Dallas Venture Capital

Raising Startups To
Success With A Unique
Collaborative Partnership

Guiding companies to ace
the startup race

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Our Philosophy

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We invest and partner with growing startups in overcoming the hurdles and catalyze their sprint to success

Dallas Venture Capital (DVC) is a Dallas based  early-stage venture fund investing in AI/ML, IoT, XR and other emerging technologies launched by enterprise-focused entrepreneurs. In addition to providing capital and financing needs, our investment philosophy centers around guiding business development, product, and technology strategy for our portfolio companies through ‘DVC Advantage’ to achieve successful outcomes. Operating from USA and India, we aim to create a bridge that connects the two large global markets.

advantage

‘DVC Advantage’ is our proprietary engine for helping our portfolio scale. Our growth playbook follows a data driven model and is the result of repeated success across past investments

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accelerate

Having a team with vast experience in growing and scaling technology startup companies and a great network of advisors and partners, we help our portfolio companies overcome the primary obstacles and accelerate their growth.

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Quick

At DVC we extend a red carpet welcome to startups, founders and entrepreneurs! Congratulations & Welcome aboard! A classic entrepreneur dilemma is when to receive external funding from a venture capital company.

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Portfolio

DVC has invested in over 20 technology-focused companies and has five successful exits with a combined portfolio enterprise value of close to US $ 1 billion.

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People

We are a team of accomplished business leaders with entrepreneurial DNA and a track record of helping founders reach their full potential
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Investment Professionals

Abidali Neemuchwala
Dayakar Puskoor
Gokul Dixit
Ravish Ailinani
Shyam Penumaka
Sujay Chebbi

Venture Partners

Adhavan Manickam
Kamesh Somanchi
Kishen Kavikondala
Raghu Chittimalla
Shailendra Tipparaju
Tariq Akbar
Venkat Kolli

Advantage Growth Team

Abidali Neemuchwala
Dayakar Puskoor
Gowri Shankar
Kamesh Somanchi
Kiran Kalluri
Murali Narayanan
Phani Neti
Rahul Merchant
Raj Srivastava
Ram Sridharan
Jim Farnsworth

Finance & Operations

Dayakar Puskoor
Gokul Dixit
Kiran Kalluri
Shyam Penumaka
Sujay Chebbi
Shivam Satija

Directors

Abidali Neemuchwala
Dayakar Puskoor
Rahul Merchant

People

We are a team of accomplished business leaders with entrepreneurial DNA and a track record of helping founders reach their full potential
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Investment professionals

Abidali Neemuchwala

Co-Founder and Director

Adhavan Manickam

Venture Partner

Dayakar Puskoor

Founder and Managing Director

Gokul Dixit

Venture Partner

Kamesh Somanchi

Venture Partner & Chief Business Officer

Rahul Merchant

Director

Ravish Ailinani

Partner

Shailendra Tipparaju

Venture Partner

Shyam Penumaka

Partner

Shivam Satija

Junior Analyst

Sujay Chebbi

Analyst

Tariq Akbar

Venture Partner

Our advisors

Jarrod Germano

Advisor

Jim DeBello

Advisor

Jim Farnsworth

Advisor & Business Development Partner

Murali Narayanan

Advisor & Business Development Partner

News and Insights

Where is your company located

USA / Others
India
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Abidali (Abid) Z. Neemuchwala

Co-Founder and Director

Beginning his leadership journey with Tata Consulting Services (TCS), Abid has established himself as a humble, inventive and passionate leader with a remarkable career spanning multiple countries and organizations. Prior to joining DVP, Abid was Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Wipro Limited overseeing $8 billion in revenue and more than 180,000 employees serving clients across six continents. His passion about nurturing innovation, mentoring startups and celebrating entrepreneurship roots back to stewarding Wipro Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Wipro Limited that raised US$100 million in 2015 & US$150 million in 2020.

A statesman of the services industry and a thought leader advising Global CIO’s on Digital Transformation, Abid brings in rich experience in business and technology along with an extensive network that can benefit the startup ecosystem in Dallas. Being an advocate of change and a believer in simplification of processes with focus on talent development, Abid has led the creation of deep capabilities in human-centric design, cloud, artificial intelligence, and hyper-automation.

Over the course of a 28 year long distinguished career in the global IT services industry Abid has established a reputation as a bold transformative thinker with deep operational knowledge and broad strategic insight in building and scaling businesses. Throughout his professional journey Abid has been facilitated with several awards and recognition including BPO CEO of the Year 2010 & 2012, Elevate Texas Award 2017, and Distinguished Alumni Award 2020 IIT Bombay among others.

