Speaker Bio
Nikunj has over 30 years of operational, entrepreneurial and investment experience as a venture capitalist in developing markets. Most notably Nikunj has been a 25+ year investor in (deep) technology projects in India, China, SE Asia, LATAM, MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa. Nikunj is currently a Senior Advisor to several European financial institutions, developing their global venture strategy, including being on the Investment Committees for BII UK’s (US$1BN) venture capital investments as well as Allianz PE’s Africagrow (EUR200MM) fund. Nikunj is also a Co-Founder of Wilderness Capital (www.wilderness.capital), a North America based platform that builds and invests in Nature Based Assets, using an innovative approach towards developing high quality carbon credits.
Earlier, Nikunj spent 16 years at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Washington DC, where he was the Global Head for Venture Capital and Cleantech Investments, focused on direct, co-and VC fund investments. Nikunj founded and built IFC’s venture capital platform and managed a team of over 35 investment professionals based in 8 locations globally. His VC team developed a direct portfolio in leading emerging market digital technology companies, for an accumulated $1BN+, and demonstrated consistent strong impact and financial profitability over 16 years, with commercially driven cash returns. Focus sectors included climate/cleantech, mobility, edutech, healthtech and agritech. Nikunj pesonally has led over 80 VC transactions, several of which have had successful exits, for which IFC acted as a (co-) lead, involving other leading VC/private equity and strategic players. He has held board positions in several leading technology companies in Emerging Markets. In addition, Nikunj and his team also led LP investments in leading EM VC fund managers, having managed over 35 LP investments for a total of over $500MM in commitments. Nikunj and his team also started new special initiatives to support the World Bank Group’s digital economies strategy, including the IFC Startup Catalyst, TechEmerge.org (an online marketplace matching), and We-Fi for digital female entrepreneurs, highlighting the importance of gender inclusion in the digital world. Nikunj has keynoted various high-profile investor conferences and media events.
Prior to joining IFC, Nikunji spent nine years working in Asia, here he was based out of Singapore. He was a Managing Director for AsiaTech Ventures, an Asian $250MM venture fund, where he built its South East and South Asian business. Earlier he spent four years in the Asian TMT investment banking industry providing M&A and corporate finance services to clients throughout the region. In addition, Nikunj was the co-founder of South East Asia's largest independent marketing communications agency, which was sold to the Omnicom Group. He started his career working as a Project Engineer/Manager at KPN, in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Nikunj is a Dutch national, has an MBA degree from Stanford University (Fulbright Scholar), and an MSc. degree in Electrical Engineering, from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.