Nagraj Kashyap was raised in New Delhi, India, moved to the US in 1992 to gain a master’s degree in computer science from University of Texas, Austin, and never left.
He began his career as a software engineer at Nortel, Motorola and 3Com/US Robotics before moving into project management with management consulting firm PRTM, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
He joined Qualcomm Ventures in 2003 initially in business development before moving to the venture group and overseeing the North America team until 2007 when he was appointed head of global venturing.
As vice-president of Qualcomm Ventures, Kashyap manages 16 staff in offices in UK, US, India, China, Korea, Brazil and Israel.
Overall, the group has more than 80 portfolio companies, with a focus on mobile – applications, software, devices, infrastructure, and hardware including semi-conductors.
Kashyap serves on the boards of Avaak, Brain Corporation and Zeebo and is a board observer at Livescribe, Location Labs, Obopay and Sotera Wireless.
In June this year the group launched a $100m fund to invest in mobile health opportunities and has so far made six investments in that field, while Qualcomm Ventures has also supported early-stage deals with its QPrize.
Kashyap said: “This is one of the most interesting and fun jobs you can have, from matching people and technologies to Qualcomm, to helping take small companies to the next level.”
