“5 Things I Need To See Before Making A VC Investment” With Sridhar Tayur

I had the pleasure to interview ​Sridhar Tayur. Sridhar, a Professor of Operations Management, is an expert in entrepreneurship, private equity and social enterprises. He has consulted with Microsoft, Caterpillar and McKinsey and Co. amongst several others and is an angel investor. He sits on the advisory board of several organizations and continues to support startups.

What is your “backstory”?

Originally from India, a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology at Madras, I have been a professor of Operations Management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business since 1991 after obtaining a PhD from Cornell. In 2000, I founded a software startup SmartOps to commercialize my academic research on supply chain planning algorithms. We created a new market for Enterprise Inventory Optimization (EIO) software, and were acquired by SAP in 2013 to become an integral part of what is Integrated Business Planning (IBP) offering that helps businesses run nimbly, simply and optimally.

I am an “Academic Capitalist” who enjoys research in a wide variety of areas that need cool math — I am into quantum computing these days in addition to healthcare and supply chain topics — and also loves working closely with startups. I am angel investor in ZenRez…