Mohit Saxena

Co-Founder & Group CTO, InMobi Group; Angel Investor at inmobi

Reviewed Updated Apr 29, 2026

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Location Bengaluru, India
Check Size Angel checks; participates in syndicated seed/pre-seed rounds, often alongside other InMobi co-founders
Last Verified Investment InMobi (Co-founder capital infusion (INR 0.6 Cr)) — Feb 24, 2025
Social @mohitsax LinkedIn
Stage Focus
seed pre-seed angel
Sector Focus
SaaS AI fintech consumer-internet healthtech edtech D2C mobile hr-tech

Background

Mohit Saxena is Co-Founder and Group CTO of the InMobi Group, the parent of mobile advertising company InMobi and AI-driven consumer platform Glance, both headquartered in Bengaluru, India 12. He oversees technology strategy across InMobi, Glance, and Roposo as Group CTO 12.

Saxena holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee 12. While a student at IIT Roorkee, he served as Secretary of the Lights Section, the institute’s stage-lighting and audio-visual group 3. He later completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program (AMP 190) in 2016 4.

Before InMobi, Saxena managed technology operations at Virgin Mobile, where he designed and deployed the operator’s post-paid billing system and pre-paid revenue recognition system; earlier in his career he worked at AT&T, contributing to multiple telecommunications patents 12. He met co-founder Naveen Tewari in the United States and, by his own account, left a stable U.S. job within 10 days to relocate to Bangalore and co-found mKhoj — the SMS-based mobile search startup that later pivoted and rebranded as InMobi — in 2007, alongside Tewari, Amit Gupta, and Abhay Singhal 356. InMobi raised $500,000 from Mumbai Angels at inception, a $7M Series A from Kleiner Perkins and Sherpalo Ventures, and SoftBank’s two-tranche $200M investment in 2011-2012, becoming India’s first unicorn 56.

In 2017, Saxena co-founded Rizort, a San Francisco-based luxury vacation marketplace using AR/VR for immersive travel discovery, alongside Nishant Sameer and Sachin Kanodia, while remaining in his Group CTO role at InMobi 78. He has been a founding angel of The/Nudge Institute since October 2021 9. Outside work, he produces and DJs electronic music under the name “DJ Secario” 10.

Stated Thesis

Saxena has not published a formal investment thesis. He is primarily an operator-angel; his angel activity is concentrated around Indian founders and the InMobi alumni / co-founder syndicate.

In a March 2020 interview with IIT Roorkee’s student magazine, he framed entrepreneurship in terms of mindset rather than sector picks: “Entrepreneurship is a mindset, where you own something, you feel accountable for it, give what you have, try to grow that component to the best of your ability” 3. He has emphasized founder relationships as the deciding factor: “What matters for entrepreneurship is a common interest among the co-founders… a majority of [successful companies] have co-founders that have a history together” 11.

On AI investing, speaking at TechSparks 2025, he stated: “Half the people I meet who say they are an AI company are not AI companies at all. They are simply users. There is no value and no IP. Someone else will come and do it better” 12.

Inferred Thesis

This analysis is based on 7 verified angel investments where Saxena’s participation is confirmed by a primary or contemporaneous press source, plus one disclosed co-founder capital infusion into InMobi (Feb 2025) 13. CB Insights reports 8 disclosed investments (most behind paywall); Tracxn lists 5 portfolio companies plus 2 founded companies (InMobi, Rizort) 1314. Percentages should be read as directional given the small verified sample.

Sector distribution (7 verified investments): Indian-market software and consumer/services dominate. Enterprise SaaS and HR-tech — DoSelect (technical assessment), Factors.AI (B2B marketing analytics), AppVirality (mobile growth SDK) — account for 3 of 7 (43%). Consumer/D2C — Zimmber (home services), JustDoc (telemedicine), Blue Nectar (D2C Ayurveda) — account for 3 of 7 (43%). Media (Inc42) is the remaining 1 of 7 (14%) 14151617181920. The bias is overwhelmingly Indian-founder, Indian-market.

Stage distribution: Almost exclusively seed and angel. All 7 verified investments are seed or angel rounds, typically with Saxena as one of many syndicate angels rather than a lead. The DoSelect 2016 round is the one notable case where contemporaneous press explicitly describes the angel cohort as being “led by Mohit Saxena” through Mumbai Angels 16.

