Manik Arora serves as Chairman & CEO of Rise Group Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based advisory and holding company focused primarily on technology ventures. Previously, he served as Founder & Managing Director of IDG Ventures India, a premier VC firm in India. During his nine years of building the firm, Manik and his colleagues made over 30 early and expansion stage technology investments. These include many of today’s market leaders such as Flipkart, Myntra, Firstcry, Lenskart, Xpressbees and NestAway. Manik has been named on the ‘Digirati’ list of 25 Powerful People in Indian Digital Business. Prior to IDG, Manik was a technology investor at Battery Ventures in Silicon Valley and started his investment career with General Atlantic. Previously, he worked in senior sales and operating roles with i-DNS.net, American Express and MasterCard International in New York and Singapore. His early career was as a strategy consultant with The Boston Consulting Group in South East Asia. Manik is both a Kauffman Fellow and a Mentor at the Center for Venture Education, home of the Kauffman Fellows Society of global venture capitalists. He is also a Distinguished Fellow, Global Private Equity Initiative, at INSEAD business school. Manik holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from Swarthmore College where he received a McCabe Fellowship to pursue his MBA from the Sloan School at MIT.