Rishit Desai

Rishit Desai is a Partner at WestBridge Capital, one of the most established India- and US-focused investment firms (managing capital across public and private markets, with a portfolio spanning roughly 180+ companies). He was promoted to Partner in January 2023 after serving as Principal, and he leads much of the firm's technology and SaaS/AI investing out of Bengaluru. His stated philosophy centers on people: "In the end, it all comes down to people. All success in life and business is down to finding a few well-intentioned and talented people to join your journey."

His path into venture began early — during university he and friends founded a talent marketplace for students. He then started his career as an investment banker in Singapore, working at Macquarie Capital where he advised clients on capital raising and M&A. He subsequently moved into growth investing as part of Bain Capital Private Equity (Mumbai), participating in marquee technology and consumer investments across India and Asia before joining WestBridge. By his own account he has lived and worked in seven different cities over the past decade.

On the education side, Rishit earned an MBA with a major in Finance from The Wharton School (2012–2014) and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has also cleared Level III of the CFA program. Outside of investing he lists sports-trivia research and exploring restaurants among his interests.

• Invests in SaaS/AI, enterprise/B2B software, edtech, and consumer internet, primarily in India and the US.
• Backs founder-led teams — his repeated emphasis is that talented, well-intentioned people are the decisive factor: "All success in life and business is down to finding a few well-intentioned and talented people to join your journey."
• Focused on AI-native and agentic-AI enterprise platforms: on the UnifyApps deal he said, "UnifyApps has built the foundational platform for agentic AI adoption in the enterprise."
• Looks for companies solving large structural inefficiencies — on Tessell: "Tessell is solving one of the most pressing challenges today in enterprise cloud adoption: data fragmentation and inefficiency."
• Strong conviction in Indian entrepreneurs and company-building; describes enjoying hands-on collaboration with founders on problem-solving and scaling.
• Co-authored / helped release WestBridge's thematic research including the "AI Services 2025" report and a WestBridge × Upekkha report on AI SaaS in India, signaling deep focus on the AI applications and services layer.