Geographic focus: India-centric. All 7 verified portfolio companies are India-founded and India-operating, headquartered in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, or Gurgaon. Rizort (his second founded company) is the U.S. exception — San Francisco-based but with an India connection 7.

Co-investor patterns: Saxena’s most consistent co-investor pattern is the InMobi co-founder syndicate — Naveen Tewari, Amit Gupta, Abhay Singhal, and Piyush Shah. Zimmber’s July 2015 ~$400K round was made directly by Tewari, Saxena, and Gupta as a co-founder trio 15. Factors.AI’s August 2021 $2M seed bundled all five InMobi co-founders (Tewari, Singhal, Saxena, Gupta, Shah) with Girish Mathrubootham (Freshworks) and the Chargebee co-founders 17. Notably, in the highest-profile InMobi-syndicate angel deals — Razorpay’s 2014 seed (Tewari, Gupta, Singhal named) and Klub’s January 2020 pre-seed (Tewari, Shah named) — contemporaneous press did not list Saxena, suggesting his angel cadence is selective rather than reflexive across every co-founder check 2122. Beyond the InMobi network, AppVirality (Jan 2015) paired him with Rajan Anandan (Google India), Mike Galgon (aQuantive), and Ravi Gururaj (Nasscom) 18. JustDoc (Jan 2016) paired him with TV Mohandas Pai (ex-Infosys CFO), TracxnLabs, and Singapore Angel Network 19. DoSelect (Nov 2016) paired him with 3one4 Capital, Aarin Capital, and Singapore Angel Network 16. Blue Nectar (Aug 2022) paired him with Alok Bansal (PolicyBazaar) and senior India consulting/operator angels 20.

Founder profile patterns: Network-driven sourcing. All verified deals come either through the InMobi co-founder cluster or through Mumbai Angels, where he has played a Mumbai Angels-led role on at least one deal (DoSelect) 16. There is no verified evidence of independent thesis-driven sourcing outside these networks.

Notable patterns vs. stated framing: Saxena’s public framing emphasizes “ownership and accountability” and founder co-founder dynamics rather than sector themes 311. The verified portfolio is consistent — small checks across ~7-8 companies, no concentrated fund, no published thesis page, and a noticeable preference for founders inside or adjacent to the InMobi alumni network.

Notable exits: Zimmber was acquired by Quikr in May 2017 in an all-stock deal valued at ~$10M, providing an exit on his ~$400K July 2015 InMobi-trio check 23. JustDoc was acquired in September 2018 14. DoSelect was acquired by Info Edge (Naukri’s parent) in 2022 1614.

Portfolio

Company Year Stage Source
Zimmber 2015-07 Angel (~$400K co-founder trio round) 15
AppVirality 2015-01-12 Seed ($465K total round) 18
Inc42 2016-02-09 Seed ($515K total round) 14
JustDoc 2016-01-28 Seed ($176K, exited Sep 2018) 19
DoSelect 2016-11-03 Seed (Mumbai Angels-led cohort) 16
Factors.AI 2021-08 Seed ($2M total round) 17
Blue Nectar 2022-08-03 Pre-Series A (Rs 10 Cr / ~$1.27M round) 20
InMobi 2025-02-24 Co-founder capital infusion (INR 0.6 Cr) 13

This table represents 8 entries — 7 third-party angel investments plus the 2025 co-founder infusion into his own company. Tracxn lists FamPay and Opentalk among Saxena’s angel investments via aggregator profiles, but specific contemporaneous press citations linking Saxena’s name to those rounds were not located within the time budget for this profile 149.

