Mahesh Murthy

Mahesh Murthy has spent 30 years helping big brands with marketing and branding input, and 14 years helping startups with funding too. 19 of these years have been digital-intensive.

Mahesh dropped out of college, sold vacuum cleaners door to door, worked with Grey in India and then Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as Creative Director on Unilever, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV.

He then moved to a Silicon Valley agency, CKS Partners as CD and Partner, where he helped create the first commercial UI for Yahoo in 1995 and the now-classic launch campaign for Amazon in 1997.

After a successful NASDAQ IPO, Mahesh Murthy moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-com firm in Seattle, later bought by Intel.

He returned to India in 1999 to run and turn around Channel V, a rival to MTV, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000, then founded Passionfund to invest in startups. His investees include Geodesic, WebDunia, EBS Worldwide, Inkfruit and Doolally.

Mahesh has penned reasonably infamous columns in Business Today, Businessworld, Tehelka and WSJ. On TV, he’s played the Donald Trump-like role in Business Baazigar in 2007, and the Dragon’s Den-like role on ETNow’s SuperAngels in 2011 and on Bloomberg’s The Pitch in 2013.

In 2004, Mahesh Murthy found a need for a tech-driven, digital-first brand management firm – and set up Pinstorm. With over 100 people across offices in India, Singapore & Malaysia, it is now among South Asia’s leading digital brand management firms, creating award-winning work on the region’s largest telecom, banking, FMCG and retail brands, including Airtel, Cadbury Kraft, Nestle, ICICI Bank and Wipro.

Mahesh has a passion for early-stage investing and teamed with Pravin Gandhi and Bharati Jacob in 2006 to set up Seedfund, voted India’s best VC fund in 2010. Seedfund has over 25 investees including Carwale, RedBus, AFAQs, Vaatsalya, MyDentist and Edusports.

Mahesh is a sought-after speaker on marketing, digital brand management and starting up. His updates are avidly followed by over 100,000 folks across Twitter, Facebook, Quora and LinkedIn.

Mahesh Murthy is the Director at SeedFund.in, based in India, Asia. With a background in Finance, Mahesh Murthy has a rich history of leadership and innovation. Mahesh Murthy studied unknown Chemical Engineering @ Osmania University. Explore their detailed professional journey, key connections, and contributions to the industry on our platform.