Our Team

We have nurtured a stable and aligned team

Founders

Kedar Kulkarni

Prior to founding Matsya, Kedar worked at Duquesne Capital and Pointstate Capital (both in New York) as an Investment Analyst from the Fall of 2005 until July 2012.
Duquesne Capital was a $12bn hedge fund, run by Stanley Druckenmiller. In its thirty years of existence,Duquesne never had a money-losing year, and produced a 30% CAGR annual return. At Duquesne, Kedar was an Analyst on the oil and gas portfolio. The size of the oil and gas book ranged from $1bn-$7bn.
Kedar came back to India in 2012 with the intention of creating a world-class long-short Fund. His key actions with Matsya have included implementing the highest corporate governance standards, creating strong team incentives and cultivating the team members with compassion. The team at Matsya has been able to validate the business model over eight years.
Prior to joining Duquesne, Kedar was an Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs. He has graduated with Honors from The University of Texas at Austin where he earned a BA in Economics and a BBA in Finance. He is an avid tennis enthusiast.

Sunil Rao

Sunil started his professional career with Hindustan Unilever in May 2004, where he spent 3 years learning the ropes of consumer behaviour, sales and distribution. Using his consumer-facing experience, he co founded a VC-backed national spa chain – Four Fountains De-Stress Spa – in 2007 and was actively involved in its management for over 10 years. Through his start-up, he gained rich, first-hand experience in brand-building, recruiting and leading multi-city teams, retail operations, franchising and scaling up.
In 2013, Sunil co-founded Matsya Capital with Kedar. His consumer insights and real-world experience in the Indian business environment have shaped Matsya’s research and investment processes. Over the years, he as led efforts to develop detailed industry frameworks for every sector and has worked deeply with the team to bring consistency across the Fund. He has instituted several risk management processes and is currently exploring how technology can be used to simplify, automate and add value to the Fund.
Sunil brings a methodical and analytical bent of mind to his role as co-Portfolio Manager at Matsya. He is a student of Vipassana meditation.

Team Members

Arjun Tandon, CFA
(Analyst)

Arjun leads the Banking, Financial Services and Autos sectors at Matsya. Over the years, he has developed several proprietary frameworks such as those for equity-dilution at state owned banks and banking multiples. He was early to quantify the impact of EVs on Auto OEMs and ancillaries,which has helped the Fund take positions with conviction. As a senior member of the team, Arjun supports the PMs in several analytical tasks.

Arjun previously worked for TresVista Financial Services as a Senior Analyst where he worked with a couple of US-based hedge funds and a globally renowned private equity firm.

Shernaaz Marfatia
(Analyst)

Shernaaz was early in recognising the transformational trends sweeping over the Telecom and Media sectors and has given Matsya some of the best alpha-generating pair trades. She additionally covers Cement, Home Improvement, and Durables sectors, shaping themes levered to infrastructure and housing in India.

Shernaaz previously worked as a Financial Analyst at TresVista Financial Services where she assisted a Secondary Private Equity Fund and a US based Family Office, on deep industry analysis, valuation, and creation of investment decks.

Heena Kulkarni
(Head of Operations)

Heena comes with 13 years of experience in setting up processes across verticals such as finance, data management and design. She has managed clients across North America and MENA regions and teams as large as 400 people.  In her last role with Publicis, she was instrumental in setting up compliance processes for India’s leading FMCG marketer. She also helped in developing proprietary tools for automation in her previous organizations.

Venkatesh Ramakrishnan
(Data Scientist)

Venkatesh completed his doctorate in computational biology and biophysics at Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry at Goettingen, Germany.  

Previously, he has worked with TIFR, Mumbai & City University of New York Research Foundation and later with USDA at Beltsville, Maryland. He was primarily involved in developing their databases and analysis of spectroscopic data using ML methods. He has a rich and diverse experience of over 13 years in software development and Machine Learning field. 

Shivam Gupta
(Associate)

Shivam is the lead analyst on Power and Energy. He has developed a detailed framework to condense and analyze a notoriously difficult sector. Additionally, he assists the lead analyst covering IT.

Shivam has worked for TresVista Financial Services as a financial analyst where he was primarily responsible for assisting in analysis and maintaining a portfolio for a US-based hedge fund.

Akansha Gulati
(Associate)

Akansha is the lead analyst on Staples and NBFCs. She also assists the lead analyst covering Auto OEMs. She has helped develop the EV framework and COE framework for NBFCS using bond yields.

Prior to joining Matsya, she worked at TresVista Financial Services, where she primarily assisted a US-based hedge fund with investment analysis, and a couple of private equity firms.

Lakshana Sunda
(Associate)

Lakshana is the lead analyst on Auto Ancillaries and assists the lead analyst covering the Banking sector. She has helped create a credit cost framework for FIG and the EV framework for Auto OEMS.

Manoj Kaliaperumal
(Data Analyst)

Manoj leads the Fund’s analytical initiatives by creating dashboards to monitor performance. He’s currently working on layering technical indicators on the Fund’s core fundamental work to create even more powerful stock selection tools.

Manoj previously worked for Dun & Bradstreet Technologies as a Analyst where he primarily assisted the clients research and data requirements directly.

Bhupathi Phani Raj
(Derivatives Execution Trader)

Phani works at Matsya’s Trading Desk; monitoring market activity and adjusting trading strategies as required. He assists the Portfolio Managers and the research team in developing and executing different trading strategies and high-frequency trades. He’s currently working on automating trades based on algorithmic programs and insight generation through analytical dashboards. 

Phani has over 4 years of trading experience in the Markets. Prior to joining Matsya, he worked at VMock as Business Analyst (Product) where he was primarily responsible for assisting the Product Manager in development and management of different in-house products while collaborating with Software Engineers and Data Scientists. Phani also worked at TresVista Financial Services as a financial analyst, where he primarily assisted US-based private equity firms with investment analysis. 

Chirag Vijayvargiya
(Intern)

Chirag’s role involves executing trades (manually or through algorithmic programs), working on analytical tasks, and maintaining proactive communication with Portfolio Managers. Beyond trading, Chirag currently collaborates with analysts, associates, Tech and Operations team and helps in refining organizational systems further.