The Indian Anand Deshpande was designated in 2018 by Forbes Asia magazine “hero of philanthropy” as a result of all the activities he dedicated to with the sole objective of helping other entrepreneurs. Among other things, he spent days and days teaching young people how tech companies can exceed $ 6 million in revenue.
If Anand Deshpande’s qualities are to be summed up in two words, those would be “teaching” and “sharing”, the essence of his philanthropic work. “He was one of the first in the industry to offer to share his knowledge on how to increase revenue,” says Avinash Raghava, a person who has known him for 20 years.
Before that, Deshpande, considered a fanatic of technology, trained in the United States, living his particular American dream working in Silicon Valley as an engineer for Hewlett Packard. At the age of 28 he had to decide between returning to India or settling in North American lands, and he decided to return to his land with the aim of creating his first company.
Deshpande came to India in the 1990s with $ 21,000 of his savings and, together with financial help from his parents and some colleagues, decided to create Persistent Systems, a database company that secured a place in the park. scientist that was built at that time in the city of Pune. The beginnings were not easy and the name of his company denoted the only quality that Deshpande had to have, persistence.
In the 2000s his luck began to change. First with Intel Capital’s investment of one million euros for a 3.5% stake in your company. Later, in 2005, it raised $ 20 million from Norwest Venture and Gabriel Venture Partners; and in 2010 his company went public. Since then, Persistent has posted a compound annual growth rate of 14.6% in revenue and 13.2% in profit, as Forbes reports .
Shares in Persistent are up 149% this year, enough to put Deshpande, 59, in the billionaires’ club for the first time. Its 30% stake has seen its equity grow to more than $ 1 billion for a technology company that is known today for its digital engineering, data and artificial intelligence. Their adventure started with five people and now they already have 14,000 of a total of 45 nationalities.
“For a techie like me, I think this was the result of being in the right place at the right time,” confesses a non-resting Deshpande. In 2015, together with his wife, he created the deASRA Foundation, which aims to create a massive business movement to turn job seekers into job creators.
He is currently busy with NITI Aayog, a group of government experts on a women’s entrepreneurship portal. He is also focused on identifying next-generation technologies and promoting entrepreneurship within the organization. It sure isn’t your last adventure.