Manik Arora

Manik holds a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College where he received a McCabe Fellowship to pursue his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He is also a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

Manik Arora serves as Chairman & CEO of Rise Group, a Singapore-based private advisory and holding company primarily focused on technology ventures.  

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Manik is a pioneer of venture capital in India having previously served as Founder & Managing Director of IDG Ventures India, a premier venture capital firm in India, which is a part of the US$20 Billion IDG Capital group of funds across Asia.  During his decade of building the firm, Manik and his colleagues advised on early and expansion stage technology investments.  These include many of India’s market leaders today, including unicorns such as Xpressbees, Uniphore, FirstCry, Lenskart and Flipkart.  Manik has been named on the ‘Digirati’ list of 25 Powerful People in Indian Digital Business. 

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Prior to IDG, Manik was a technology investor at Battery Ventures in Silicon Valley and started his investing career in private equity with General Atlantic.  Previously, he worked in senior sales and operating roles with i-DNS, American Express and Mastercard in New York and Singapore.  His early career was as a strategy consultant with The Boston Consulting Group in Southeast Asia. 

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Manik is a Kauffman Fellow and Mentor, a Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD business school and a Guest Lecturer at National University of Singapore.  He holds a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College where he received a McCabe Fellowship to pursue his MBA from the Sloan School at MIT.

Manik served his fellowship at IDG Ventures India under mentor Sudhir Sethi as a member of Class 12. He now serves as a mentor to Class 21 member Adrian Li.