Investing in Sustainable, Smart Mobility For India

Charles has worked on over 50 transactions spanning 8 countries and totaling over $14 billion in total value. He has closed successfully IPO’s, Private Equity and Venture investments, LBO’s and mergers and acquisitions of public and private companies. Charles comes to this experience through a unique blend of operational, legal and financial experience. This experience has spanned boardrooms in New York, and other global financial capitals, to small logistics and farming centres in rural parts of the worlds.

Prior to co-founding Emergent, Charles gained a uniquely robust experience in the global investing arena through legal, operational and finance roles. Most recently, Charles was the global head of Mergers & Acquisitions for Harman International, a Fortune 500 company and a leader in the Connected Car space. Harman was acquired Samsung in 2017, in the largest acquisition Samsung has made in order to gain access to the connected car assets at Harman International.

Prior to Harman, Charles spent several years at an Apollo portfolio company, United Agri Products, where he serviced as the Director fo Retail operations and Assistant General Counsel. Charles started his career as an attorney in New York, New York, at O’Melveny, where he practiced corporate transactional and corporate securities law.

Charles earned an MBA from Wharton, a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University.

Karan has over 13 years of Private Equity, Venture Capital, Structured Finance and M&A experience across India, South East Asia and United States. He has actively worked across all segments of private equity/venture capital— fundraising, investing, portfolio management and exiting of investments— including serving on the board of portfolio companies.

Karan is currently a Partner at Ev2 Ventures, transitioning from over a 5-year stint as a Partner (Joined as Principal & promoted to Partner) from Velos Partners – a global Venture Capital firm with offices in North America, Europe and Asia, focusing on investing at the intersection of consumer and technology, where the exponential pace of innovation is transforming traditional behavior and business models. As part of the firm’s core strategy, he focused on three main sectors: health and wellness; retail innovation and technology; and luxury and entertainment, following a dual pronged approach of investing in Early Stage companies (Below $1 million) and Growth Stage companies (Above $1 million – Series B or Later).

He has been responsible for identifying emerging industry trends, evaluating investment opportunities across sectors, deal structuring and assisting in the entry and exit strategy of various companies. He has also been instrumental in investing and growing the Asia Pacific portfolio including serving on Board along with active participation in select portfolios across the United States.

Karan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration specializing in Marketing from the Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship Development, Pune, and a Masters in Management Studies specializing in Finance from the University of Mumbai.