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

Meenakshi Agarwal

Operations and Administration Manager
Ex-MD Shoppers Stop

Apparel/Retail
Former Marketing Head, Coca-Cola, Founder Market Gate, Founder Fingerlix

Manufacturing
Global e-Commerce and DTC Brands Expert and Venture Capitalist

Brand Development
Founder & CEO Epigamia

Food and Beverages
Senior Advisor
L Catterton Asia

Retail and Luxury
Co Founder
Atomberg

Manu Chandra

Founder

Senior private investment professional who has been actively investing in the early stage consumer space. Manu’s passion for this space has led him to launch Sauce.vc. He was previously a Director at 3i Group, an FTSE listed UK headquartered private equity firm. He managed investments worth ₹2,000Cr+ there, investing across early to growth stages in sectors such as entertainment, industrials, infrastructure. He has driven exits via secondary sales and also taken his portfolio companies to successful IPOs. Manu has served as a director on the boards of several mid to large companies in India. Prior to 3i, he has had startup experience establishing Grail Research, a research and consulting firm, as one of its founding members and Chief of Staff. Manu also served Fortune 500 clients as a marketing and strategy consultant at Monitor Group. Prior to that, he worked in the consumer banking division of Citibank in sales and operations roles. Manu is an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad where he was awarded the Ratan Tata Scholarship for academic excellence and the Lehman Bros Scholarship for attending the exchange program at Anderson Business School at UCLA. He is a Computer Engineer from Delhi University.

Yash Dholakia

Director

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

Senior Associate

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

Junior 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.

Meenakshi Agarwal

Team Executive Assistant

Meenakshi has joined Sauce team as Team Executive Assistant. Prior to joining Sauce she was associated with Instaoffice as Executive Assistant to Co- Founder and handled Admin, operational and HR related roles. Earlier to this she had worked with Apeejay Stay, National Stock Exchange and ICICI bank with experience in Sales and Operations role. She had completed her PGDM in HR and Marketing from Asia Pacific Institute of Management studies.

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.