Manu Rikhye

Manu Rikhye is one of the founding Partners at Merak Ventures. As the head of deal evaluation for tech-led businesses and fund operations, Manu brings extensive experience in fund management and has led investments across a wide range of sectors, including financial services, HR Tech, healthcare, enterprise SaaS, and genomics. Manu, along with his Partner Sheetal Bahl, launched Merak Ventures with a mission to support and invest in passionate founders with innovative ideas aimed at solving real-world problems. Their maiden target corpus of $100 million reflects their ambition to provide funding and resources in ideas that matter. Manu's expertise in the field of venture capital is not limited to Merak Ventures alone. He is also a General Partner in grow X Ventures; a maiden fund, where he played a critical role in raising $25 million and led investments in companies such as Advantage Club, Progcap, and Zuddl. Manu remains actively engaged in many of these investments, providing valuable support and guidance as a board member to help nurture the founding teams. Before joining grow X, Manu served as the head of India operations at Encore Capital Group, a publicly listed US entity. There, he was instrumental in scaling the business to over 2,500 employees and generating $150 million EBITDA for the parent company. Manu also established an India-focused ARC with the aim of deploying $500 million to buy distressed assets. Manu's educational qualifications include a degree from IHM Pusa and an executive MBA from IIM-Kolkata.