When dreams are as high as the sky, nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter if you’re from the commercial capital or a small town, as long as you want it and strive for it, you get it.
Manav Garg, against all odds, managed to take the startup plunge and excel by founding Eka Software Solutions. Manav was born in Moga, Punjab, and belonged to a middle-class family.
He graduated from NIT Jalandhar with an engineering degree in Instrumentation and Control. Thereafter, Manav pursued his MBA from IIFT, Delhi.
With a good package in a trading company in Singapore, there was no looking back for him. He travelled across Southeast Asia as a coffee trader meeting several people from about 400-500 companies.
During that time, he realized that there wasn’t any system which was able to manage the risks and trading in the business. Thus, he decided to work through that and see what could be done.
He left his job, and did not tell anyone about the big move. Due to his father’s failed entrepreneurship journey, both his parents were not open to the startup idea, in fact, they were quite against it. Moreover, Manav did not know enough about software but he was sure that he would be the one to fill the gap that he had found out.
After quitting his job, Manav was back in Delhi. His initial plan was to start in the national capital since it was also closer to home. However, one visit to Bangalore changed his decision, and he finally started his company in the good weather software city.
In 2004, Manav’s startup saw its first product. And while the operations were initially financed by Manav himself, he got seed funding later by his former employer amounting to a million dollars.
In 2009, Nexus, a venture capital, funded 10 million dollars to Eka, whereas $40 million was received in 2013 by the Silver lake.
Today, Eka has over 100 customers across the globe including Cofco, Unilever, Cargill. Eka helps businesses in adapting as well as overcoming challenges in several domains including supply chain, trading and risk, business collaboration as well as financial management.
With more than 400 employees, Manav has created a niche in the market for himself. His dream of coming back to India and creating something has come true. He was attracted to the energy India has which none of the other countries could offer him.
Today when you hear Manav talk, you’d by no chance even think that he’s the same man who didn’t know how to converse in English until the time he went to college.
