Bessemer names Pankaj Mitra as partner to bolster India investments

Tech veteran to focus on AI, enterprise software, and cybersecurity for private equity firm

Private equity firm Bessemer Venture Partners on Wednesday named Pankaj Mitra as a partner in its India division who will concentrate on investments in enterprise technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity.

 

“I am thrilled to join Bessemer at this pivotal time. The ongoing AI platform shift offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for builders to usher in the next wave of tech evolution across industries,” said Mitra. “With its stellar track record, Bessemer is poised to partner with this new generation of ambitious, world-class founders in India addressing pain points domestically and globally.”

 

Mitra, who has more than 25 years of experience in technology, joins Bessemer from Cisco’s corporate development team, where for seven years he led investments and mergers and acquisitions activity for the global customer experiences portfolio as well as for India. Some of his investments include Fiddler (AI observability), Uniphore (contact center AI), and Whatfix (digital adoption).

 

Mitra worked at Infosys in a similar capacity and was part of the founding team for its $500 million innovation fund. His investments at Infosys included Ideaforge and Whoop. Earlier in his career, Mitra helped launch VMware's first cloud services as a product manager and was also a management consultant at Deloitte.

 

Mitra is an Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur alumnus and holds an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

 

“Pankaj brings a breadth of experience which is a unique blend of investing prowess as well as deep industry knowledge,” said Vishal Gupta, Partner at Bessemer. “This will be invaluable as we look to deepen our commitments in AI, enterprise-tech, and cybersecurity in India.”

 

Bessemer has been in India for two decades and its legacy investments include Mediassist, Perfios, Swiggy and Urban Company. Some of its more recent partnerships have been with Boldfit, Easebuzz, Protectt, Shopdeck and more. Bessemer announced its second India fund with $350 million of capital in March this year with a focus on AI, fintech, enterprise-tech, digital health, consumer, and cybersecurity.