Naveen Tewari

From a campus in Kanpur and a McKinsey desk to the founder of InMobi, India's first venture-backed unicorn, and of Glance.

Born: 1977, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Country: India
Known for: InMobi, Glance
Industry: Ad tech, consumer technology

Early life and education

Naveen Tewari was born in 1977 in Kanpur and grew up on the campus of IIT Kanpur, where his relatives were academics. His family reportedly hoped he would earn a doctorate and follow an academic path. He took a B.Tech at IIT Kanpur, graduating in 2000, and later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2005, where he received the Dean's Award.

Consulting and venture capital

After IIT, Naveen worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company from 2000 to 2003, including on a market-entry strategy for an Indian conglomerate moving into telecommunications. During and after his MBA he worked with the Silicon Valley venture firm Charles River Ventures. He has described that time as the turning point that pulled him towards building startups.

From mKhoj to InMobi

In 2007 Naveen co-founded a company called mKhoj with Mohit Saxena, Amit Gupta and Abhay Singhal. It began as an SMS-based search engine, based in Mumbai. The product did not gain traction, so the team changed direction towards mobile advertising and renamed the company InMobi. Reports say the early days were financed partly with personal borrowing, and early investors included Kleiner Perkins and Sherpalo Ventures. InMobi then expanded into South Africa, Europe and North America.

India's first venture-backed unicorn

In 2011 SoftBank invested about $200 million in InMobi, valuing it above $1 billion and making it India's first venture-backed unicorn. By 2015 the BBC reported it was the third-largest mobile advertising company, behind Google and Facebook. Not everything worked: Miip, a discovery-based ad product launched in 2015, failed to catch on, and in 2016 InMobi settled with the US Federal Trade Commission over how it handled location data, with the civil penalty reduced to $950,000. In 2021 the company explored a US listing but halted it amid a market downturn.

Glance

In 2019 Naveen launched Glance, a lock-screen content platform for smartphones, with InMobi as its largest shareholder. In 2020 it raised $145 million from Google and Mithril Capital at a valuation above $1 billion, and in 2022 Jio Platforms invested $200 million at about $1.7 billion. Glance has since reached hundreds of millions of users and has moved towards AI-driven content and commerce. Glance has also been the subject of a Harvard Business School case study.

Beyond his companies

Naveen joined the board of Paytm (One97 Communications) in 2015 and became an independent director of Narayana Health in 2023. He is an angel investor, including in Razorpay, and co-founded the software-product think tank iSPIRT.

Timeline

2000Graduates from IIT Kanpur and joins McKinsey & Company.
2005Earns an MBA from Harvard Business School.
2007Co-founds mKhoj, which becomes InMobi after a pivot to mobile advertising.
2011SoftBank invests about $200 million; InMobi becomes India's first venture-backed unicorn.
2013Receives the IIT Kanpur Distinguished Alumnus Award.
2016InMobi settles with the US FTC over location tracking.
2019Launches Glance.
2020Glance raises $145 million from Google and Mithril Capital, crossing a $1 billion valuation.
2021Wins Forbes India's Outstanding Startup Entrepreneur award.
2022Jio Platforms invests $200 million in Glance at about $1.7 billion.

Recognition

Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT Kanpur (2013)
Outstanding Startup Entrepreneur, Forbes India Leadership Awards (2021)
Dean's Award, Harvard Business School (2005)

Leadership lessons

Treat a failed product as information, and be ready to change direction quickly.
Pick a market before it looks obvious. Mobile advertising looked small in 2007.
Catch the platform shift early, then reinvent before it matures.
A founder can start again from inside a successful company, as Glance shows.

The takeaway: catch the platform shift early, then reinvent before the shift matures. Naveen's path, from a failed SMS search product to a billion-dollar ad business and then Glance, shows how a quick pivot and a bet on the next platform can compound.

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Sources

Written from public information, including Wikipedia, The Founder Nation, BharatStories and Prime Insights. The sources differ on some details, such as the list of co-founders, so figures and names are as reported in them, and Wikipedia is followed where they disagree.