Apoorv Ranjan Sharma leads the core team at VentureNursery as Executive Vice President. In his previous roles in other firms, he has established many incubators and, grown angel networks and has mentored over 100 start-ups on fund raising techniques, many of whom have gone on to secure angel and VC financing. He recently exited Indian Angel Network (IAN) where he led Western Region Investments and Technology Incubator. IAN is the largest angel investment network in Asia with 180 Angel investors and looks to invest up to US$ 1m. He was instrumental in establishing many new initiatives at IAN i.e. Small Deal Group for <50 Lakh Investments, Angel Network at Pune, Boot Camps, IAN Incubator and the IAN newsletter apart from setting new heights for Mumbai Chapter. During his stint, he was helped closed nine deals in FY 2012. In the past, he has been responsible for establishing JSS Technology Business Incubator, JSS SEED Fund (First Government sponsored SEED Fund), Amity Capital Venture (Now $25m Education focused fund) and Amity Innovation Incubator. Some of ventures mentored by him include Venera Technology (World Leader in Analyser), Apnacircle.com ($25m merger with Viadeo), CircuitSutra Technology (Leader in System on Chip), Netika Solution (Biometric device venture employing largest number of deaf in India). He was also associated with Indian Venture Capital Association’s operation and research functions. He had spent close to a decade in IT Industry and has worked in an angel funded start-up in Europe. He is a regular speaker on many prestigious fora related to angel investments and incubation and had been visiting faculty at top entrepreneurship institutes such as SP Jain and EDII. Sharma holds an engineering degree from HBTI Kanpur, an M.B.A from Asia Pacific Institute of Management, Delhi, and Diploma in Mentoring from HAAS Business School, Berkley, University of California. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Innovation Management from Amity University. He lives in Mumbai with his wife Parul, daughter Shristi and son Shreyas.