Draft:Naveen Tewari

Naveen Tewari is an Indian entrepreneur who is the Founder and CEO of InMobi, a global mobile advertising and technology platform headquartered in Singapore. He also served on the board of Paytm.

In 2019, Naveen founded his second startup, Glance, which became a unicorn after raising $145 million in investment from Google and Mithril Capital. Glance owns and operates the Indian short-video content platform Roposo. Naveen is also a co-founder of iSPIRT, an organization focused on fostering entrepreneurship in India. He also founded and chairs a US-based nonprofit, India School Fund, which funds and sets up schools in rural India.

Tiwari is also a board member of Paytm. In 2024, Tiwari was honored with the prestigious Uttar Pradesh Gaurav Samman, which is the highest civilian award from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his contributions to the sector.

Career
After completing his undergraduate studies, Naveen began his career at McKinsey and Company, where he worked as a business analyst from 2000 to 2003. He was part of McKinsey's team working on a project for Mukesh Ambani. Mukesh started Reliance Jio Infocomm in 2012, soft-launching services in 2015. Naveen was instrumental in developing the go-to-market strategy for a large Indian conglomerate's entry into the telecom sector.

Naveen left McKinsey to pursue his MBA at Harvard Business School, where he was honored with the Dean's Award, the highest student honor, for his exceptional leadership and contribution. Naveen joined Charles River Ventures (CRV), a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in the software and communications sectors. Naveen assisted CRV in developing their investment strategy for India. During this time, Naveen conceived the idea of mKhoj, which aimed to monetize SMS-based search. Naveen met Sasha Mirchandani, who was a co-founder of the investor collective Mumbai Angels and is currently the managing director and founder of the early-stage investment firm Kae Capital. Sasha invested $500,000 in mKhoj. Later on, Naveen was joined by Abhay Singhal, Amit Gupta, and Mohit Saxena as co-founders, whom he knew from IIT-K or Harvard.

mKhoj was launched in 2007, but it didn't gain much traction. Naveen decided to shut it down and instead founded InMobi, an advertising and technology company, in 2008. In 2008, InMobi received Series A funding of US$7.1 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, followed by Series B funding of US$8 million in 2010. In 2011, InMobi secured US$200 million from Softbank. Naveen expanded InMobi's operations through acquisitions of companies in the mobile advertising space.

In 2011, InMobi became the first Indian company to be valued at $1 billion (approximately ₹7,115 crore) and became a unicorn.

In 2019, Naveen teamed up with Abhay Singhal, Mohit Saxena, and Piyush Shah to co-found Glance.

Glance is an AI-based software company based in Bangalore and operates under InMobi. In November 2020, Glance became the second company from the InMobi group to become a unicorn when it raised $145 million from Google and Mithril Capital.

In March 2022, the company acquired Gambit, an Indian gaming company, for an undisclosed amount. The company's current valuation is more than $1 billion.

Awards
In 2024, Naveen was honored with the UP Gaurav Samman, the highest civilian honor in Uttar Pradesh, presented by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

In June 2023, he was featured in ET 40 under Forty leaders.

He also received the Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Award in 2019.

In 2016, InMobi was ranked 15th on Fast Company's 'World's Top 50 Innovative Companies.