About
I'm Anurag Gangwar. I'm building FirstCheq, an AI agent that helps first-time founders raise their first round. I've spent six years in fundraising, on both sides of the table.
I studied engineering physics at IIT Delhi, where I spent much of my time building social enterprises with Enactus, and later did an MBA in finance at FMS Delhi.
I worked on IFC's venture capital team at the World Bank Group, doing due diligence on tech startups and a VC fund, and I was a fellow with Blitzscaling Ventures in San Francisco and TAVtech in Israel. In 2021 I started ImpactVerse, a fundraising advisory that has helped mission-driven founders raise $3.5M+ in catalytic capital from funders in India, the UK and the US.
Doing the same fundraising work by hand for every founder is what led to FirstCheq: let agents do the research, the pitches and the follow-ups, so every first-time founder can have a fundraising team.
Life has not been as smooth as a list like the one below makes it look.
Experience
- Founder, FirstCheq
- Founder and CEO, ImpactVerse
- Venture capital team, IFC (World Bank Group)
- Analytics and insights intern, Procter & Gamble (pre-placement offer)
- Enactus IIT Delhi: team member, president, trustee, now mentor
- Co-founder, Excelsior India (non-profit)
Education
- B.Tech in Engineering Physics, IIT Delhi
- MBA in Finance, FMS Delhi
- Summer School in Economic Networks, Oxford
Fellowships
- Blitzscaling Ventures Fellow, San Francisco
- TAVtech Fellow (TAVtech and NYU Stern), Israel
- ELD Fellow, Meraki Labs
- Jagriti Yatra Fellow
- Fellow, Center for Innovative Finance and Social Impact, ISDM
- Design Innovation Fellow, IIT Delhi and MHRD
- SRISTI–UNICEF Inclusive Innovation Summer School
Recognition
- National winner (top 24 of 3,000 globally), P&G IT Business Case Challenge
- National winner, Enactus/HSBC Business Case Competition (team)
- National winner, Abhyuday Social Plan Competition, IIT Bombay (team)
- National winner and twice first runner-up, Enactus National Competition (team)
- First runner-up, Eureka, Asia's largest B-plan competition (team)
- Top 25 Social Innovator, The Red Bricks Summit, IIM Ahmedabad
- Future CEO Leader Award, Talerang
- IIT Delhi Pearl Award; Design Innovation Student Award (IIT Delhi and MHRD)
Interests
Complexity science, system dynamics, non-linear systems, philosophy, psychology, economics and financial theory.
This site isn't here to convince anyone of anything. It's where I put ideas I find meaningful, some old, some new, some half-formed. Comments and disagreement are always welcome.