A post-graduate in Industrial Management from IIT Mumbai and a graduate in Electronics and Communication from NIT, Raipur, Abid enjoys travelling, Indian music, reading fiction, and chess. He is equally passionate about the community and his family and lives with his wife and three children in Dalla, Texas. Abid currently serves on the board of the World Affairs Council of Dallas Ft. Worth and the Texas Economic Development Corporation.

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Adhavan Manickam

Venture Partner

Adhavan Manickam is a serial entrepreneur, technologist, investor, mentor, and an accomplished R&D professional having consulted for Ericsson Inc, in US and Sweden for 8 years. He founded a mobile platform company for personalized and contextual information delivery, was co-founder & CTO of a startup that developed an Industrial IoT platform which was acquired by a large industrial fluid manufacturer. He has been involved with Naya as an advisor and investor for over a year before becoming a Venture Partner. He has a Bachelor’s in Electronics and Communications Engineering from University of Madras, India and Masters in Electrical Engineering from University of Texas, Arlington. A long-term resident of Dallas, TX, he loves outdoor activities such as golfing, skiing, hiking & camping. His other passions include motorcycles and traveling the world with his wife and son.

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Dayakar Puskoor

Founder and Managing Director

Dayakar Puskoor, Founder and Managing Director of Dallas Venture Capital (DVC), is a serial entrepreneur turned visionary investor, who had the foresight to launch one of the first tech-focused venture fund. Headquartered in post-telecom Dallas, the fund invested in several pioneering early stage startups in cloud, AI/ML and mobile technologies in Dallas, Silicon Valley, Seattle and India.

Passionate about mentoring founding teams of startups, Dayakar operates with a philosophy to Invest, Engage, Collaborate, Grow & Exit. The spirit of this philosophy has resulted in several path breaking transformations and winning exits for startups. His mantra of “Entrepreneur investing in other Entrepreneurs”, has led to the creation of a like-minded ecosystem of Investors, Advisors and Startups for mutual success.

Besides playing a key role in Dallas Venture Capital, Dayakar is also Executive Chairman at Motivity Labs, GlobalOutlook and KeepTrax, Board Member at CoreStack, FelixHealthCare, Kore.ai, Altia Systems, SnapOne, and Viviota, Board Observer at Minetta Brook and an Advisory Board Member at Boxfish and Glympse.

Dayakar began his career with Motorola where he owned the P&L for the Paging product and received the Engineering Excellence Award from management at Nippon Motorola. Following which, as Founder and CEO of JP Mobile, he pioneered the industry’s first mobile software solutions company considered to be inventor of wireless email for the Palm PDA platform. He secured $55 million in financing and successfully completed its acquisition by Good Technology, later acquired by Motorola. Prior to founding Dallas Venture Capital, Dayakar owned the P&L for the Hosting & Mobility Solutions business at Microsoft. He was responsible for the incubation, development & management of new mobility and cloud solutions. He also led the $350M hosting business encompassing all product development, product management, marketing, and business development.

Dayakar is an active supporter of entrepreneurs and startups. He has been involved with the Dallas chapter of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) since 1999 and is currently a charter member. Among other activities, he chaired the wireless/mobility SIG of TiE, and organized a wireless seminar in partnership with Nokia, Texas Instruments and others. Dayakar has also been featured in numerous publications, including Forbes, where he is a thought leader and occasional contributor. Dayakar earned a master’s degree in computer science from Nova Southeastern University. 

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Gokul Dixit

Venture Partner

Gokul Dixit brings two decades’ experience in North American, European and Asian capital markets, including bond & equity issuances, leveraged loans, private equity buyouts, venture capital investments, financial restructuring, asset-backed structured finance, cash, commodities and currency risk management. As a treasury analyst and investment manager, Gokul has led investments in start-up ventures. As a corporate turnaround specialist, he brought operational improvements and strategic alliances for his portfolio.  He has also managed investments in multiple asset-cycles, asset classes and geographies.

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Kamesh Somanchi

Venture Partner & Chief Business Officer

A dedicated Health and Life Sciences senior executive for over 2 decades at Global organizations like Accenture, Cognizant and Atos, Kamesh brings transformative ideas, insights and best practices to Insurance, Hospitals & Health Systems, Pharma, Biotech, Medical Device, Public Service entities in the areas of IT Strategy & Transformation. As a Senior Executive and a widely recognized leader in HLSP industry, Kamesh has excelled in building, managing and growing large P&L ($2B) as part of his illustrious career, as he partners with customers, providing C Level guidance in accelerating their growth agenda while helping them transform into high performing business. 

Kamesh has successfully built go to market strategies, high performing teams and reinvented business models to drive outcomes for customers. As an author and industry known thought leader, Kamesh built industry first and multi cloud/digital technology driven Payer-Provider collaborative model, Consumer & Physician Engagement model, Connected Care Model, the initial Real World Evidence/Data model and the Patient Centric Clinical Research model that tapped into nascent markets and grew them to become standard/mature offerings that are common in the industry today.

