• Enabling users to manage personal/family Reminders and Calendar in WhatsApp

Founder (AI-Saas Product)

Investing and advising early-stage startups (sector, region agnostic)
- HD (Series A+, Healthcare, SEA)

Angel Investor

• Led rapid testing of numerous business models, ultimately scaling a B2B Cosmetics Supply Marketplace from 0 to US$ 1.7mil annualized in 13mths, spending $1k per month on marketing
• Led a team of 17, spearheading the strategic, commercial, fundraising, and product direction & design
• Designed the UX, defined the product specs and roadmap, and worked with our tech team to build a Wholesale platform webapp and Order Management & Storefront mobile app
• Lead Partnership efforts, tying up with Tik Tok Shop, as the only Supply partner in Vietnam
• Achieved contribution margin positive (gross – all variable costs), 62% retention (4mth), <2mth CAC payback
• Raised multiple rounds of capital, engaging with tier-1 global investors

Founder & CEO | Head of Product

Iterative is a VC and YC-style Startup Accelerator for Asia. Founded by Unicorn founders from the US. I support the team on an advisory basis to assess startups (Pre-seed to Series A) that seek funding

Venture Partner (early-stage VC, advisory basis) 

• Led a regional team, driving strategy and key complex optimizations across 6 countries as a Customer Experience Lead and Regional Head of Returns & Refunds, enhancing returns, refunds, cancellations, and platform experience
• Launched products, processes, and policies on returns, reducing refund time by ~4 days, lifting return satisfaction by ~18 pts on NPS over 1 yr, and reducing cost/fraud to firm at $X mil/year
• Drove similar efforts on cancellations, improving buyer satisfaction over 1 yr by ~25 pts on NPS, ultimately improving retention
• E.g of launches: Faster refunds & Fraud detection, Algorithms assisting sellers to manage buyers, Quality and governance revamp on returns, Automated cancellation workflows with improved visibility, E2E user experience revamp
• Above job scope: O2O push to onboard blue-collar workers, Gifting product, Cost optimization with CFO

Group Customer Experience & Strategy Lead (SEA, Lazada)

• Made 28 independent investment calls (US$1-50mil each) with 82% producing positive gains
• Awarded, within 1.5 years, the responsibility to lead corporate debt investment decisions for three sectors globally (Consumer & Retail, Metals & Mining, Project Finance)
• Awarded responsibility to write the monthly commentary to all investors, analyzing the fund’s positioning and dynamics of the market (Fund’s AUM peaked at US$1.35bil)
• Built projection models, did bottom-up analysis, and interacted with key mgmt of covered companies

Investment Manager & Global Sector Lead

• Led scoping and execution of key cross-function projects, working across C-suite, tech, and business teams
• Facilitated the data and systems migration across all key divisions enabling Lazada to move to Alibaba systems, post acquisition
• Led revamp of a financial system that reconciled all transactions against money owed
• Led design and implementation of a Gaming Portal, boosting customer engagement (CEO special project)

Chief of Staff, Data/Risk/Tech

• Venture Capital fund investing in early-stage startups via the support of university student analysts
• Co-manage investments, fundraising, overall operations, and a rotating team of 20 university student analysts
• Backed by established VC's - Wavemaker Partners, Jeff Chi (Vickers Venture Partners), Government Grants

Founding Partner (early-stage VC)

Ex-CX & Strategy Lead + Chief of Staff @ Lazada/Alibaba | 2x Founder

Know about Karan ADHIKARI's work experience, education, bootcamps, certifications, and much more. Karan ADHIKARI