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OUR TEAM

Core Team
Advisory Board

Manu Chandra

Founder

Yash Dholakia

Partner

Zoeb Ali Khan

Vice President

Karan Kathpalia

Senior Associate

Padma Milhotra

Associate

Vasundhara Bhagat

Senior Analyst

Chetan Ghodke

Senior Analyst

Mayur Maheshwari

Fund Operations Manager

Richa Oberoi

Executive Assistant

Namita Nayal

Executive - Admin and Operations

Mayur Maheshwari

Fund Operations Manager

Richa Oberoi

Executive Assistant

Govind Shrikhande

Ex-MD Shoppers Stop

Apparel/Retail

Shripad Nadkarni

Former Marketing Head, Coca-Cola, Founder Market Gate, Founder Fingerlix

Manufacturing

Arjun Purkayastha

Global e-Commerce and DTC Brands Expert and Venture Capitalist

Brand Development

Rohan Mirchandani

Founder & CEO Epigamia

Food and Beverages

Vispi Patel

Senior Advisor
L Catterton Asia

Retail and Luxury

Arindam Paul

Chief Buness Officer / Founding Team
Atomberg

Investment Manager Cornucopia Consumer Venture Advisory LLP
Scheme Sauce Continuity Fund I Sauce Consumer Venture Capital I Sauce Consumer Venture Capital II Sauce Consumer Venture Capital III
Trust name Sauce Continuity Trust Sauce Capital Trust Sauce Capital Trust II Sauce Capital Trust III
Category Category II AIF Category I VCF Category II AIF Category II AIF
SEBI Registration no. IN/AIF2/22-23/1107 IN/AIF1/19-20/0700 IN/AIF2/21-22/0907 IN/AIF2/23-24/1460
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Manu Chandra

Founder

Manu is the Founder of Sauce.vc, a VC fund focused on early stage consumer bets with an AUM of Rs 850cr
He has been a key investor in the idea-stage to Rs 200cr+ and beyond scale-up journeys of several brands like Mokobara, Hocco Ice Creams, the Whole Truth Foods, Epigamia, XYXX Innerwear and Innovist.
Prior to founding Sauce.vc in 2019, he was an investment director with 3i group, a FTSE listed private equity firm. He is a graduate of IIM Ahmedabad where he was a Ratan Tata Scholar.

Yash Dholakia

Partner

Yash is a senior member of the investing team at Sauce. An investment professional for nearly a decade, he has a strong passion for consumer brands and businesses. He started his career as a marketer, building multiple iconic brands in real estate, before moving to investing. He was the founding member at Tomorrow Capital, an early stage consumer focused VC, where he built the team and led investments worth over INR 100 Cr in consumer businesses like Generico (now Zeno Health), Leverage Edu, Bonito Designs, and BeyondSkool. He was on the Board and played a key role in scaling up Generico, helped with setting up key functions and strategic hiring, and delivered a multi-bagger cash exit for the fund. Prior to that, he worked at a family office in Singapore where he handled investments across asset classes in the Asia Pacific region. Yash is an MBA (PGDM) from IIM Ahmedabad and a Chemical Engineer from ICT Mumbai.

Zoeb Ali Khan

Vice President

Zoeb is a founding member of Sauce.vc. He has experience in consumer and technology startups. Previously he was a Project Manager at Myra, a Matrix Partners portfolio startup. He was also responsible for marketing activities, branding campaigns, and consumer research there. Prior to that, Zoeb was an associate at Wingify Software where he worked on CRM and sales automation projects. He holds a BBS (Finance) degree from College of Business Studies, Delhi University.

Karan Kathpalia

Senior Associate

Karan joins the investment team to help widen our reach in assisting the portfolio. Prior to Sauce, Karan was an Analyst at the marquee Canadian pension fund CDPQ. He has previously worked at a multi-billion-dollar family investment office based out of Dubai after which he pursued a career in treasury sales and trading at a leading Indian private sector bank based out of Mumbai. He also holds a Bachelors in Management Studies from University of Nottingham, and a Masters in International Business.

Padma Milhotra

Associate

Padma joins the Investment team as an Associate. Prior to Sauce, Padma was an Investment Associate with Stride Ventures, a venture debt fund based out of India where she worked for 3 years. She has experience working with Consumer and B2B start-ups. She has previously worked at PwC under the assurance domain based out of Gurgaon. She is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor’s degree from Delhi University.  

Vasundhara Bhagat

Senior Analyst

Vasundhara joins the investment team as a Junior Analyst. Prior to this, she has previously worked at Impact Consulting on start-up advisory projects and interned at Sauce for 6 months during which she led strategic initiatives for our portfolio companies. She hold a Bachelors in Economics degree from Calcutta University.

Chetan Ghodke

Senior Analyst

Chetan joins the Investment Team as a Senior Analyst. Prior to Sauce, he was a part of the Investment Teams at Gruhas, AdvantEdge Founders and Speciale Invest where he worked on early-stage investments across diverse sectors. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from BITS Pilani.

