Next-Gen M&A & PE/VC Playbook

Rachit Chawla, a SEBI-registered investment advisor and seasoned entrepreneur, is the visionary Founder & CEO of Finway Accelerator, a subsidiary of Finway (an RBI-registered NBFC) established in 2017. With a mission to empower India’s startup ecosystem, Finway Accelerator functions as a tech-enabled venture capitalist firm that nurtures early and growth-stage startups through funding, mentorship, and strategic guidance.

An alumnus of Aston University, Birmingham (U.K.), Rachit holds a degree in Business & Management and brings over a decade of experience spanning investment advisory, wealth management, lending, and startup scaling. Prior to entrepreneurship, he worked with Intel Corporation at its EMEA Headquarters in Swindon, U.K., as a Pricing Analyst, before returning to India to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions.

His entrepreneurial journey began in 2008 with the founding of CHC Logistics Pvt. Ltd., which grew into a nationwide logistics company with 20+ branches and a turnover of INR 200 million within just a few years. Alongside logistics, Rachit has been managing his family’s investment portfolio as a high-net-worth investor since 2008.

At Finway Accelerator, Rachit actively mentors startups across diverse industries, primarily those in the seed and early stages with valuations under INR 100 Cr. Under his leadership, the accelerator has supported ventures such as Sprout Studio (animation & VFX), Zeleno (recycling), Cosmetofood (organic cosmetics), and Zebra Learn (edtech, featured on Shark Tank). His vision is to build a founder-friendly, system-driven ecosystem that empowers startups to overcome challenges and achieve scalable success. 

Suraj Malik is a partner with the Transaction Tax Advisory practice at BDO India LLP.He is a CA with over 15 years of diverse experience with large accounting firms and family office. He has diverse experience in deal structuring, inbound investments, M&A Transactions, corporate restructuring, and private equity. He has led and managed several transactions across multiple sectors such as Media, Hospitality, Real Estate, IT/SEZ  and other general manufacturing industries. He has also advised and implemented one of the largest family settlement in India and structured and executed succession strategy for HNIs and entrepreneurs. Suraj has spoken on various national and international events organized by the different institutions and also co-authored articles on various M&A related topics.

Anil is a Partner with the M&A Tax group. He has over 30 years of experience in handling matters pertaining to Indian tax and regulatory.  He is the Chief Growth officer for the tax practice and leads the overall  Cross border Corridor Program for Deloitte South Asia.

Anil has been involved in providing tax structuring services and tax due diligence for various clients including listed companies in India and Private Equity /Venture Capital investors. He also specialises in group restructuring involving mergers, demergers, spin offs and post merger integration and cross border acquisitions.

He has been a visiting faculty at various institutions like VC Circle, IIM- Ahmedabad, ET Masterclass and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Pranav Parikh is the Managing Partner and heads Private Equity at Nuvama Asset Management. He has over 20 years of successful investment experience in US and Indian Markets.

He has a long-standing buy-side experience across the most sophisticated capital structures and various strategies including public and private equity as well as credit strategies.

Having been credited for creating one of the first successful incubation in India by a foreign fund and the first 100% private equity owned company to have raised $100 million in secured debt locally in India. He has been recognized in the past as Private Equity Deal Maker of the Year, India by the Global M&A Network, New York.

Pranav has led early stage investments in Edelweiss and sits on the board of companies such as Bridgei2i Analytics solutions (Data analytics, AI, Digital Enterprise), Tonbo Imaging (Electro-optics and sensing technology) and Revv (car sharing and subscription platform).

He is C.F.A. charter holder from CFA Institute, USA and holds a B.E. in Industrial Engineering from MS University, Baroda and graduated with honors in the M.B.A. program from University of Texas at Arlington, with a concentration in Finance.

With a wealth of experience as an M&A Head at a large enterprise, ex-startup founder with successful exit and an angel investor, Maneesh has witnessed the entire wagonwheel of the M&A ecosystem firsthand. Throughout his career, Maneesh has identified significant gaps in M&A deal sourcing, primarily due to the lack of a reliable startup database, limited bandwidth of corporate development and M&A teams, absence of technology-driven platforms for sourcing companies outside existing networks, and the biased interests of investment bankers.

