VP

Viraj Phanse

Venture capital investor at To be announced soon

San Francisco Bay Area

Overview

Viraj Phanse is a Venture Capital investor with a background in Product Management and Go-to-market Strategy, having held roles at companies like AWS, Oracle, and Aerospike. He has experience as a co-founder and CEO and has achieved a successful exit, while also serving as an Adjunct Faculty at San Jose City College and advising startups like Blockfenders. Viraj Phanse's career highlights include his roles in Product Management and Strategy at top tech companies like AWS and Oracle, as well as his experience as a co-founder and CEO with a successful exit. His current role as a Venture Capital investor allows him to leverage his expertise in product development and go-to-market strategies to support and advise startups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Work Experience

AV

Arka Venture Labs

Partner
2024 - Current
- Arka is a Benhamou Global Ventures’ cross-border pre-seed and seed fund investing in US-India enterprise AI companies. These companies are headquartered in the US, but with development and operations from India. - We are a US Delaware fund that enables Indian-origin entrepreneurs, building from India, to scale globally. - We have recently launched Fund II with a target of $15-20M and focused on enterprise AI companies at pre-seed and seed stage. - We have already achieved our first close and our anchor LP is BGV (www.bgv.vc), a cross border VC platform and an enterprise AI specialist deeply rooted in the heart of Silicon Valley, and with a presence in Israel, France, and India, deploying financial and human capital from seed stage to IPO. Successful track record of Fund I: - Launched in 2018/19 with a $7M fund size, Fund I is on track to be a top-performing fund with already a DPI of about 40% and a portfolio of 32 investments. - To date, Fund I has seen 9 exits, with 6 companies surpassing $1M in ARR, 1 company in YC, and 13 companies successfully raising follow-on rounds, collectively over $100M. - Email: viraj@arka.vc

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