in Incubation from Amity University, Noida and graduated in Engineering from HBTI, Kanpur. He also has a diploma in Mentor Studies from Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley. He also holds a PhD in Management, Role of Business Incubators in Economic Growth of India, and is one of the very few professionals with academic certification in Incubation and Early Stage Investment currently active in the start-up field.

He is one of the top 10 angel investors in India, rated by VCCircle 2016. Over last two decades; he has curated, incubated and led seed investment of 100+ startups. OYO Rooms is the biggest success story of accelerators in India, followed by Beardo which is a recent acquisition by Marico Ltd. Both the startups were curated, mentored and seed sourced by Dr. Apoorva Sharma.

Today, Dr. Sharma has become one of the most influential figure in the Indian startup funding space. His leadership and passion has motivated thousands of investors to take a plunge into startup investments.