Shruti Gandhi is a founder and managing partner at Array Ventures — a deeptech, enterprise, early stage fund. She’s had 5 exits in the last 3 years to companies such as Apple, GoDaddy, McGraw Hill, Samsung, and Brocade.
Shruti brings a strong mix of operating and investing experience. Previously, she was an early stage venture capital investor at True Ventures and Samsung Electronics before starting her own fund. Shruti started working with Machine Learning algorithms while working on her master’s thesis in computer science from Columbia University on understanding user behavior on instant messaging platforms. While at IBM she worked on self learning algorithms that detected user location based on IP addresses, which she later incorporated into the Lotus Sametime product. Later, her company Penseev helped users make better connections with their friends based on social data.
When not investing, she is hacking on some app or thinking about ways she can be in many places at one time. Shruti also has an MBA from the University of Chicago, where she polished her finance skills before making the switch from engineer/founder to investor.
I invest in technology needed for the “New World of Work”. That includes companies with deep tech that leverages a new go-to-market techniques to accelerate the enterprise sales cycle.
Enjoy this week's VC Corner Q+A with Shruti Gandhi.
Q&A:
What is your fund's mission?
Our mission at Array is to empower founders tackling big problems.
When did you close your current fund?
First close for Fund 2 was in March this year (2018)
What is one thing you are excited about right now?
Crypto will take over many large industries
What are 3 top qualities of every great leader?
Curiosity
Creativity
Tenacity
What was your very first investment? and when?
Mobilize in 2015
What is one question you ask yourself before investing in a company?
Do I want to live in the world this company wants to create?
What is one thing every founder should ask themselves before walking into a meeting with a potential investor?
Will this investor help me achieve 10x more than I could on my own?
What do you think should be in a CEO's top 3 company priorities?
Clear deliverables
True north mission
Consistent values
What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?
Experimentation in the kitchen
Favorite podcast?
We have a podcast at Array that I love listening to. You can find it here.
Who is one leader you admire?
The leader within that drives every woman
What is one piece of advice you’d give every founder?
At the end of the day, CEO is really a sales job