Kunal Khattar
Founder & Managing Partner at AdvantEdge Founders
Speaker

Profile

Kunal leads the investment initiatives as well as operations at AdvantEdge Founders- India’s leading seed stage technology fund focusing on auto, mobility & the EV ecosystem. Kunal has been actively mentoring and investing in startups in his individual capacity as well. He is passionate about partnering with companies across the mobility spectrum including smart vehicles, digital auto, logistics, shared & electric mobility. Having identified trends in shared mobility early, Kunal led investments into and helped build market leaders in the space including Rapido, Shuttl, Chalo & ZingBus. Fund II continues it focus and has backed a number of market leaders including Exponent, Park+, Nakad, Sheru, Jar and TyrePlex.

Kunal has worked closely with his portfolio companies to raise subsequent rounds of capital from leading VC’s, PE’s and Hedge funds including Seqoia, LightSpeed, Matrix, Coteau, Ribbit, Amazon, Warburg, Fidelity, WestBridge, Nexus, Tiger, Accel, Khosla Ventures etc.

Kunal is a serial entrepreneur and an investor with over 25 years of global experience in varied corporate and entrepreneurial roles. He co-founded Carnation Auto - India’s first and largest independent Multi-Brand Auto Solutions company which he exited to one of India’s largest auto group - Mahindra. Kunal worked over a decade in the US including at Ford, Aptuit, Vodafone and Razorfish. He previously cofounded SimplyLook.com in Silicon Valley and also led the investment for a US based PE firm into Laurus Labs, raising capital from Fidelity & Warburg Pincus, taking it public on the BSE/NSE.

Kunal is a Director on the Boards of Rapido and ZingBus, Board Observer at Chalo, Exponent & Grip Invest. He is also an advisor to Droom, Park+ and Blue Atom.

Kunal is a Charter Member of TiE- The IndUS Entrepreneurs, IVCA and a Steering Committee Member of NASSCOM’s 10,000 Startup Initiative.

Kunal has a Bachelors degree in Economics (Honors) from Delhi University, an MBA from FSM, New Delhi and an MS from Kellogg and Medill School, Northwestern University.