Akhil Sikri

Hi, I'm Akhil, a software engineer living in Bangalore. I'm passionate about technology, entrepreneurship, and mentoring.

I graduated in Computer Science from IIT Delhi in 2010. After leading the tech team at a Sequoia-funded gaming startup (Kiwi Inc.), I jumped into entrepreneurship in 2013. I launched an ed-tech startup to build products for K5-K10 students, but it didn't take off. This taught me the importance of timing in a startup journey.

Later, I co-founded Zolo with my brother to focus on managed co-living in India. We believed we had hit a great timing with market forces and customer demand supporting our thesis of managed co-living solutions in 2015. We raised a total of $100 millionfrom marquee investors (Nexus VP, InvestCorp, Mirae Asset) and grew from $0.4 million ARR in the first year to $40 million by FY23.

I took an operational exit from Zolo in March 2023 while continuing to serve as a non-executive board member. I'm now embarking on a new journey in the fintech world to build a large-scale and highly reputed organization.