In Their Own Words

“It’s a journey where I went from being the smartest person in the room to the dumbest.” — Mohit Saxena on his InMobi leadership growth, LinkedIn post, March 2025 24

“Every leader experiences this moment of withdrawal—the unsettling realization that they must let go of being the smartest person in the room.” — Mohit Saxena, LinkedIn post, March 2025 24

“Being ‘dumb’ isn’t about knowing less—it’s about forcing clarity, cutting through the noise, and making sure we’re not just chasing symptoms but solving the real problem.” — Mohit Saxena, LinkedIn post, March 2025 24

“Entrepreneurship is a mindset, where you own something, you feel accountable for it, give what you have, try to grow that component to the best of your ability.” — Mohit Saxena, IIT Roorkee Watch Out interview, March 2020 3

“Entrepreneurship is not all about the experience, and it might be really overrated.” — Mohit Saxena, Plunge to the Pearl interview series 11

“Partnership in business requires a very close relationship and a huge amount of trust…chances are that you already know your associate.” — Mohit Saxena, IIT Roorkee Watch Out interview, March 2020 3

“Half the people I meet who say they are an AI company are not AI companies at all. They are simply users. There is no value and no IP. Someone else will come and do it better.” — Mohit Saxena, TechSparks 2025 (YourStory), November 2025 12

“Nobody does research in India. Education is a means to a job.” — Mohit Saxena, TechSparks 2025 (YourStory), November 2025 12

“We have so much consumption and so many problems to solve in this country. Solve it here.” — Mohit Saxena on Indian AI, TechSparks 2025 (YourStory), November 2025 12

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Saxena has been publicly identified as an angel in rounds for AppVirality, Zimmber, JustDoc, Inc42, DoSelect, Factors.AI, and Blue Nectar 15161718192014, but specific first-person quotes from those founders (e.g., Vikram Bhalla of AppVirality; Anubhab Goel, Amit Kumar, or Gaurav Shrivastava of Zimmber; or Praveen Das of Factors.AI) describing the working relationship with Saxena were not located in the time budget for this profile.

Connections

  • Co-Founder, InMobi Group — Co-founded InMobi (then mKhoj) in 2007 with Naveen Tewari, Amit Gupta, and Abhay Singhal; co-founded Rizort in 2017 157
  • InMobi co-founder syndicate — Most consistent co-investor pattern: angel rounds in Zimmber (2015) and Factors.AI (2021) bundled Saxena with one or more of his InMobi co-founders Naveen Tewari, Amit Gupta, Abhay Singhal, and Piyush Shah 1517
  • Mumbai Angels — Led the angel cohort participating in DoSelect’s November 2016 seed round 16
  • Founding Angel, The/Nudge Institute (since October 2021) — supports the livelihood-focused nonprofit founded by Atul Satija 9
  • Co-Founder, Rizort (2017) — luxury vacation marketplace with Nishant Sameer and Sachin Kanodia 7
  • AppVirality 2015 seed angel network — Co-invested with Rajan Anandan (then Google India MD), Mike Galgon (aQuantive co-founder), Ravi Gururaj (then Nasscom Product Council chair), and Ashim Mehra (Baron Capital) 18
  • JustDoc 2016 seed angel network — Co-invested with TV Mohandas Pai (former Infosys CFO), TracxnLabs, Raghunandan G (TaxiForSure co-founder), and Singapore Angel Network 19
  • Prior employer: Virgin Mobile — Designed and deployed post-paid billing and pre-paid revenue recognition systems 12
  • Prior employer: AT&T — Multiple telecommunications patents 12
  • IIT Roorkee alumni network — Bachelor of Engineering; former Secretary of the Lights Section 3
  • Harvard Business School AMP alumni network — Advanced Management Program (AMP 190), 2016 4

Sources

  1. InMobi, “Mohit Saxena | Co-Founder & CTO | InMobi” leadership page, accessed April 2026. https://www.inmobi.com/company/leadership/mohit-saxena↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Glance, “Mohit Saxena” leadership page, accessed April 2026. https://glance.com/us/about-us/leadership/mohit-saxena↩↩↩↩↩↩

  3. Watch Out, IIT Roorkee, “In Conversation with Mohit Saxena, Co-founder of InMobi,” March 2020. http://watchout.iitr.ac.in/2020/03/in-conversation-with-mohit-saxena↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  4. X (Twitter) bio, @mohitsax, accessed April 2026 (lists “@HBSAlumni @iitroorkee”). https://x.com/mohitsax↩↩

  5. Wikipedia, “InMobi,” accessed April 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InMobi↩↩↩

  6. Fortune, “India’s first-ever unicorn is planning for a 2021 U.S. IPO,” March 31, 2021. https://fortune.com/2021/03/31/inmobi-ipo-us-valuation-india-first-unicorn-naveen-tewari/↩↩

