Why there's no right way to build success

IIMA Ventures' Priyanka Agarwal Chopra on mentorship and checklists

- Shail Desai

After spending a decade in the US as an engineer with Sun Microsystems and IBM, Priyanka Agarwal Chopra decided to return to India in 2010 and work towards the development of the startup ecosystem here.

For the first couple of years after returning, Chopra worked with a social enterprise in the drinking water sector. Once she joined IIMA Ventures—which supports startups in the fields of deep tech, digital inclusion and climate tech—in 2014 as Director Portfolio, she found herself at the heart of India's growing startup ecosystem. "The founding mission was to identify and address gaps in India's entrepreneurial ecosystem," says Agarwal Chopra, 48, who is now managing partner at IIMA Ventures.