Prashant Pahade

Prashant Pahade has a wealth of experience in the technology industry. Prashant started their career in 2000 as the Founder and CEO of Gizmo123, Inc., where they created a business, budget and operations plan and presented it to several VCs, and then recruited a founding and software engineering team. Prashant then moved to Cadence Design Systems in 2001, where they served as the Director of Sales and Business Development, and was responsible for selling products, services and advising the Business Unit on 'Product and Go-To Market' strategy. In 2006, they joined Apache Design Solutions Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Ansys, Inc., as the VP and Managing Director, and was responsible for starting Sales, Customer Success, and R&D operations in India from the ground-up. Prashant then grew it to over 25% of the company's strength. In 2014, they founded and led csfirst, a company with the mission to deliver a great customer experience to bring out customer loyalty and advocacy. In 2017, they joined the Indian Angel Network as a Member, and also became the Lead Investor and Member of the Board of Advisors for PublicVibe (formerly NewsDistill). In 2020, they joined JITO INCUBATION & INNOVATION FOUNDATION as an Investment Committee Member, and in 2021 they became a Scale-up Partner for SafeAI, Inc. and a Lead Investor and Board of Directors for AutomataPi Solutions Private Limited.

Prashant Pahade holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communications from the Manipal Institute of Technology.