"I humbly hope to have the privilege to be a thought partner to entrepreneurs who are truly passionate about their vision, fully convinced that the world needs their product. I care deeply about their aspirations, and I hope to hear about the product’s uniqueness, with a clear understanding of its importance, and a strong commitment to the greater societal impact. I hold intelligence, collaboration, a thirst for knowledge, ambition, and a readiness to glean lessons from setbacks in high regard. Entrepreneurs who recognize this frequently achieve the goals they set out for themselves."
Sandesh Patnam is the Managing Partner at Premji Invest, running both the private and listed equities investing practice in the US and tech investing globally. He joined PI to establish their US presence and drive their investment strategies in the US. At PI, he has led investments in Anaplan (SaaS Planning Solution, IPO, Ticker: PLAN), Zuora (SaaS Subscription Billing, IPO, Ticker: ZUO), Coupa(SaaS eProcurement, IPO, Ticker: COUP), Looker (BI Analytics, Acq. by GOOGL for$2.85B), Apttus (SaaS CPQ and CLM, Acq. by Thoma Bravo for $1.85B), ServiceMax(SaaS Field Service Automation, Acq. by GE for $1.0B), Navan (AI enabled travel platform), Outreach (SaaS Sales Enablement), Icertis (SaaS Contract Management), Heyday (E-commerce enablement), Signifyd (E-commerce Fraud), Sysdig (Container Security), DataStax (NoSQL database), Cohesity (Enterprise Data Management), Innovium (Switch Fabric Silicon, Acq by MRVL for $1.2B), and Ikigai (Enterprise AI).
Prior to Premji Invest, Sandesh was a Senior Equity Analyst and Investment Officer at the Seligman Technology Group at Ameriprise. At Seligman, Sandesh helped manage more than $15B in both long only and long/short investment vehicles while leading their software and IT infrastructure equity portfolios. Prior to Seligman, Sandesh was a General Partner at Bay Partners and led the IT Infrastructure and SaaS practices. At Bay, he led or co led investments in Akros Silicon (Power Management ICs), Code Green Networks (DLP Security Systems), Daptiv (SaaS Collaboration and Project Mgmt.), ParAccel (Data Warehousing systems, Acq. by Ingrian), LiveMedia (OOH digital advertising),Nanogram (next gen materials), and Enphase Energy (Micro-Inverters for Solar, IPO: ENPH). He was involved in the firm’s investments in Lending Club (Consumer Lending, IPO, Ticker: LC), Mulesoft (API platform, IPO, Ticker: MULE),Dynatrace (IPO, Ticker: DT), and Guidewire Software (SaaS Insurance vertical, IPO, Ticker: GWRE).
Prior to Bay Partners, he was with TeleSoft Partners where led the systems and components investment practices. He co-led investments in Aarohi Communications(Acq. by Emulex), Amberwave Systems, Sierra Design Automation (Acq. by MENT),Validity Sensors (Acq. SYNA), Xambala, and Xpedion Design Systems (Acq. by Agilent Technologies).
Before joining TeleSoft, he held both business and technical roles at Malleable Technologies, Silicon Graphics, Integrated Device Technologies, and Cirrus Logic.