  7. Inc42, “Luxury Vacation Marketplace Rizort Is Taking A Road Less Travelled In The OTA Space,” accessed April 2026. https://inc42.com/startups/luxury-vacation-marketplace-rizort-is-taking-a-road-less-travelled-in-the-ota-space/↩↩↩↩

  8. Crunchbase, “Rizort - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding,” accessed April 2026. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/rizort↩

  9. Ask For Funding, “Mohit Saxena, Angel Investor,” accessed April 2026 (notes Founding Angel role at The/Nudge Institute). https://askforfunding.com/investor/mohit-saxena-angel-investor↩↩↩

  10. InMobi Advertising Blog, “Get To Know InMobi’s Leaders in North America,” accessed April 2026. https://advertising.inmobi.com/blog/get-to-know-inmobis-leaders-in-north-america↩

  11. Medium / Plunge to the Pearl interview series, “Mohit Saxena, Co-Founder of InMobi,” accessed April 2026. https://medium.com/plunge-to-the-pearl-interview-series/mohit-saxena-founder-of-inmobi-4a187a553e32↩↩↩

  12. YourStory, “India must build AI at home before conquering the world: InMobi’s Mohit Saxena,” November 14, 2025. https://yourstory.com/2025/11/india-must-build-ai-at-home-inmobi-mohit-saxena↩↩↩↩

  13. Inc42, “Exclusive: IPO-Bound InMobi Bags INR 32 Cr From Cofounders,” July 2025 (board approval Feb 24, 2025; Saxena infusion INR 0.6 Cr). https://inc42.com/buzz/exclusive-ipo-bound-inmobi-bags-inr-32-cr-from-cofounders/↩↩↩

  14. Tracxn, “Mohit Saxena - 2025 Portfolio & Founded Companies,” accessed April 2026. https://tracxn.com/d/people/mohit-kumar-saxena/__acvWpV0FayQFsZ3SU5E9LJsBkHQjJ8SWVC4PpJohOjg↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  15. TechCrunch, “With A Slew Of US Investors, Zimmber Launches Home Service Marketplace For India,” July 29, 2015. https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/29/with-a-slew-of-us-investors-zimmber-launches-home-service-marketplace-for-india/↩↩↩↩↩

  16. Inc42, “HR Tech Startup DoSelect Raises Seed Funding From 3one4 Capital, Mumbai Angels, And Others,” November 2016. https://inc42.com/flash-feed/doselect-funding/↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  17. The SaaS News, “Factors.AI Raises $2 Million in Seed Round,” August 2021. https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/factors-ai-raises-2-million-in-seed-round↩↩↩↩↩

  18. TechCrunch, “AppVirality Raises $465,000 To Give Developers User Growth Tools,” January 12, 2015. https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/12/appvirality/↩↩↩↩↩

  19. Business Standard, “Bengaluru-based JustDoc raises seed funding from TracxnLabs and others,” January 28, 2016. https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/bengaluru-based-justdoc-raises-seed-funding-from-tracxnlabs-and-others-116012801052_1.html↩↩↩↩↩

  20. Business Standard, “Contemporary Ayurved brand, Blue Nectar, raises Rs 10 Cr in Pre- series A funding,” August 3, 2022. https://www.business-standard.com/content/press-releases-ani/contemporary-ayurved-brand-blue-nectar-raises-rs-10-cr-in-pre-series-a-funding-122080300008_1.html↩↩↩↩

  21. Razorpay Blog, “Funding Announcement (Series A and Seed),” October 27, 2015 (lists Tewari, Gupta, Singhal among 33 angels; Saxena not named). https://razorpay.com/blog/series-a-funding-2/↩

  22. Inc42, “Sequoia Surge Startup Klub Raises $2 Mn Pre-Seed Funding,” January 2020 (lists Tewari, Shah; Saxena not named). https://inc42.com/buzz/sequoia-surge-startup-klub-raises-2-mn-pre-seed-funding/↩

  23. Inc42, “Quikr Acquires On Demand Home Service Platform Zimmber,” May 2017. https://inc42.com/buzz/quikr-acquire-zimmber/↩

  24. LinkedIn, Mohit Saxena post “From smartest to dumbest: How I grew as a leader at InMobi,” March 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mohitsaxena_founder-cto-inmobi-activity-7307985425107755009-6zJ7↩↩↩