Indian Americans and Indian Origin Investors Among the Latest member of Kauffman Fellows

Each year, Kauffman Fellows selects and develops a new group of accomplished investors who will participate in the two-year program part-time while investing full-time.

Fremont, CA: According to the recent news release, the newest Kauffman Fellows class includes two Indian Americans and two Indian-origin individuals. Santosh Sankar, Shikha Goyal, Shubhang Shankar, and Surabhi Nimkar are among the 57 newest members of the Kauffman Fellows global network of Innovation Investors.

Santosh Sankar is a Dynamo Ventures founding partner. He was an early investor in Stord, Gatik AI, and SVT Robotics, among other notable supply chain technology businesses. Before joining venture capital, Sankar worked at Citigroup in their Global Financial Institutions Group, where he focused on M&A, capital raising, and risk securitization, and later at Wells Fargo as a public equities analyst covering IT Hardware and Wireless Equipment firms. Sankar founded his first company, an IT support firm, at the age of thirteen. In 2017, he was selected on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list. He has a B.S. in finance and a minor in information systems management from Penn State University.

Shikha Goyal, a venture partner at Imaginable Futures, is in charge of the firm's strategy and investments in Africa. She worked at the Children's Funding Fund Foundation before joining Imaginable Futures and Omidyar Network, where she oversaw investment and management of initiatives to promote basic reading and numeracy for children in India and Sub-Saharan Africa. It adds that she was in charge of a portfolio worth more than $60 million, which included CIFF's investment in Early Learning Partnership, a multi-donor trust fund with the World Bank, Educate Girls India, the world's first education development impact bond, and Tayari, a low-cost early childhood education model implemented in 1,500 Kenyan schools.

In South Africa, Goyal is a board member for Innovation Edge and SPARK Schools and a board observer for SmartStart as well as a member of the Global Schools Forum's steering committee. She holds a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering from India's Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology and an M.B.A from France's INSEAD.

Shubhang Shankar is a managing director at Syngenta Group Ventures, the Syngenta Group's Corporate Venture Capital arm, the world's largest agri-inputs conglomerate. Ninjacart, Greeneye Technologies, Tarfin Ltd., Jai-Kisan, and BioPhero are all leading AgTech startups on which he currently serves on the board. Agri-fintech, emerging markets, digital and precision technology, and agri e-commerce are among Shankar's specialties. He's also working on several important projects for the parent company, including innovation and business development.

Before Syngenta, he spent eight years as a management consultant in the India offices of the Boston Consulting Group and AT Kearney. Shankar holds a master's degree in business administration from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and a bachelor's degree in electrical power engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.

Surabhi Nimkar is a principal at GreenHouse Capital, a Nigeria-based early-stage investor focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa. She focuses on fintech and corporate software, and she plays an active role in GHC's investment decisions. Nimkar's work at GreenHouse Funding also includes leading a women entrepreneur accelerator program (GreenHouse Lab) that gives capital and resources to women founders and connects them to a global network of more than 250 women leaders. Before joining GHC, she worked at Accenture as a management consultant, driving digital strategy for financial services customers from New York and London. She graduated from Boston University with a bachelor's degree in economics and finance.

The Kauffman Fellowship is a two-year executive education program focused on venture capital and the development of new technology, high-growth, high-impact startups, all while emphasizing one's role as an industry leader.