Indian-American entrepreneur & venture capitalist Kanwal Rekhi commits Rs 20 crore to promote rural entrepreneurship in India

Hyderabad, December 19, 2022:  Iconic Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist Kanwal Rekhi, who is also the Co-Founder & MD of Inventus Capital, has committed ₹ 20 crores to Kaktiya Sandbox to promote and scale rural entrepreneurship programs in India.

Kanwal was the first Indo-American Founder & CEO to take a venture-backed company public on the NASDAQ. He co-founded and helped build TiE into the largest global network of entrepreneurs. Kanwal has been a great role model in entrepreneurship and philanthropy. He is also known as ‘The Entrepreneurship Pandit’.

Kanwal has committed ₹20 crores to seed KREST- the Kanwal Rekhi Rural Entrepreneurship and Startup Center. KREST will be a part of K-hub, a social innovation hub run by KS in Nizamabad to improve economic prosperity in North Telangana. The mission of KREST is to build a strong rural entrepreneurship ecosystem for entrepreneurs to test their ideas, build successful ventures and scale.

Kanwal’s donation will energise KS to scale its programs across agriculture, skilling, startups, and micro-entrepreneurship by leveraging the large pool of talented youth in rural India. With philanthropic intervention, utilisation of technology, execution excellence and mentorship, KS hopes to catalyse the North Telangana region as an engine of economic growth and prosperity.

Raju Reddy, the Co-founder of Kakatiya Sandbox (KS), said that the support coming from Rekhi is yet another milestone in their journey of last nine years. “KREST will support mission-driven entrepreneurs solving problems in agriculture, healthcare, education and rural livelihood. Kanwal’s considerable contribution has the potential to be transformative, and I believe KREST can become a model for other parts of rural and semi-urban India,” said Raju Reddy.

Sharing his thoughts, Kanwal said, “Indians have raised the bar in the US and built great prosperity through Entrepreneurship. We want a similar movement in India to create an ecosystem which supports 10 million entrepreneurs when India turns 100 years in 2047.  Furthermore, I believe that India has the potential to become the breadbasket of the world. To achieve that goal, it needs an entrepreneur-driven infusion of technology and techniques in this sector. Hopefully, Kakatiya Sandbox will validate this idea and provide a role model for others.”

The Kakatiya Sandbox (KS), founded by noted entrepreneurs Raju Reddy, and Phanindra Sama, is located in Nizamabad, Telangana. KS has been in existence for nine years. It works towards testing ideas, making changes and eventually  developing truly scalable solutions to bring about rural transformation.  KS is an extension of the Deshpande Foundation (DF) founded by Gururaj  Deshpande & Jaishree Deshpande in Hubballi, Karnataka.