US-based venture capital firm Charles River Ventures has appointed Swapnil Shah, former CEO and founder, mValent, for its India operations. His areas of interest on CRV website read:"Emerging technology-powered businesses, including consumer services, e-commerce and IT, with a concentration on opportunities in India." Our sources tell us that Shah has been appointed by CRV to head its India operations. VC Circle emailed Shah on this development but the mail did not elicit any response. Shah has been joined by Devdutt Yellurkar, who was previously a venture partner at Rho Ventures. His areas of interest reads: 'Emerging technology-powered businesses, including consumer services, e-commerce and IT, with a concentration on opportunities in India.'
Shah was till now working as a entrepreneur in residence with CRV. In April last year the firm had raised a $285 million fund, the firm's thirteenth. CRV's investing activities are focused on software, media, entertainment, communications technology, and data center infrastructure.
CRV also runs a programme called 'QuickStart', which tends to break away from traditional venture capital investing models and get small amounts of capital to new startups very quickly and without much equity dilution. Susan Wu, a venture partner who was working on the firm's QuickStart program had recently left the firm.
Shah will definitely bring quite a lot of entrepreneurial and operational experience to the CRV's portfolio companies. At mValent, Shah had raised several rounds of funding from VCs, which included Charles Rivers Ventures. Before mValent, Shah was the General Manager of the Wireless Division at Inktomi, a leading network infrastructure software company. Shah joined Inktomi in 1999 when it acquired Webspective, a venture-backed server management and content distribution software company that Shah founded.
Yellurkar also has some venture capital experience working with Rho Ventures, he was also the Co-Founder & CEO, Yantra Corporation, which specialised in order management and supply chain fulfilment applications. Yantra was acquired by Sterling Commerce, a division of AT&T, for $170 million in 2005.
