Naveen Tewari

Naveen Tewari is an Indian entrepreneur and the CEO of InMobi. He founded InMobi in 2007, which went on to become India's first unicorn. In 2019, Naveen founded his second startup, Glance,which became a unicorn in 2020 after raising $145 million in investment from Google and Mithril Capital. Glance turned unicorn within 2 years of its inception, joining the likes of PayTM Mall (April 2018), Udaan (September 2018), GlobalBees (December 2021), Mensa (November 2021), and CredAvenue (March 2022). This made Naveen one of the few entrepreneurs who had founded two or more unicorns.
Naveen is also the 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. He also served on the board of Paytm.
Naveen is a fan of pragmatic and traditional business models and has expressed doubts regarding the business models that rely heavily on attractive offers and deals. He has been a proponent of building sustainable, lasting businesses, instead of focusing on short-term success.
In 2024, on January 24, which is celebrated as Uttar Pradesh Day, Tewari was honored with the Uttar Pradesh Gaurav Samman by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his contributions to the sector.
==Education and Career==
Naveen completed his Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in India. On completion of the degree program, Naveen began his career at McKinsey and Company, where he worked as a business analyst from 2000 to 2003.
Naveen left McKinsey to pursue MBA at Harvard Business School. After graduating, 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. 
While working at CRV, Naveen conceived the idea of InMobi|mKhoj, which aimed to monetize SMS-based search. mKhoj was launched in 2 007, but ran out of money. Naveen decided to shut it down and instead founded InMobi, an advertising and technology company, in 2008 and was joined by Abhay Singhal, Amit Gupta, and Mohit Saxena as co-founders, who he knew from IIT-K or Harvard.
In 2011, InMobi became the first Indian company to be valued at $1 billion (approximately ₹7,115 crore) and turned unicorn after receiving US$200 million in funding from SoftBank Group|Softbank. By 2014, Naveen had managed to lead InMobi to success globally, while maintaining a strong international presence in India.
In 2019, Naveen teamed up with Abhay Singhal, Mohit Saxena, and Piyush Shah to co-found Glance, which turned unicorn in November 2020 after raising $145 million from Google and Mithril Capital.
==Board Memberships & Affiliations==
Naveen Tewari is the Founder & CEO of the InMobi Group, which consists of InMobi, Glance and Roposo. Glance owns and operates the Indian short-video content platform Roposo. Tewari is also a board member of Paytm. He is also the current Chair of Working Group 7 of the US–India CEO Forum|US-India CEO Forum, on the India side. 
Naveen currently sits on the board of iSPIRIT, with the likes of Dr. Ajay Data, Bharat Goenka and Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
Naveen has invested in the following ventures:
Year	Company 	Sector 	Funding Round	Total Amount Raised During Round	Ref
2015	Springboard 	EdTech 	Seed 	US$ 1.7 million 	
2015	NestAway 	Real Estate 	Seed 	US$ 1.2 million 	
2015	RazorpayRize	Payments 	Seed 	US$ 9 million 	
2015	Zimmber 	Delivery 	Seed 	US$ 400,000 	
2015	Zapr 	MediaTech 	Seed 	NA 	
2015	Indus OS 	Operating System	Seed 	NA 	
==Awards & Recognition==
In January 2024, the Government of Uttar Pradesh|Uttar Pradesh Government announced that Naveen Tewari would be honored with UP Gaurav Samman on Uttar Pradesh Day (24 January). The UP Gaurav Samman was presented to Naveen by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during Uttar Pradesh Day celebrations. In 2022, Naveen was a special guest at the Bengaluru Tech Summit inauguration ceremony, which was inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In June 2023, Naveen was on the Jury for the ET 40 under Forty leaders.
Other awards and accolades include: 
Year	Name 	Awarded by 	Ref
2020	Influencer of the Year 	E4M Exchange 	
2015	Super Rich Indians 	Hurun 	
2014	Fortune India's 40 under 40 list 	Fortune 	
2014	Most Creative People in Business 1000 	Fast Company 	
2014	Leadership Award for Outstanding Start Up 	Forbes India 	
2013	Pathbreaker of the Year 	DataQuest 	
2012	Second Most Important Person in Mobile Advertising	Business Insider	
==Personal Life==
Naveen Tewari is married and lives with his wife Aditi, and two children, Niyati (17) and Avin (13). He married Aditi in 2010. 
Category:Indian company founders
Category:Living people
Category:Indian businesspeople
Category:Indian business executives
Category:Indian technology company founders‎
Category:People from Uttar Pradesh