IIT Bombay's startup incubator SINE's CEO Ajeet Khurana quits, to float own venture

Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship's (SINE) chief executive Ajeet Khurana has quit the organisation within five months to set up his own venture. He had joined the company in September last year.

There is no interim CEO or replacement for now. SINE will be headed by its Poyni Bhatt.

"It was not an easy decision to leave this great institution that inculcates the value of true entrepreneurship. But I feel it's time for me to set up my next venture," Khurana told Techcircle.in.

"In the early stage startup space in India, there are many problem areas that need to be plugged. I am planning on a startup that will solve several of those problems for startups and investors," he said while refusing to divulge exact details of the new venture.

Khurana had replaced Sushanto Mitra, who had quit as CEO of SINE way back in September 2012 to join Hyderabad Angels.

He is an entrepreneur-turned angel investor. A University of Texas alumnus, Khurana had earlier founded Corpus Collosum Learning Pvt Ltd and KITS (Khurana Information and Training Systems Pvt Ltd). He had previously worked with various incubators, accelerators, startup events, entrepreneur clubs and social media platforms, besides National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN).

As angel investor, Khurana invested $10,000 each in over half a dozen startups a year in areas like education, e-commerce, software, internet & internet-enabled services and mobile. His portfolio companies include Rolocule Games, United Mobile Apps, Karmic Lifesciences and Carve Niche Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Last year he had said he will discontinue his angel investments.

Under Khurana, many SINE incubatees had raised funds. These include communication app for schools Knit, IT security startup Wegilant and industry visit organising firm Purple Squirel.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)