Mayur Maheshwari

Fund Operations Manager

Mayur has 12 years of experience in finance and operations across financial services and other sectors. Immediately prior to joining Sauce.vc, Mayur worked at JP Morgan & Chase, handling fund administration of infrastructure and private equity funds. Prior to that, Mayur worked with ICICI Venture as a part of the finance team responsible for accounting for real estate funds and one private equity fund managed by ICICI Venture. He has been involved in MIS, accounting and budgeting of investment manager as well. Mayur started his career at AXA Technologies (a subsidiary of AXA SA, France) where he was responsible for corporate accounting and MIS functions of the Indian entity. He has also worked at Honeywell Centre of Excellence, Bengaluru handling the finance controllership activities for Honeywell entities based in Eastern Europe.
Mayur is a Chartered Accountant and a Commerce graduate from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Richa Oberoi

Executive Assisstant

Richa is an Executive Assistant with over a decade of experience supporting senior executives. Her expertise includes adept calendar management, seamless travel coordination, event planning, and precise expense handling.  Her professional background features roles at leading organizations such as American Express, Microsoft, and Lexis Nexis. Richa holds a degree from Delhi University and is passionate about contributing to team success. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling and spending quality time with her family.

Namita Nayal

Executive - Admin & Operations

Namita Nayal joins Sauce as Executive – Admin & Operations, bringing her expertise in program support, donor management, database management, and procurement gained during her time at Habitat for Humanity India. She supports the Fin Ops and Investment teams with compliance, deal pipeline management and portfolio tracking. She holds a Masters Degree in Political Science.

Govind Shrikhande

Ex-MD Shoppers Stop

Apparel/Retail

Yash is a senior member of the investing team at Sauce. An investment professional for nearly a decade, he has a strong passion for consumer brands and businesses. He started his career as a marketer, building multiple iconic brands in real estate, before moving to investing. He was the founding member at Tomorrow Capital, an early stage consumer focused VC, where he built the team and led investments worth over INR 100 Cr in consumer businesses like Generico (now Zeno Health), Leverage Edu, Bonito Designs, and BeyondSkool. He was on the Board and played a key role in scaling up Generico, helped with setting up key functions and strategic hiring, and delivered a multi-bagger cash exit for the fund. Prior to that, he worked at a family office in Singapore where he handled investments across asset classes in the Asia Pacific region. Yash is an MBA (PGDM) from IIM Ahmedabad and a Chemical Engineer from ICT Mumbai.

Shripad Nadkarn

Former Marketing Head, Coca-Cola, Founder Market Gate, Founder Fingerlix

Manufacturing

Yash is a senior member of the investing team at Sauce. An investment professional for nearly a decade, he has a strong passion for consumer brands and businesses. He started his career as a marketer, building multiple iconic brands in real estate, before moving to investing. He was the founding member at Tomorrow Capital, an early stage consumer focused VC, where he built the team and led investments worth over INR 100 Cr in consumer businesses like Generico (now Zeno Health), Leverage Edu, Bonito Designs, and BeyondSkool. He was on the Board and played a key role in scaling up Generico, helped with setting up key functions and strategic hiring, and delivered a multi-bagger cash exit for the fund. Prior to that, he worked at a family office in Singapore where he handled investments across asset classes in the Asia Pacific region. Yash is an MBA (PGDM) from IIM Ahmedabad and a Chemical Engineer from ICT Mumbai.

Arjun Purkayastha

Global e-Commerce and DTC Brands Expert and Venture Capitalist

Brand Development

Yash is a senior member of the investing team at Sauce. An investment professional for nearly a decade, he has a strong passion for consumer brands and businesses. He started his career as a marketer, building multiple iconic brands in real estate, before moving to investing. He was the founding member at Tomorrow Capital, an early stage consumer focused VC, where he built the team and led investments worth over INR 100 Cr in consumer businesses like Generico (now Zeno Health), Leverage Edu, Bonito Designs, and BeyondSkool. He was on the Board and played a key role in scaling up Generico, helped with setting up key functions and strategic hiring, and delivered a multi-bagger cash exit for the fund. Prior to that, he worked at a family office in Singapore where he handled investments across asset classes in the Asia Pacific region. Yash is an MBA (PGDM) from IIM Ahmedabad and a Chemical Engineer from ICT Mumbai.

Rohan Mirchandani

Founder & CEO Epigamia

Food and Beverages

Yash is a senior member of the investing team at Sauce. An investment professional for nearly a decade, he has a strong passion for consumer brands and businesses. He started his career as a marketer, building multiple iconic brands in real estate, before moving to investing. He was the founding member at Tomorrow Capital, an early stage consumer focused VC, where he built the team and led investments worth over INR 100 Cr in consumer businesses like Generico (now Zeno Health), Leverage Edu, Bonito Designs, and BeyondSkool. He was on the Board and played a key role in scaling up Generico, helped with setting up key functions and strategic hiring, and delivered a multi-bagger cash exit for the fund. Prior to that, he worked at a family office in Singapore where he handled investments across asset classes in the Asia Pacific region. Yash is an MBA (PGDM) from IIM Ahmedabad and a Chemical Engineer from ICT Mumbai.

Arindam Paul

Founding Member and CBO Atomberg

As the Chief Business Officer and a founding team member at Atomberg, one of India’s fastest-growing digital-first consumer brands, Arindam has been instrumental in driving the company’s revenue from 0 to an impressive Rs 1000 crores over eight years. Before joining Atomberg, he gained hands-on experience as a management consultant for 18 months, focusing on actionable business strategies.

Arindam has successfully navigated various stages of startup growth, from spearheading initial online launches and managing campaigns on platforms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, to scaling e-commerce operations, crafting brand strategies, and expanding offline distributions. Currently, he is focused on enhancing offline distribution and sales, as well as brand building as Atomberg continues to expand.

Additionally, Arindam actively contributes to the Indian startup ecosystem by sharing insights from his Atomberg journey on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, and by offering pro bono consulting to other startup founders and leaders. His innovative approach in a traditionally low-engagement industry has garnered him industry recognition and accolades.