Pranay

Desai

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Focus areas

Enterprise & SaaS

Globally, we are on the brink of the entire software stack of the world being re-written and India is poised to have a giant share of this very new software stack. Pranay is a firm believer in the India SaaS story and is excited about the prospects this will bring about for the Indian startup ecosystem.

With 10 years of experience as an operator, Pranay is keen to contribute his learnings to the world of investing and is passionate about partnering with ambitious founders to help them scale large businesses.

Journey

Prior to joining Z47 (fka Matrix Partners India), Pranay spent 7 years at Freshworks, helping build the organization from early-stage to pre-IPO, with a focus on the GTM strategy, marketing and sales. He participated in the company's growth from 5M USD to 300M+ USD in annual revenue and from 150 people to 4300+ people.

As the first member of the CEO's office at Freshworks, Pranay led sales strategy and operations, investor relations and fundraising, and built the M&A practice, acquiring 8 companies in a span of 18 months. Pranay helped navigate the shift to the enterprise segment and built enterprise-focused marketing teams. He finally led the global growth marketing team for customer service solutions.

Prior to Freshworks, Pranay worked at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited where he worked on patented high-voltage power transformer technology. Pranay holds an MBA from Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad and a Bacholers in Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati.