Madhu Shalini Iyer appointed as Partner with Rocketship.vc

 Rocketship.vc, an early-stage venture capital firm has recently announced the appointment of Madhu Shalini Iyer as their newest partner. Equipped with deep experience in data science, investing and leading high-growth organizations, both in Silicon Valley and Asia, Madhu’s familiarity with emerging markets and developing economies will further accelerate the VC fund’s investment strategies in India and the SEA regions. Bringing along 15+ years of experience, ever since her joining early this year, Madhu has led the firm’s investments in San Francisco-based Crosschq and India’s KhataBook, and is actively involved in counseling many of the firm’s other portfolio companies.

Announcing this new appointment, Sailesh Ramakrishnan, Partner at Rocketship.vc said, “ Our partnership represents a unique combination of data science, entrepreneurship and investment experience which is the key to both identifying great companies and adding tangible and differentiated value-adds.  Madhu exemplifies this unique combination and further adds her deep experience with startups in the SEA regions which we believe to be a region for significant growth in the next coming years.”

Madhu on joining the leadership team said, “I am thrilled to be joining Rocketship.vc and working closely with their team to tap into further geographies in emerging markets. I have always been passionate about data, and therefore I feel the timing is more than perfect to be collaborating with a VC fund with such extensive data science expertise.”

Before joining Rocketship.vc, Madhu had served as the Chief Data Officer at EthosLending, a fintech startup in San Francisco. She also previously served as the Chief Data Officer at Gojek, a Southeast Asian on-demand multi-service platform and digital payment technology that is also Indonesia’s first unicorn. In that role and as a board member, she started the Gojek Singapore office and guided the company on data strategy.

Rocketship.vc recently announced the closure of its second global VC Fund with $100 Million and is backed by some of the world’s leading investors, such as Vulcan Capital and Adams Street Partners, as well as the family office of Marc Andreesen and Chris Dixon from A16z.  Rocketship’s Fund II more than doubles the size of the firm’s initial fund, which closed in late 2015 at $40 million.

 Rocketship has invested in 44 companies across seed, A and B rounds, with 46% of investments outside the U.S. The firm’s portfolio companies include Trocafone, NoBroker, Stocard, Moglix, Khatabook, Yulu, Wasabi and Crosschq. The launch of Fund II will enable Rocketship to continue investing globally across different sectors and company stages, and increase the firm’s number of follow-on investments.