Dinesh Agarwal

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For the Indian politician, see Dinesh Agrawal.

Dinesh Agarwal
Born
Dinesh Agarwal

(1969-02-19) 19 February 1969 (age 56)
NationalityIndian
Alma materHarcourt Butler Technological Institute
Occupation(s)Founder and CEO of IndiaMART
SpouseChetna Agarwal[1]

Dinesh Agarwal (born 19 February 1969) is an Indian entrepreneur, founder and CEO of IndiaMART,[2] India's largest online B2B marketplace.[3]

Early life and education

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Dinesh studied at Maharaja Agrasen Vidyalaya Inter College, Lucknow, and completed a B.Tech engineering degree with a specialization in computer science from Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur. [4] .

Early career

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Dinesh first started working at CMC (now part of TCS) where he worked on the first Railway reservation system[5] and later joined Sam Pitroda and his team at the Center for Development of Telematics to develop an indigenous digital telephone exchange for India.[6]

In 1992, Dinesh moved to HCL in the US, to set up offices on the East Coast. There he saw the birth of the internet in America, realized the potential of the internet and the impact it could have on Indian masses.[7]

1995 and after

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In August 1995, he resigned from HCl, returned to India with his wife and child, and started looking for internet related opportunities to become an internet entrepreneur.[8]

Agarwal decided to make a website that would be an online marketplace for exporters and importers.[9][10] India had around 15,000 internet users at that time.[citation needed] When he did not receive government permission to get the directories of exporters and sellers online, he decided to have a free listing form and sent it to all the sellers in the directories. "My whole family, including my mother and wife, would help with the mailers.”IndiaMART's first tagline was: 'The global gateway to Indian marketplace'.[11]

In 2007–2008 when recession hit the US, Agarwal and his cousin Brijesh decided to pivot the focus from export oriented business to India-focused B2B market and raised $10 million from Intel Capital.[12][13]

Other domain ventures by Agarwal include www.indiangiftsportal.com and www.abcpayments.com. He later became an investor, providing funding to Tolexo,[14] and Innerchef, a Gurgaon-based ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook meals delivery startup.[15]

An Angel Investor

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Today, Dinesh is a prolific investor and has invested in a large number of start-ups. His portfolio includes companies such as medical app Curofy, crowdfunding platform Wishberry, marketing platform SilverPush, food tech start-up InnerChef, developer startup AppVirality and others. One of his companies – Little Eye Software Labs, was acquired by Facebook. Some of his top investments include: Inner Chef Private Limited, Complete Capital Private Ltd, Quicko Technosoft, Arivihan Technologies Private Limited - among others.

Awards and recognition

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  • In 2023, Dinesh was awarded as Entrepreneur of The Year at Dun & Bradstreet Business Excellence Awards, followed by the title of EY Entrepreneur Of The Year in the Service Category at the EOY Awards 2020. He was also recognized as the Digital Person of the Year at the 10th edition of India Digital Awards presented by IAMAI in 2020.[16]

References

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  1. ^ "The Founder of IndiaMart- Dinesh Agarwal". 19 February 2014. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  2. ^ "Warburg Pincus in talks with IndiaMart for Rs 150 crore investment". Economic Times. 7 May 2011. Archived from the original on 10 May 2011. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  3. ^ Our Bureau. "IndiaMART targets Rs 30k cr biz in FY16". The Hindu Business Line.
  4. ^ "Six inspirational stories of entrepreneurs who made it big". Economic Times. 20 August 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  5. ^ "My First Job: Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, IndiaMART". Times Jobs.com. 10 August 2010. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
  6. ^ Digbijay Mishra (22 July 2019). "Dot-com bust was the best thing that happened to us". Times of India. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
  7. ^ Senior Writer (10 May 2015). "Story of Dinesh Agarwal, the man behind India's second largest B2B marketplace". Chatur Ideas. Retrieved 21 August 2019.
  8. ^ TNN (15 January 2009). "IndiaMart.com gets funds from Intel Capital". The Times of India. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  9. ^ Senior Writer (15 August 2015). "Story of Dinesh Agarwal, the man behind India's second largest B2B marketplace". Chatur Ideas. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
  10. ^ Network Bureau (22 July 2015). "IndiaMART targets Rs 30k cr biz in FY16". The Hindu Business Line. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  11. ^ TNN (15 January 2009). "IndiaMart.com gets funds from Intel Capital". Times of India. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  12. ^ Biswarup Gooptu (21 June 2019). "IndiaMart's IPO poised to reap rich returns for investors". Economic Times. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
  13. ^ TNN (15 January 2009). "IndiaMart.com gets funds from Intel Capital". The Times of India. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  14. ^ Shrutika Verma (26 May 2014). "Indiamart to launch online marketplace Tolexo.com". Live Mint. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  15. ^ Digbijay Mishra (18 November 2015). "Now, InMobi founder Naveen Tewari backs Innerchef". Live Mint. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  16. ^ "Entrepreneur 2021". Archived from the original on 4 November 2019.
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