Manan Mehta is a founding partner of Unshackled Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund created to support foreign-born entrepreneurs. Prior to Unshackled, Manan ran marketing for ed-tech startup Kno, which was acquired by Intel in 2013. Before Kno, Manan was an investment banker at the Royal Bank of Canada, with his most notable deal being the $1.9B acquisition of Skype lead by Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz in 2009 — later sold to Microsoft for $8.5B. Trained as an engineer at UCLA, Manan’s passions stem from the desire to rapidly iterate to solve problems.

Manan, a first generation American, knows his life is inextricably linked to immigrants. He is a firm believer that immigrants are the heartbeat of entrepreneurship and is focused on helping create more innovative companies in the U.S. Whether it’s story-telling, launching marketing campaigns, product design, financial modeling or helping founders acquire their first customers, Manan is excited about unleashing entrepreneurs to innovate and create opportunities for themselves and society.