MakeMyTrip's Amit Somani joins AngelPrime

BENGALURU: AngelPrime, a seed-stage venture capital fund expanded its team and added Amit Somani, a former Google and MakeMyTrip executive as a partner.

Somani will bring in his product and technology skills to evaluate early stage investments, said AngelPrime.

“I have been very active with the startup ecosystem in India and helped dozens of startups over many years. The AngelPrime approach of not just investing but working closely with entrepreneurs at the formative stages of their companies is something I am very excited about”, said Amit Somani, who holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published several papers and holds seven US patents.

In his previous role as the Chief Products Officer for MakeMyTrip, Amit led the entire online product portfolio. He was a part of the leadership team that took the company public on NASDAQ in 2010. Amit has also been the head of various teams focusing on search, mobile and advertisement products at Google. One of his products (the search-based keyword tool) won the Google founder's award.

Shripati Acharya, managing partner, AngelPrime commented, “Amit Somani is one of the best product minds in India”.

Bangalore-based AngelPrime is led by serial entrepreneurs Bala Parthasarathy, Sanjay Swamy and Shripati Acharya. AngelPrime has so far incubated startups including ZipDial, which was acquired by Twitter, Ezetap, Smart Owner and HackerEarth.

“Amit Somani made a material contribution to MakeMyTrip from a strategy, growth and execution point of view through, and beyond our IPO. He continues to play an active advisory board role with us”, said Deep Kalra, founder & group CEO of MakeMyTrip.