Shamik Sharma has joined pi Ventures, India’s first Applied Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & IoT focused early stage venture fund, as a Venture Partner. He was previously the Chief Product & Technology officer at Myntra where he was responsible for driving technology strategy and culture. At pi Ventures, Shamik will work with portfolio founders to help them get past critical hurdles, design their product roadmaps and hire specialised talent. His role will involve supporting pi Ventures in deep understanding of technology and IP via technology deep dives of prospective portfolio companies and support in bringing interesting start-ups aligned with pi Ventures’ investment theme to their deal pipeline.

Shamik has held key roles in several organizations and has over 17 years of technology experience. Shamik has spent most of his career in the bay area and was the Vice President, Software at Lytro, a light field camera startup company founded in 2006. Prior to that, he has also held executive roles in RockYou, StumbleUpon and Yahoo! Shamik is a Computer Science graduate from IIT-Kharagpur and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Maryland.

Shamik brings immense value with his experience of being an angel investor and technology advisor for several Indian startups. With his capability of understanding roadblocks from the technology perspective he will mentor and enable the start-ups to reach their goal at a faster pace. Shamik’s experience of recruiting talent to build big teams at large companies as well as startups in short periods will benefit pi Ventures and their portfolio as they plan to invest in 18-20 startups over the next 3-4 years.

Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures said, “With two decades of rich experience and business wisdom, Shamik is a great addition to the pi team. His unique mix of deep and broad technical expertise, product design, and business experience will play a key role in enriching our investment decisions as well as a welcome help for our founders”.

Shamik Sharma said, "I am excited to join Manish and Umakant at pi Ventures to help build the next generation of start-ups. We hope our focus on deep technology-based opportunities will help create many disruptive products and businesses out of India."