Mentor / Investor

Parimal always had an entrepreneurial streak in him. His risk taking, adventure seeking attitude brought him to the United States in the first place – to learn and grow in the most competitive economy in the world. That’s why he was able to pivot from engineering to business easily.

In early 2000s, he became one of the co-founders and the Chairman of the Board of 3D Product Development (P) Limited in Bangalore, India. The business has become India’s largest 3D printing bureau. It was before 3D printing was fashionable and was called rapid prototyping using laser and hydrostatic sintering. 3DPD made Parimal stay close to his engineering roots. He exited the business after 12 years with a 5x investment return.

Parimal was also an early investor in his friend’s startup – Ultravisual Medical System. The company was developing a proprietary software to combine medical imaging data to view in 3-D. Ultravisual merged with Emageon which later became public and Parimal exited his investment with a 3x return over six years.

He has invested again in the same friend’s next startup – Oncospace, Inc. The company licenses its technology from Johns Hopkins University and uses AI and machine learning to aid oncologists and radiologists make personalized and predictive treatment plans for patients. The business has received support and grants from the National Science Foundation and the Maryland Biotechnology Investment Program. Parimal has already received half of his investment amount in tax credits from the State of Maryland for investing in a qualified Maryland biotechnology company.

In addition, Parimal has invested in numerous pre-IPO companies, such as Docusign, AirBnB, Pinterest, Rani Therapeutics, Sonos, Auris Surgical, The Honest Company, Virgin Hyperloop, Ripple, Buzzfeed and others. He has enjoyed returns far in excess of Nasdaq 100 on these investments even after losing most of his investment in WeWork. He is also one of the founding limited partners in the Motley Fools Venture Capital Fund.

With his unfathomable appetite for learning, Parimal had always been curious. By being a mentor to entrepreneurs and early-stage companies, Parimal gets to learn about new technologies and ideas while helping them refine and develop their business models. Parimal has joined Austin Technology Incubator’s (ATI) Texas Venture Mentoring Services (TEXVM) and been a mentor to Atlas Sensor Technologies and NiSOC. Separately, he had been mentoring another startup – WiseMoving. He considers a mentor’s role to help entrepreneurs make informed choices. Instead of founders reinventing the wheels of business – be it finance, HR, or go to market strategy – as a mentor Parimal provides them with alternatives, highlights risks, points to the right resources and helps them come to a consensus. He never leads them to a chosen path and definitely does not make the decision for them.

Atlas Sensor has developed a technology to detect and monitor hardness in the water treated by a water softener. Hard water is a widespread problem and there are many water softening solutions available to industry and consumers. Water softening results in excess salt going through the waste water system to rivers and streams causing damages to marine life and agriculture. Atlas sensors minimize the excess salt by sensing the ions in water and alerting the need for regeneration of softeners.

NiSOC was founded last year by a few UT Austin students to detect radiation in a simple, cheaper and portable way. They are working with the Department of Defense (DoD) to implement the technology in a practical way.

WiseMoving Technologies offers visibility to parking availability by aggregating and providing real-time data on parking utilization, parking demand, while helping reduce traffic congestion, providing improved access and enhancing the access of cars and pedestrians. The company uses in-ground sensors and license plate recognition cameras to collect data and using big data analytics and AI provide real time trends to enable real time decision making. Management has requested a more hands-on involvement of Parimal than just mentoring. He gets involved in project evaluation, proposal development and negotiations among other things.