Bessemer Venturee Partners, among the world’s oldest venture capital firms, has announced the appointment of Pankaj Mitra as a Partner in its India operations. This move comes as the firm sharpens its focus on sectors like artificial intelligence, enterprise software, and cybersecurity emerging from the Indian startup ecosystem.Mitra’s appointment arrives amid a global shift in AI-related capital allocation and growing similarities between India’s enterprise tech landscape and early-stage trends in established markets like the U.S. and Israel—markets where Bessemer has historically played a pioneering role.
Bringing over 25 years of expertise in venture investing and corporate development, Mitra previously served as a senior executive within Cisco’s mergers and acquisitions and investment division. At Cisco, he managed the global Customer Experiences investment portfolio and led India-focused investment activities. His past investment record includes AI observability firm Fiddler, conversational AI company Uniphore, and digital adoption platform Whatfix.
His addition to Bessemer follows the firm’s announcement in March 2025 of a $350 million second India-dedicated fund. That fund prioritizes investments in AI, digital health, fintech, enterprise technology, and cybersecurity—domains that closely reflect Mitra’s experience and previous investment areas.
Earlier in his career, Mitra was a founding member of Infosys’s $500 million innovation fund, where he backed companies such as drone manufacturer Ideaforge, which went public in 2023, and fitness tech brand Whoop. He also held key roles at VMware during its expansion into cloud services and began his professional journey in management consulting at Deloitte.
Mitra is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, holding an engineering degree, and earned his MBA from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
Welcoming Mitra, Bessemer Partner Vishal Gupta stated, “We are delighted to welcome Pankaj to the Bessemer family. He brings a breadth of experience which is a unique blend of investing prowess as well as deep industry knowledge. This will be invaluable as we look to deepen our commitments in AI, enterprise-tech, and cybersecurity in India.”
Mitra commented on the opportunity ahead, saying, “The ongoing AI platform shift offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for builders to usher in the next wave of tech evolution across industries.” He added that he is eager to work alongside “a new generation of ambitious, world-class founders in India addressing pain points domestically and globally.”
Bessemer Venture Partners currently manages over $18 billion in assets globally, operating out of offices located in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Tel Aviv, and Bengaluru.
