Nihal Mehta is an American entrepreneur who has more than 13 years of experience in innovating marketing technologies, and has founded 5 startups to date. Mehta is a founding general partner at ENIAC Ventures, Inc. It is the first venture fund to focus exclusively on mobile technologies.
Mehta is a noted expert in emerging mobile technologies for media properties and consumer brands. He is currently CEO and cofounder of LocalResponse, Inc., a company that helps marketers respond to real-time consumer intent. Before developing LocalResponse, he founded ipsh!, one of the first full-service mobile marketing agencies, in 2001.
He is also a founding partner of the India Internet Group, which invests in Indian startups, and is an active angel investor in dozens of companies.
Mehta’s work in the startup ecosystem, both as an investor and a founder, has led to several recognitions. Business Insider named him as one of the “25 People Every New Founder Should Meet in the New York Tech,” and he was included on the list of “Top 25 Up-and-Coming Startup CEOs in New York,” in 2012. In a 2010 New York Enterprise Report, he was one of the “Top 10 NYC Game Changers,” and was named one of AdAge’s “Top 20 Marketers in Their 20s,” in 2005.
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Philosophy and a BSE in Computer Science.
Angel Fund:
General Partner at ENIAC Ventures, Inc. (Founded in 2009)
Sectors:
Advertising, Big Data, Consumer Internet, Digital Media, E-Commerce, Education, Location Based Services, Mobile, Mobile Commerce, Real Time, SaaS, Social Commerce and Social Media.
Selected Investments:
Buck
Fixmo
American Idiot
Exclusively.in
TigerTrade
StepOut
Tapad
Neverware
irrive
Koding
Uber
NationBuilder
NearVerse
Localytics
Koduco
Tracks
MightyMeeting
Fast Society
MindSnacks
OnSwipe
Sonar.me
Thumb
Breezy
Dekko
SharedBy.co
Ginger.io
ShowMe
Fitocracy
AppHero
Immersive Labs
Tempo Payments
Vungle
Metaresolver
TapToLearn
Sonic Notify
abreakplease
Virtual Intelligence Technologies
Clothia
Ek SMS
Wild East Group
trumaker
InVenture 24/7 Techies
Wefunder
India Internet Group (founding partner)
Winners:
AdMob sold to Google for $750 million
Ipsh sold to Omnicom for undisclosed amount
Instinctiv sold to SoundCloud for $10 million
Fondu sold to Airbnb for $575 thousand
Philo sold to LocalResponse for undisclosed amount
Simperium sold to Automatic for undisclosed amount
Failures:
Buzzd closed in April of 2012
Hashable closed in July of 2012
Boards:
Project Ahimsa (also cofounder)
MoVoxx
Expertise Areas:
Mobile Technology, Media Properties, Consumer Brands, Marketing Technology, Strategic Partnerships, Social Networking and Product Development.
Blogs, Twitter & Websites:
Twitter
ENIAC Ventures Twitter
LinkedIn
Memorable Quotes:
On being a young entrepreneur in NYC: “After introducing myself, ‘Hey, I’m an entrepreneur,’ people would say, ‘Oh, sorry to hear that, let me buy you lunch.’”
On developing startups: “I always talk about startups as being 4 laps. The first lap is getting your product to fit the market — basically pivoting your business until you find something that’s unique in the marketplace and received really well by customers. The second lap is getting funding. The third lap is monetizing. The fourth lap is the fork in the road: Where does the company go? Do you sell it or take another round to grow?”
On his family: “I had a really strong mother growing up. I’m still a mama’s boy. All my life, I’ve surrounded myself with very strong women.”
Why he chose to be an entrepreneur: “I am an entrepreneur to create, to make something out of nothing, to do the impossible. My personal mission is to make ads more and more contextual to the end user.”
Advice to other entrepreneurs: “First, find your passion, what I define as, ‘What you think of being as you go to sleep, and the same thought that you have when you wake up.’ This is the hardest thing to do. Often people live their whole lives before finding what they are passionate about. Second, work relentlessly at perfecting the passion you have found, embrace failure and keep iterating, ‘You only fail when you quit.’ Third, after some time (Malcolm Gladwell calls it ‘10,000 hours’), you become an expert in your field and see success!”