A strong believer in caring for the communities we live in and giving back, you’ll find Kamesh volunteering time as well as fund raising for various charity organizations. He loves to read about India mythology, modern medicine and has two high energy kids and a doting wife, who challenge him to exceed their lofty expectations as a family man, everyday!

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Rahul Merchant

Director

Rahul Merchant is the Senior Executive Vice President of Client Service and Technology for the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA).

Prior to joining DVC, Rahul was the former Executive Vice President, Chief Information and Operations Officer and Member of the Executive Committee at Fannie Mae, and Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer at Merrill Lynch. Rahul currently serves on the board of directors for Kyndryl (spin-off from IBM) Juniper Network (JNPR), Convergint Technologies, and Global Cloud Exchange. Rahul has also served on multiple public and private boards including FICO, Level 3, Sun Microsystems, Zipari, etc. Rahul has served as an advisor to several VC and PE firms. With his deep experiences and insights, Rahul will provide valuable contributions in the areas of investing, strategy, and scaling up of DVC’s portfolio companies.
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Ravish Ailinani

Partner

Ravish Ailinani has extensive experience in corporate strategy, finance and venture capital investments. He has over $70B of announced transaction experience including M&A, IPOs, growth stage investing, equity and debt capital market transactions and capital raises.

Prior to DVC, he lead Corporate Development at Caesars Entertainment in Las Vegas and was a Vice President at Evercore, the leading M&A-focused investment bank in New York City where he advised C-Suite executives and Board of Directors of Fortune 500 companies, top private equity firms, and sovereign wealth funds. Ravish holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.
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Shailendra Tipparaju

Venture Partner

An active serial entrepreneur, technologist and an executive coach, Shailendra Tipparaju (Shailu) has a cross-industry global footprint spanning over two decades. He has been a founding member of several Education Technology companies from concept to scale before successful exits, that have generated an enterprise value of over half a billion dollars.

Shailu also serves as the chairman of Chicago based Colosseum Group, a global brand of companies that focuses on investments, incubation, research, engineering, education, and creative brand communications. As the Vice-Chairman of Atal Balachandran Great Lakes Incubation AGBI, Shailu has helped foster entrepreneurship by mentoring, investing and advising over 50 companies.

Prior to his current active roles, he has been a founding member of EdAssist (acquired by Bain Capital Bright Horizons in 2010), Strateology (by University Ventures in 2017), and Examity (by Great Hill Partners in 2019). Between 2008 to 2013, he led the Technology Innovation program at CVS Pharmacy, a Fortune 10 company, to head implementations of shared services platforms. His first stint started as an intern in 1999 at Xerox innovation group (then part of Motorola division) and grew to lead several successful global engineering initiatives at Motorola, Delta Airlines, and GlaxoSmithKline. He was Xerox’s top performing employee worldwide in 2015.

A widely published author and speaker, Shailu has been recognized as one of the top 100 Education pioneers in 2020 and is an active contributor in various standardized and certification global councils in the EdTech domain.  A patriot, artist, musician, educator, and a strong family-man, Shailu believes in purposeful balanced living and compassionate capitalism. He heads up the Colosseum Foundation with a mission to create self-belief in individuals and guide the next generations to use entrepreneurship as a medium to build global ties, showcase global patriotism blended with compassionate capitalism, and promote the culture, heritage and spirit of intellectuality, hospitality, and spirituality globally. 

A lifelong learner, Shailu has a Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India and a Master’s in Computer Science from Loyola University, Chicago. He is currently pursuing a management program at the Harvard Business School at Boston.  He lives in Chicago with his wife and best friend of more than two decades, Sireesha, and his two super-hero sons, Dhanush and Ankush.

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Shyam Penumaka

Partner

Shyam Penumaka brings more than two and half decades of experience in Investment Banking and Information Technology.  As a founding managing partner of an advisory firm, Shyam has advised multiple startups across technology and solar sectors to raise equity capital and in M & A transactions. A seasoned information technology professional with a global outlook Shyam has domain expertise in telecom, benefit administration and banking industries across North America and India. Shyam had led EDCs (Extended Delivery Centers) in India for large telecom operators in North America, UK and Europe. Shyam managed the engineering organization for a Silicon Valley startup that built multi tenet employee retirement self-care and employer contribution portals. Shyam volunteers for non-profit organizations and was the Hyderabad Chapter President of “Youth For Seva”, where he led multiple projects in green and health sectors in partnership with CSR divisions of large MNCs. Shyam holds an MBA from the prestigious Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad.

