Ajay Hattangdi is Co-founder & Managing Partner of Alteria Capital, India’s largest Venture Debt Fund with almost $350mn under management. He has been working with the Indian technology industry for over 22 years and with start-ups and venture capital firms for over 16 years.
Ajay was an early pioneer in the venture capital industry in India and started the country’s first venture lending program in 2005. Prior to starting Alteria Capital in 2017, Ajay was the Founder & CEO of SVB India Finance, India’s first speciality firm providing alternative financing solutions to venture backed companies. He led SVB India as CEO from 2007 through a buyout in 2015 following which, SVB India was renamed InnoVen Capital. In addition to continuing his role as CEO for the flagship India business following the buyout, Ajay carried additional responsibility for introducing venture debt in other markets in Asia between 2015 and 2017, having set the strategy and supervised the firm’s expansion into China, Singapore and South East Asia.
In 2016, Ajay was recognized as being among the ‘Top 100 Leaders Shaping Finance across Asia’, and among ‘The 40 Who Matter in the Indian Start-up Ecosystem’. InnoVen Capital was awarded Asia’s Best Venture Lending Firm under his leadership in March 2017.
Ajay currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA) where he is also the Co-chair of the Credit & Special Situations Council. He also serves on the Board of Mumbai Angels which is among the largest angel groups in India. In 1998, Ajay co-founded PRAJA Foundation (www.praja.org), a voluntary Mumbai-based non-profit organization committed to re-establishing accountability and transparency in public governance.
Ajay holds an MBA from the State University of New York in Buffalo and a Masters in Banking & Finance from Mumbai University. Ajay enjoys squash, reading, a staple diet of food shows, and discovering new vacation destinations around the world with his wife and teenaged twins.