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Arpan Punyani

Arpan Punyani

Co-founder and General Partner·Garuda Ventures

Burlingame, CA
LinkedIn Bio source

Bio

Professional summary

Arpan Punyani is Co-founder and General Partner at Garuda Ventures. His official Garuda profile says he previously worked at Okta as Director of Corporate Development, joining in 2013 as an early employee and helping build key inorganic growth functions including M&A, Okta Ventures, and strategic partnerships. The profile says he helped execute early M&A transactions across security, developer tools, DevOps, and IT workflows, and that he has also been an active angel and fund investor since 2014. Earlier in his career, he worked as a corporate lawyer and as an equity research associate covering technology at Bloomberg LP and Credit Suisse.

Investment focus

Stage, sector, and overall fit

Stage

Seed / early stage

Sector

Enterprise softwareSecurityDeveloper toolsDevOpsIT workflows

Thesis

Enterprise softwareSecurity, developer tools, DevOps, and IT workflowsSeed and early-stage startups

Notable companies

Selected portfolio companies the partner has backed

OktaGaruda Ventures

How to approach

Framing and angles for outreach

Pitch framing

Emphasize enterprise software, developer infrastructure, security, or workflow automation themes, especially where corporate development or strategic partnership experience could be relevant.

Personalization hooks

  1. 1Okta scaling experience from early stage through IPO and public-company growth
  2. 2Background spanning law, technology equity research, corporate development, angel investing, and fund investing

Background

Career, education, and skills

Career history

  • Garuda VenturesCo-Founder & General PartnerPresent

Education

  • University of Pennsylvania

Skills

Pre-seed InvestingHardware & RoboticsAI InvestingCompany Building

Other partners at Garuda Ventures

1 more profile

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Rishi Taparia

Rishi Taparia

Co-founder and General Partner

Garuda Ventures

Rishi Taparia is Co-founder and General Partner at Garuda Ventures, a first-check fund backing business-user-focused startups across software, cybersecurity, infrastructure, fintech, hardware, and AI-enabled sectors.

Climate 2.0Commerce InfrastructureIntelligent ApplicationsThe New Perimeter