Maneesh is a seasoned entrepreneur and active angel investor with a distinguished background in finance, technology, and business leadership. With a B.Tech degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from NYU's Stern School of Business, Maneesh combines technical acumen with a passion for building highly scalable businesses. With a rich 30-year global experience, he has navigated diverse sectors and company sizes and stages, serving as an intrapreneur at Citigroup, founding and leading his first venture for a decade, and assuming active investor roles with board positions.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbh91

Expertise - 

1. M&A and Corporate Development Strategy
2. AI-Driven Deal Sourcing and Intelligence
3. Data & Signal Analytics for Market Mapping
4. Strategic Foresight & Sector Intelligence
5. Early-Stage Investment & Entrepreneurship

Eshan Kaul is one of India’s leading voices on AI.  Spent 10 years leading AI research at JP Morgan.

Regularly features in leading global publicaBons, wriBng on the future of AI. Invested in over 20 AI companies. 

Currently Investment Partner- Sinarmas technology- one of South East Asia’s leading investors in AI

Eshan led Artificial Intelligence research at JP Morgan India for over eight years, playing a key role in transforming how the bank used technology. At JP Morgan’s Payments division—which handles over $10 trillion in transactions every day,he introduced AI solutions that made operations faster, safer, and more efficient.

He was the driving force behind several major projects, including automated customer support, signature verification, fraud detection, and anti-money laundering systems—all designed to make the bank smarter and more secure.

Eshan also led JP Morgan’s global hackathon, a major competition among over 40,000 technologists across the company. It brought together teams to create bold, new ideas in areas like AI, blockchain, quantum computing, and digital finance.

Today, Eshan heads AI investments at Sinarmas Technology, the tech arm of the $60 billion Sinarmas Group. He helps the company discover and invest in the most advanced and promising technologies around the world.

In addition to this, Eshan is a passionate angel investor. His portfolio includes early investments in groundbreaking companies like Anthropic, SpaceX, Perplexity, and Replit—all of which are shaping the future in their own fields.

Many leading AI companies in India and globally consult Eshan on their technology implementation.

Raja is a qualified chartered accountant with 27+ years of experience in accounting, consulting and transaction advisory in India. He is passionate about ethics and governance and being a trusted adviser to clients.

Currently, he is a Partner with Grant Thornton Bharat, and national Transaction Advisory Services Leader and National Technology Sector Leader for the Firm.

Raja has advised various private equity firms, venture capital funds, corporates (Indian and international) and entrepreneurs on business strategy, corporate finance, leadership consulting, and their growth agenda.

He has been truster adviser for clients across deal life-cycle from M&A, sell-side, PE, VC and Listings.

He has been involved in some of the marquee transactions for leading corporate and PE funds and has advised 500+ transactions on financial due diligence as well as transaction advisory support across the deal lifecycle.  Raja has also been part of the core team in the financial investigation of one of India’s biggest corporate frauds, in the technology sector.

Raja spent close to 14 years in one of the largest accounting and advisory firms in India, where he was part of the founding team of transaction advisory practice.  Some of key technology sector clients include Wipro, Infosys, TechMahindra, WNS, Microsoft, Hitachi etc and PE Funds like Blackstone, Warburg, KKR, TPG etc.

Raja is an active speaker at public forums like CNBC, CII, IVCA, VC Circle, Economic Times etc, and is frequently quoted in various business newspapers.

Siddharth Borkar currently Heads M&A and Investor Relations for Orkla India. In the past he has worked in the Group M&A team of Mahindra Group and Deloitte’s financial advisory vertical. His decades of experience spans across mergers, acquisitions, JV, private equity fund raise, divestment, capital market transactions, IPO, startup investments, internal restructuring etc. He has also been involved in cross border transactions involving companies in India, USA, Asia and EU. Siddharth’s transaction experience inter alia covers consumer, automotive, financial services, technology sectors.

Vasudha Madhavan is among India’s first investment bankers to specialise in Electric Mobility and Climate-tech, advising in the space since 2017. With over 22 years of experience in corporate and investment banking, she was recognised in 2023 by the India Energy Storage Alliance as one of the Top 40 women leaders driving India’s energy sector. A frequent media voice on climate-tech, Vasudha previously led Citibank India’s Private Equity & Hedge Fund coverage, executing FDI/FII deals worth ~$3B and managing key relationships across global funds and large corporates. She also worked in risk management and mid-market lending at Citi, and earlier in structured finance at ICICI Bank. She has advised on PE/VC fundraises and M&A deals at IndigoEdge and Allegro Capital. An XLRI alumna, Vasudha is a mentor at AspireForHer and is also a certified scuba diver and photographer based in Bangalore.