Mohanjit Jolly

Summary

Co-founder and Partner at Iron Pillar, a growth stage investor specializing in enterprise and consumer technology companies building their core products “from India for India and the world”. Since 2016, we have partnered closely with founders to guide their businesses from early growth stage to sustainable enterprises generating $100 million or more in revenue. I have had the honor of leading Iron Pillar's investments in Vyome, Uniphore, Ushur, Pando.ai, Jiffy.ai, CoreStack and Fold Health. I often say that nothing about my professional (and personal) journey has been planned. Rather, it's been a set of serendipitous moments and step functions. My family immigrated to the US in 1983, settling in South-Central LA, eventually studying Aero-Astro at MIT (researched electric propulsion at the Air Force Rocket Lab at Mojave AFB). I joined Itek Optical Systems and worked on high-end reconnaissance and imaging systems, including helping fix the Hubble Space Telescope in the mid 90's. After my MBA from UCLA, I spent a year at Mattel as part of a small ex-MIT crew responsible for creating tech toys of the future. That team launched Intel-Play, a JV between Mattel and Intel in the late 90's. After receiving a cold call from Guy Kawasaki, I moved to Silicon Valley and joined his startup, Garage.com, initially helping companies raise capital. After the dot com bust, Garage pivoted into a seed stage venture firm, Garage Technology Ventures making me an "accidental VC" and starting my 20+ year journey as an investor. After 8 years at Garage, I transitioned to DFJ in 2007 (when I spent 2007-2012 in India establishing and running DFJ's India operations) and eventually co-founded Iron Pillar in 2016. I am based in Palo Alto, have been happily married for 26 years, with three kids and two dogs:)