Hi, I'm Ritesh :)
Innov8 Coworking
In 2016, Ritesh started a coworking platform called Innov8. A venture which started with Ritesh’s sheer love and thirst to promote entrepreneurship in the country, is now one the leading names in the coworking ecosystem of India. Innov8 was incubated & seed funded by Y-Combinator, a San Francisco based startup accelerator (Summer School 2016). With a vision to offer a platform to connect & build communities of freelancers, entrepreneurs, corporates, technology innovators and investors under one roof and in a social environment, Innov8 in 3 years became one of the largest coworking companies of India. Innov8 was sold to Softbank backed OYO in 2019. Today, Innov8 is India’s second largest coworking space impacting thousands of entrepreneurs, freelancers & enterprises to achieve zenith productivity. Innov8 is now present in over 13 cities of India with an AUM of over a million sq feet. Innov8 post Y-Combinator was seed funded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma (PayTM), Rajan Anandan (Google/Sequoia), Kunal Shah (Freecharge/Cred), Ambiga Subramanium (MuSigma) etc.
Angel Investor
Ritesh has been one of the most active angel investors in the country, and has invested in more than 60+ startups in the last 6 years. Some of the noteworthy startups are Safe Securities (John Chambers), Sarva Yoga, Sheroes, Sattviko, Josh Talks, PeeSafe, Dukaan.IO, SectorQube, Inc42, Greenberry Organics, QDesk (JLL), Leverage Edu (Blume/Tomorrow Capital), CivilCops, Pesto (Matrix), OrangeWood (YC), Inito (YC), Pumpkart, StylDotMe, TapChief (Unacademy), Asimov Robotics, Addodoc (Sheroes), Ketto, Nimo, Stage, Mashinga, Wigzo, Uppekka, Pepper (Lightspeed), Wifidabba (YC), Khabri (YC), Agnikul Satellites, Infeedo (YC), TSB, Trulymadly, Thinkpot, Kawa Space, Bima Inc (YC), Sublist are some of the startups as a part of his investment portfolio. Ritesh started his entrepreneurial journey back in 2012, while he was in his final year of MBBS & doing his CRRI at Ganga Ram Hospital with an augmented reality start-up called Adstuck, who’s flagship product Alive, was built, operated & transferred to Bennett & Coleman (Times of India).
Recognition
Ritesh’s leadership and contribution to the Indian startup ecosystem is widely recognised by the startup industry and media fraternity with recognitions like Forbes 30 under 30 Asia (2016), Fortune 40 under 40 India (2018), PWC & SPH 40 Influential Indians, Business World 40 Under 40 (2017), St. Gallens Leadership Award (Switzerland), Entrepreneur Magazine 35 Under 35 India (2017), Star of Delhi award by Hurun Report, CEO of the year by Economic Times, ‘The Coworking Wonder’ title by Entrepreneur Magazine to name a few. He has also been featured on the cover of the Elite Magazine for the month of May 2019. Ritesh regularly comes on national & international media channels like AajTak, Al-Jazeera, CNBC, CNN, Zee News, NDTV, Moneycontrol, India TV, India News, Zee Business, ET Now etc. on issues related to healthcare, technology, startups & economics.
Speaker
Ritesh is extremely passionate about building the startup ecosystem of India & believes that the only way to achieve our vision for a 5 Trillion $ economy is to boost the software development & export from the national soil. For the same he actively works with govt./non govt institutions to build entrepreneurial endeavour by storytelling, encouragement of seed capital & building college entrepreneurial communities. He’s a very intense speaker for which he’s been called upon by Harvard University, Babson University, IIM-Ahmedabad, Ministry of Small & Medium Enterprises, TiECon Silicon Valley, TEDx, Josh Talks, Nasscom, Startup Village, Fortune Media etc.
Philanthropy
After selling Innov8 to OYO Group, Ritesh has focussed on developing a philanthropic trust to support non-profits close to his deep passion’s e.g. education, cybersecurity, startup policy regulations, village empowerment etc. He’s the founding member & seed donor at Plaksha University, which is a 50 acre campus under construction at Mohali. He also presides on the board of AAH, which is India’s largest helpline for cybercrime & Muskaan Dreams, which empowers govt schools with technology. In 2020, Ritesh has co-founded a section 8 not for profit company called ADIF (Architects of Digital India) Foundation to build policy regulation around technology companies operating in India for building a sustainable & truly holistic technology ecosystem in India & to ensure a level playing field for all players. During 2020/21 Ritesh & his family run hospital Radix have been on the frontline helping covid patients (IPD/OPD) + remote care through the free consultation & in procurement of supply of vaccination, oxygen concentrators, essential medicines etc.