Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Karthik Prabhakar

“We are proud to have him with us.” It should be a phrase used by every boss to a colleague but when it comes Sudhir Sethi, founder and chairman of IDG Ventures India (IDGVI) and doyen of the industry, it carries a lot of authority.

But, then again, given it was said of Karthik Prabhakar it is probably unsurprising. Sethi had promoted Prabhakar to partner just five and a half years after he joined IDGVI as a summer intern from taking his PGDM – the Indian equivalent of an MBA – from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

In fact, Sethi told news provider YourStory that Prabhakar had been the youngest promoted partner in the country. In nominating Prabhakar again for the Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars 2017 awards, Sethi said: “Karthik has led IDG Ventures India fundraising effort along with stellar investments in firms like NestAway and PlaySimple. In the short period of six years he is a partner at the firm and a role model to many in India on his ability to shoulder responsibility, work in teams and build trust with investors. Karthik is a glue to the firm and a true asset. We at IDG Ventures India are proud to have him with us “

Prabhakar is on the boards of PlaySimple Games, a mobile casual gaming studio in which IDGVI reinvested as part of its $4m series A round in November, and NestAway Technologies, an online home rentals marketplace that closed $30m for its C round in April.

He is also a board observer at LetsVenture Online, a crowdfunding platform for startups that raised its A round in October 2015, Newgen Software, an enterprise content management product suite that raised a reported $15.5m in 2014, and ULink BioEnergy, a mobile commerce platform called AgroStar for agriculture that raised $3.6m in August 2015.

Prabhakar said he had also led the investment in Living Consumer Products, and assisted on FieldEZ, which he stepped down from the board in April. He was an active part of the team advising on the exit from investment in Manthan Systems at the end of 2014.

But outside of dealmaking, it is Prabhakar’s fundraising prowess that is important to Sethi’s plan to develop a global venture fund from India.

Prabhakar said he had raised more than $250m since 2011 and “successfully set up the processes and systems required to run this engine in the firm”.

IDGVI manages about $500m and with about 60 portfolio companies but started also raising in rupees in 2013 and about a fifth of its total assets is now from local investors, including Kris Gopalakrishnan, one of Infosys’ founders.

Sethi told YourStory: “In China, almost 60% of venture capital is local money. In India, it is less than 5%. “There is a lot of wealth in India and it is going into real estate and stock market.

“There is a difference between a rupee investor and a dollar investor. Dollar investor is macro in nature while rupee investor is, on the ground, micro in nature. It is a great value-add. If Indians are investing in India, the international investors gain confidence.”

And more money allows IDGVI to expand internationally. (IDGVI is part of IDG Ventures, a global network of technology venture funds with more than $4bn under management, over 200 investee companies and 10 offices across Asia and North America founded by International Data Group, the US-based publisher that invests in its regional corporate venturing units but leaves control and strategy to be set by the local team.)

Sethi said as well as nominating Prabhakar, “I would recommend Karan Mohla, partner consumer media and tech. He also leads our China programme.”

Before joining IDGVI in 2011, Prabhakar worked in product engineering and technical marketing roles, first at chipmaker Intel as a software engineer to speed up data transmission around the internet. During this time, in his spare time, he worked on a project that led to filing of a patent in the area of wireless sensor networks.

He then quit Intel’s new business initiatives to join IIM Bangalore and land at IDGVI.