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Shivam Satija

Junior Analyst

Shivam Satija is a blend of financial expertise and a strategic mindset. Shivam has experience in investment banking, consulting, finance, and start-ups. Shivam also holds Global Rank 13 at the CFI Financial Modeling Competition 2019.

Prior to joining DVC, Shivam has interned in consulting at Cushman and Wakefield, a leading global real estate services firm, and in finance at Jindal Steel & Power, a leading Indian conglomerate. Shivam holds a Bachelor in Commerce (Honors) from Delhi University (DU) and a global certification in financial modeling (FMVA®) accredited by Corporate Finance Institute (CFI), Canada.

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Sujay Chebbi

Analyst

Sujay Chebbi is responsible for sourcing potential portfolio companies, supporting existing portfolio companies, and maintaining firm operations. Sujay serves as a board observer for AmplifAI.
 
Prior to joining DVC, Sujay worked in the energy industry in Houston. Sujay holds a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science in Business Analytics from the University of Texas at Austin.
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Tariq Akbar

Venture Partner

A serial entrepreneur since he was 16, Tariq is passionate about helping entrepreneurs chase their dreams, shape and realize their vision. A firm believer that as much about the journey as it is about the outcome, and entrepreneurs need mentorship as much as capital has landed him in Naya Ventures. His expertise includes engineering, management consulting and entrepreneurship.  His domain knowledge spans public sector, healthcare, tech, and real estate in North America, Europe and India. He currently serves as the CEO for LegalEase Solutions and prior experience includes Deloitte, GE and Rockwell Engineering. He holds a Master’s in Industrial and Management Engineering from Rensselaer, NY and is an active investor in emerging tech, F&B, and real estate. His interests include reading, swimming, and failed attempts at surfing.

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Jarrod Germano

Advisor & Business Development Partner

Jarrod Germano is a result-oriented, hands-on leader in healthcare management consulting. Jarrod is a dynamic leader and business transformation focused, managing large teams across complex IT manage service and project-based engagements. Jarrod has vast experience working with healthcare provider organizations with annual revenues from $500MM to $30B. Jarrod has a proven track record of success working with healthcare organizations to execute and transform their mission and vision into everyday operations. Jarrod holds a Bachelor’s degree from Florida State University.

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Jim DeBello

Advisor

Jim DeBello is a technology entrepreneur and chief executive with a proven track record of achieving rapid growth and exceptional shareholder value. He has demonstrated leadership and vision to think outside the box, create exciting solutions, build global enterprises and develop highly efficient teams. He has raised over $100 million in capital for companies he has led in AI, social media, WiFi and telecommunications.

He holds six patents and has run technology companies in six countries. As co-inventor of Mobile Check Deposit, DeBello transformed banking for 80 million consumers and the world’s largest banks.  He grew Mitek Systems, Inc. from $0.12 per share with a market cap under $5 million to NASDAQ listing and a $500 million valuation.

Jim holds a BA from Harvard, where he graduated magna cum laude and an MBA from Harvard’s Graduate School of Business. He is married to Tracey, his wife of 34 years. He is the doting father of Hadley, a Harvard honors graduate and Chinese Yenching Scholar. DeBello lives with his family in San Diego and is an avid sailor.

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Jim Farnsworth

Advisor & Business Development Partner

Jim Farnsworth has more than 20 years of experience with innovation, service, and leadership for large-scale businesses and their customers, and clients ranging from small businesses to Fortune 2000 companies and has worked around the world. Jim has developed complex customer solutions for some of the world’s leading brands.
 
Prior to joining DVC, Jim was a senior executive with SYKES, one of the world’s leading business process outsourcing (BPO) companies. Jim has worked extensively across the business services space with a key highlight as co-founder of his own consulting and professional services company — virtualwirks. Jim has served in various senior executive roles with Teleperformance, TTEC, MCI Communications, and Alpine Access. A native New Mexican, Jim holds a degree in International Relations and Business from the University of New Mexico.
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Murali Narayanan

Advisor

An advisor to Naya Ventures and to some of its portfolio companies since 2012, Murali Narayanan is an innovator at heart who holds 8 patents in his name till date. Starting his career at Bell Laboratories in the mid-70s as a fault tolerant computer architect and designer, Murali held senior management positions across several major companies such as Microsoft besides leading many startups throughout his career.

Until his retirement in 2018, Murali was with Planet Labs as an advisor to the company’s CTO. Before joining Planet, he was a consultant with AT&T IoT Solutions group and drove the development of wireless communication capabilities to meet the needs of auto manufacturers building autonomous vehicles.

Murali has an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Business, MSEE from University of Michigan, BSEE from Indian Institute of Science and BS in Physics from University of Madras (now Chennai). He is an avid nature photographer and lives with his wife Mythili and daughter Priya in Redmond, WA.