Vani Kola is the well-known name amongst the Women Entrepreneur & Investor fraternity. She is an Indian venture capitalist.
She is the founder & M.D. of Karaari Capitals. Karaari Capitals is known to be one of the most active and successful Venture Capitalist in India of the present times.
It is an early stage venture Capital firm. In 2014, Vani was listed as one of the most powerful women in Indian business by Fortune India.
As a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, she prefers to work with the first- time entrepreneurs and helps them create and construct strong and globally scaled companies.
Early life and education
Vani was born on 1963 or 64 in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. She completed her post-secondary studies at the age of 16.
From Osmania University, Hyderabad he completed her electrical engineering. She was one of the six girls among 400 students.
She got her bachelor degree in 1980. After that, she went to Arizona State University in the United States for Masters of Engineering.
Personal life of Vani Kola:
Vani got married to Srinivas Kola. The couple have two daughters (Tara & Sandya). She loves to practice sustainable living. She is growing enough produce in her own garden to fulfil her family’s need.
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Formerly she was an avid hiker, dog lover & runner. In 2000s, she ran marathons and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
She has been meditation practitioner for over two decades. She is practicing Ashtanga yoga devotedly currently.
Entrepreneurial Journey:
Silicon Valley:
Vani is having 22-years career in Silicon Valley. As a serial entrepreneur, she was the CEO & founder of e- procurement company RightWorks. After 4-years, she sold it to ICG for $657 million. After that she founded Certus Software, she was the CEO of that company.
Venture capital in India:
In 2006, she came back to India. After a successful career as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, she started a venture capital firm in India for growing Indian opportunity.
In 2006, Vani & Vinod Dham founded Indo-US Venture Partners (IUVP). In India, it was her initial undertaking into venture capital.
In September 2012, she started operations with a $150 million fund. As of 2017, under her leadership the company grew up to $ 650 million in assets.
She is the M.D. of Kalaari Capital. She is an early stage investor in technology. She works with entrepreneurs to build global companies, leveraging India’s domestic growth to create high growth enterprises.
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Her area of focus was on the technology firms in India. Her company Kalaari Capita funded more than 50 companies in India in E-commerce, Mobile Services, Education and Healthcare sectors.
She invested in e-commerce, mobile services, education & healthcare. Some of them are Myntra, Dream11, Snapdeal, Urban Ladder, VIA Apps Daily & Zivame. She is a frequent speaker at entrepreneurial forums like TiE, TED, DLD, and INK.
Charity:
ACT Grants:
ACT Grants, a non-profit initiative was setup in April 2020 due to pandemic COVID-19. Kola & other senior leaders lead it. It has a corpus of 100 crores, it supported 50-different ventures.
Heartfulness Institute:
Vani is a heart fullness trainer. She is actively involved in supporting the institute. It is a non-profit organisation. It focuses on human transformation through yoga and meditation.
Awards and recognition:
In 2014, Forbes knew Kola as one of the most powerful women in Indian business. On 20th July 2018, she was honoured with TiE Delhi-NCR 5th Edition of Women Entrepreneurship Summit Award in Delhi.
Kola was awarded the Midas Touch award for the best investor in 2015 as a part of first start-up awarded held by The Economic Times.
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She also received the NDTV Woman of the Worth award for leadership excellence in business and entrepreneurship.
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In 2016, she was identified as one of the LinkedIn Top Voices. In 2018 & 2019, she was profiled in many books & was named as one of Fortune India’s ‘Most Powerful Women in Business’.