Vani Kola is an Indian

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

ist. She is the founder and managing director of Kalaari Capital, an Indian early stage venture capital firm. She was listed as one of the most powerful women in Indian business by ''Fortune India'' in 2014.

Early life and education

Vani Kola was born in in

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

(now

Telangana Telangana is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated in the Southern India, south-central part of the Indian subcontinent on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ele ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. She commenced her post-secondary education at age 16. She attended

Osmania University Osmania University is a collegiate university, collegiate Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Mir Osman Ali Khan, the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad, issued a ''firman'' calling f ...

in Hyderabad, where she studied

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and was "one of six girls among 400 engineering students". She earned her Bachelor of Engineering before leaving India in the late 1980s to pursue her Master of Engineering from

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public university, public research university in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is o ...

in the United States.

Career

Silicon Valley

Kola had a 22-year career in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

. A serial entrepreneur, she was the founder and CEO of the e-procurement company RightWorks, selling the company to ICG after four years for $657 million. She was then the founder and CEO of Certus Software.

Venture capital in India

Kola returned to India in 2006, after her successful career as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, to start a venture capital firm in India, drawn to the growing Indian opportunity. She and

Vinod Dham Vinod Dham is an Indian-American engineer, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is known as the 'Father of the Pentium Chip' for his contribution to the development of Intel, Intel's Pentium micro-processor. He is also a mentor and adviso ...

founded Indo-US Venture Partners (IUVP) in 2006. A partnership with

New Enterprise Associates New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With over $25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of t ...

(NEA), it was her initial undertaking into venture capital in India. In 2012, it was re-branded as Kalaari Capital. Kalaari Capital began operations as a US$150 million fund in September 2012. Under Kola's leadership, the firm has grown to have US$650 million in assets under management, as of 2017. Kola is the managing director of Kalaari Capital. She is a technology-focused early-stage investor and works with entrepreneurs to build global companies, leveraging India's domestic growth to create high growth enterprises. Kola has led investments in e-commerce, mobile services, education and healthcare. Some of her notable venture capital endeavours include: Dream11, Urban Ladder,

Snapdeal Snapdeal is an Indian e-commerce company, based in New Delhi, India. It was founded in February 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. Snapdeal is one of the top 5 online marketplaces in India. Snapdeal targets the value e-commerce segment, w ...

, and

Myntra Myntra is an Indian fashion e-commerce company headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The company was founded in 2007-2008 to sell personalized gift items. In May 2014, Myntra.com was acquired by Flipkart. In May 2022, Myntra launched ...

Awards and recognition

Kola was recognised as one of the most powerful women in Indian business by ''Forbes'' in 2014. She was awarded with the TiE Delhi-NCR 5th Edition of Women Entrepreneurship Summit Award on 20 July 2018, in Delhi. As part of the first-ever startup awards launched by ''

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. Owned by The Times Group, ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961 and it is sold in all major cities in India. As of 2012, it is the world's secon ...

'', Kola was awarded the Midas Touch award for the best investor in 2015. She also won the NDTV Women of Worth award for leadership excellence in business and entrepreneurship. She has been identified as one of the LinkedIn Top Voices in 2016. She has been profiled in numerous books and was named as one of Fortune India's 'Most Powerful Women in Business' in 2018 and 2019.

Philanthropy

ACT Grants

In response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, ACT Grants, a not for profit initiative coalition of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, was setup in April 2020. Kola, along with other senior leaders, has been spearheading this initiative. ACT Grants, which already has a corpus of ₹100 crores, has supported 50 different ventures.

Heartfulness Institute

Kola is also a Heartfulness trainer and is actively involved in supporting the Heartfulness Institute, a non-profit organisation focussed on human transformation through yoga and meditation.

Personal life

Kola is married to Srinivas Kola and has two daughters. She ran marathons and climbed

Mount Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, at above sea level and above its plateau base. It is also the highest volcano i ...

in the 2000s. Kola meditates daily and has been a meditation practitioner for over two decades. In 2021 she was quoted in an article about "Zoom Fatigue" as an example of a person returning to the office to return to face-to-face communications.

References

External links

Official website

Kalaari Capital

"What Failure Taught Me - Vani Kola"
YouTube video Color shots - The Wellness Company channel
"Vani Kola: Making entrepreneurial dreams possible"
YouTube video INKtalks channel {{DEFAULTSORT:Kola, Vani 1960s births Indian venture capitalists Women venture capitalists Silicon Valley people Businesswomen from Karnataka Businesspeople from Bengaluru Osmania University alumni Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people)