About

I am Avishek Gupta. | LinkedIn | Twitter

I am passionate about sustainable and inclusive development achieved through financial innovations and through the use of technology.

I am currently supporting impact investing firm GAWA Capital, an European Impact Investment Firm.

Till very recently, I was the Managing Director and CEO of Caspian Debt. I am an Investment Committee Member at Dvara Holdings. I also served on the Regional Advisory Committee South Asia Chapter of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE). The contents of this website/blog are personal opinions. They do not represent the views of my employer or associations.

I have helped finance and have observed over 250 ventures from close quarters. I understand the challenges that such ventures face in scaling up. I have the knowledge of process, financing and technology solutions that can help overcome those challenges. Separately, I have the experience of building businesses that finance early/growth stage companies. Recently, I helped grow Caspian Debt into a full-fledged operating company. It is a social enterprise focused venture debt firm. We expanded from a 3 member fund investments team to about 75 team members. Our team is spread across three Indian cities.

At Caspian Debt, we provide growth financing to entrepreneurial ventures across multiple sectors. These include food & agribusiness, healthcare, clean energy, education, financial inclusion, affordable housing, etc.

Before, I was employed by a structured finance firm. I helped set up the structured debt funding desk in two sectors, viz. small business finance & housing finance. I helped small business finance institutions secure funds through structured debt products. I worked with affordable housing finance and microfinance institutions to obtain financing from institutional lenders and investors.

Prior to this, I managed an incubator for start-ups. These start-ups were across various sectors. They included dairy, agriculture, rural tourism, drinking water, and rural energy.

At the beginning of my career, I set up a technology backed dairy supply chain company. This company supported rural financial institutions. It offered cattle insurance, loans, and healthcare. These services were for dairy farmers residing in remote rural locations across three Indian states (Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Uttarakhand). It would have been called “Insure-tech” in today’s terms.

I did my management education from the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) and hold a B.Tech degree in Dairy Technology and a Masters in Dairy Chemistry.

Specialties: Building and scaling new businesses; building teams; setting processes; developing technology roadmap for new businesses especially for financial services. 

Generally interested in: technology for development and finance.

Love learning about new things, food and football.

My comfort with uncertainty is balanced with my comfort of being capable of building certainty.

I have reasonably strong opinions about issues. But, my opinion about things and issues can change if I see enough justification.