2nd Private Markets Conference 2026 | Bengaluru

Founder & CIO, Northpoint Capital

Founder, Plaksha University

Mandar is a senior leader in valuation and private markets, with deep experience across strategic finance, investment analysis, portfolio performance oversight, investor reporting, and financial governance within global asset management and advisory platforms. He brings a strong track record of partnering with investment leadership to translate strategic and tactical asset allocation views into actionable portfolio insights, robust fund oversight, and disciplined, risk-adjusted performance outcomes.He has led the design and implementation of institution-grade valuation and performance frameworks that strengthen strategic decision-making, enhance transparency with limited partners, and support regulatory and governance requirements. Mandar’s experience spans the full private markets spectrum, including venture capital, growth, late-stage investing, private equity, and private credit, enabling him to operate effectively across varying risk profiles, capital structures, and fund life cycles.

President, Catamaran

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Abhishek Loonker is a Managing Director at GEF Capital Partners, a global private equity firm focused on climate investing. He leads the firm’s South Asia strategy with an emphasis on mid-market growth opportunities, and is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and managing investments across the region.
Mr. Loonker brings over 22 years of experience in the Indian private equity and venture capital industry. Prior to joining GEF Capital, he spent 16 years at Ascent Capital, a leading Indian mid-market private equity firm, where he was part of the founding team. During his tenure, he was involved in raising and managing three funds and executed several investments across diverse sectors, including BigBasket.com, National Stock Exchange, and RBL Bank, among others. Earlier in his career, he worked with JGI Ventures, consulting with multiple early-stage enterprises. Mr. Loonker currently serves on the Board of Membrane Group and manages GEF Capital’s investment in Premier Energies Limited. He has been actively involved with the CFA Institute, having previously served as Vice Chair of the CFA Society India, and currently serves as a President’s Council Representative representing Asia Pacific South. Mr. Loonker is a CFA charterholder and an MBA. He has also completed an Executive Education Program in Corporate Restructuring and Mergers & Acquisitions from Harvard Business School. In 2018, he was recognized among the ‘40 Under 40’ in the Alternative Investments industry by AIWMI and IAAIF.

Vasanthakumar is one of the founding members and a Partner at Ascent. Vasanthakumar has over two decades of experience in private equity and capital markets. He monitors portfolio companies across technology, consumer, and ed-tech sectors, where he has deep domain expertise. He also serves on the boards of several companies. In addition, he actively engages with the ESG matters of the Funds and heads the research ‘support ’ in the firm.

Prior to joining Ascent, Vasanthakumar was part of the investment operations team at UTI, where he was involved in primary market equity and debt investments across sectors including technology and manufacturing.

Vasanthakumar has an MBA from Bharathidasan Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli and is a Mechanical Engineer from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore.

For more than 18 years, Shamit led the offshore funds group at Indian asset manager(s), advising or raising ~6BN USD of cumulative investments of institutional or wholesale clients largely in Asia, Europe and GCC. His career includes previous significant tenures with ICICI Prudential AMC and Nippon Life India AMC, working alongside their affiliates worldwide. Shamit brings a unique perspective of advising Foreign Portfolio Investors into Indian public markets since early mid 2000’s, developing several international equity MF strategies for Indian clients, and executing cross border partnerships with managers in USA, Japan and other regions. He has been a contributor on the AMFI ESG working group for mutual funds, and directly led industry led group advocacy and recommendations to simplify regulations for the onshore management of offshore funds or the safe harbour clause (popularly known as Section 9A). His expertise spans all functional aspects of developing and advising offshore fund strategies and expanding international business for asset managers. Earlier, he was seconded to Nippon Life Insurance Japan to collaborate for funds and related synergies between the Indian and Japanese shareholder. He started his career with financial firms in NewYork, Boston and Mumbai. He holds a MBA from Boston College, M.Com and B.Com degrees from University of Mumbai. He is a CFA Charterholder and Board Member at the CFA Society India (Indian Association of Investment Professionals)

Saurabh is a Chief Investent Officer (CIO) of Private Credit for InCred Alternative Investments Pvt. Ltd He also heads the SME and Education lending business at InCred Finance, the NBFC arm of InCred Group. Saurabh joined as founding member of InCred and has 25+ years of experience across the credit and financing business in Asia. He was earlier associated with Deutsche Bank, leading the private financing and performing credit business for India and Southeast Asia as the Managing Director.He was running a team of 25 analysts and structures split across India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. With that, he was also responsible for direct lending,leverage, acquisition financing, and Holdco financing. He started
his career at ICICI Securities in investment banking services. Saurabh holds a postgraduate from the IIM Bangalore, is a CFA charter holder, and has an undergraduate degree in commerce and accounting from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Ms. Subhashree Vijayaraghavan has 22 years of experience in the financial services industry across fund management, investment banking and corporate roles. Presently, she is designated as Senior Fund Manager, Credit Alternatives in the alternatives business of HDFC Asset Management Company Limited. Prior to this, she was a Fund Manager at SBI Funds Management Ltd for their special situations fund with wide ranging experience from fund setup, fund raise, fund deployment and exit, investor relations and other fund related activities. She was also an investment professional at EISAF, a special assets fund of Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors Limited, responsible for investments, monitoring and exit of transactions.
Subhashree has also worked with Avendus Capital Pvt Ltd. in investment banking and with TATA Administrative Services (TAS) across various TATA group companies in multiple roles. She is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow and BITS, Pilani.

Soumendra Ghosh is Chief Investment Officer at Vivriti Asset Management and is a Founding Member of Vivriti Group. He set up the group’s asset management business. Soumendra has 20+ years of experience across asset management, investment banking, structured finance, and technology. Prior to Vivriti, he has worked at IFMR Capital, HSBC and IFCI Group.He holds Bachelors degree in Engineering, an MBA in Finance from Indian School of Business and is a CFA Charterholder.As CIO of Vivriti Asset Management, Soumendra is responsible for the firm’s investment strategy, performance of its funds and portfolio management.

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Empowering Deep Tech @ Bluehill.VC

Early Stage Deep Tech VC @Speciale Invest

Shubham is a Partner at pi Ventures, an early stage AI and DeepTech fund. He has invested in ventures across diverse areas such as Quantum Computing, Edge AI, generative AI, cryptography, alternative proteins, spacetech, battery tech, defense tech and currently sits on the boards of multiple portfolio companies. He is a serial entrepreneur and previously co-founded Aeon Solaris, a rooftop solar startup which he exited to Amplus Solar, part of the Petronas group now. In his last role, he was the CCO of Skytree, a CO2 extraction spin-out from ESA and helped commercialize the technology in the mobility and greenhouse sector. He was part of the Forbes 30 under 30 Europe 2019 list and is an alumnus of IIT Delhi.

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Vijayanand Venkataraman, CFA, has more than 20 years of experience investing in global markets and is the co-founder of Wealth Yantra Technologies Private Limited, an SEBI-Registered Investment Adviser. Until 2012, he was based out of Hong Kong SAR, managing a multiasset portfolio for global investment firms (hedge funds). His expertise spans asset classes that include equities, convertible bonds, and high-yield credit. In addition to managing his portfolio, he also assisted the chief investment officer in hedging the global macro and tail risks of the fund investments using derivative structures. In the early part of his professional career, he was part of the teams that advised the government of India on various policy implementation matters in energy, mining, and financial services. Venkataraman is a board member of CFA Society India. He is also a member of the Alumni Schools Committee (Undergraduate Admissions) at the University of Chicago. A mechanical engineer by training, he holds masters of business administration from BIM, Trichy and a MS in Financial Mathematics from University of Chicago, IL, USA.