Nikhil Panu

As an Operating Partner at PointGuard Ventures, Nikhil draws from his wide range of entrepreneurial experiences, technical expertise, and marketing savvy to bring value to our portfolio companies and identify promising startups for us to partner with.
Before joining the PGV team, Nikhil founded the company Squadz, Inc., an online marketplace for sports & recreation activities, with the vision of revolutionizing and simplifying local sports by integrating mobile, social, data analytics, e-commerce, editorial content, and shared economy components into everyday community recreation programs.
As CEO, Nikhil raised capital, architected and developed the core product and its proprietary technology from the ground up, built a winning team comprised of domestic and offshore members, and formed the necessary partnerships to enable thousands of Squadz users to access local sports programs with ease in multiple major markets throughout the US.
Prior to Squadz, Nikhil spent time working in key product, marketing, and operations roles for other promising tech startups.
He developed a full business plan, product roadmap, and go-to-market strategy for a new consumer offering while working with product and marketing leadership for Movius, a SaaS business mobility solution that allows users to have multiple numbers on a single device.
While working with the software engineering team at Enlighted, an IoT energy management system for commercial buildings, Nikhil built a vital testing and diagnostic framework for the field engineering team that tracked communication within the company’s sensor network application during the installation and reparation processes at customer sites.
Nikhil holds a B.S.
and M.S.
in Computer Science with honors from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD., where he also served and competed as the captain of the Men’s Varsity Basketball team for 4 years.