Padmaja Ruparel is nationally recognized as a key player in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem and has helped co found many of the relevant institutions, besides being an active Angel investor herself. Her operating experience spans large corporates, M&A, and startups/early stage companies.

She has been awarded as one of the ‘Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business’ by Fortune India for 4 years, is listed in Forbes India’s W- Power Trailblazers and “30 Most Powerful Women in India” by Business Today for 3 years running. The Women Economic Forum recognized her with its “Women of the Decade in Investment Banking” award.

She is Co Founder of Indian Angel Network (IAN), India’s single largest horizontal platform for seed and early stage investments. IAN is the first and now possibly one of the world’s largest group of business angels, comprising the who’s who of successful entrepreneurs and dynamic CEOs from India and overseas. She built IAN from inception, making it within 18 years a unique institution globally, with over 500 investors across 10 countries and a portfolio of over 225 companies in 7 countries, spanning 19 sectors. She operationalised IAN’s international operations in London, launching it from 10 Downing Street, making it the only angel group in the world to set up operations outside of its home country.

Padmaja is the Founder of BioAngels, India’s only sector focused angel investor group, in partnership with BIRAC, the innovation arm of the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India. BioAngels is the first angel investor group in partnership with any government body, world wide – an innovative public – private partnership, bringing deep engagement in the Healthcare & Cleantech sectors and has herself led several early stage investments in the space.

Padmaja has been nominated as Co Chair of Global Business Angel Network (GBAN). She is a member of the Government’s NEAC the National Expert Advisory Committee on Innovation, Incubation and Technology Entrepreneurship. She is a member of several committees of BIRAC (Dept. of Biotech, Govt. of India), various committees of Ministry of Finance, DPIIT, & SEBI. Padmaja is a member of the Executive Council of IVCA (Indian Venture Capital Association) and Co Leading the LP / Family Office Council. She is a member of NASSCOM’s Deep Tech Council.

Padmaja is the Founding Partner of IAN Group’s uniquely differentiated Venture Capital business with the IAN Fund I, a US$ 55mn SEBI registered AIF Category I VC Fund. As Senior Managing Partner, she has now launched the second Fund, with the IAN Alpha Fund, a US$125mn SEBI registered AIF Category II Venture Capital Fund.

Padmaja is an Independent Director on the Boards of Avendus Finance Pvt. Ltd., Ester Industries Ltd., Manipal Technologies Ltd as well as Startup Odisha.

Apart from cofounding IAN, she also set up and operationalised the Delhi chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) the world’s largest organization focused on entrepreneurship with over 16,000 members across more than 60 chapters across 14 countries. She also established a unique model of an incubator, in partnership with the Indian Government of India, leveraging 400 mentors to provide mentoring & domain expertise to around 50 young fledgling incubatee companies.

She helped the creation of Lankan Angel Network and Nepal Angel Network. She contributed actively in the Planning Commission’s Committee on “Angel & Early Stage Investing in India” which resulted in a seminal report: “Creating a Vibrant Entrepreneurial Eco system in India”.

In her corporate avatar at Xansa India, (Xansa was a US$800mn company listed on LSE before being acquired by Steria), she led several functions over a 16 year period : handled recruitment operations, built and successfully executed an innovative brand and communication strategy and led the corporate social responsibility initiative which engaged employees, clients as also the government. She was a key memberof the corporate strategy and M&A team as the Company went public, forged joint ventures and the final acquisition of the Indian company.

Padmaja picked up entrepreneurial strings very early in her career – she revived and grew the family real estate business in Calcutta – growing if from 50,000 sq ft to over 250,000 sq ft over 2 years and turned it around to become a profitable business.

A graduate with English Honours, Padmaja then completed her MBA as well as Chartered Accountancy (Intermediate) while interning with S.R. Batliboi (an E&Y group company).