NOĒSIS

I am Avishek Gupta. | LinkedIn | Twitter

I help drive sustainable development by financing the growth of professionally managed entrepreneurial ventures that solve key social and environmental problems.

I am the Managing Director and CEO of Caspian Debt. I am also an Investment Committee Member at Dvara Holdings. The contents of this website/blog are personal opinions. They do not represent the views of my employer or assocations.

Having financed and 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. Most recently, I was involved with growing Caspian Debt to a full-fledged operating company ( a social enterprise focussed venture debt firm) with about 50 team members across three Indian cities, from an initial 3 member fund investments team.

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

Previously, I worked with a structured finance firm and helped set up the structured debt funding desk in two sectors, viz. small business finance & housing finance. I helped small business finance, affordable housing finance and microfinance institutions raise financing through structured debt products from institutional lenders and investors.

Prior to this, I managed an incubator for start-ups across sectors like 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 that supported rural financial institutions offering cattle insurance, loan and healthcare to 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.

Specialities: 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 able to build certainty.

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