Abhishek Poddar: The Co-founder and CEO of Plum

Abhishek Poddar is the Co-founder and CEO of Plum, a Tiger Global & Sequoia-backed company that builds a new way for companies to look after and manage their employee health insurance and health benefit plans. He is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and Stanford University and has worked with McKinsey, Google and HyperTrack before starting his own venture. He is also a patent holder, an award winner and a sports enthusiast.

Overview of Abhishek Poddar

Education and Early Life

Abhishek Poddar was born and raised in India. He completed his schooling from Nirmala Convent, where he excelled in academics and sports. He then pursued his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur, graduating in 2007. He received the Academic Excellence Award in 2005 and 2006 and the Excellence Award in Sports in 2006.

Higher Education 

Abhishek Poddar then went on to pursue his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, one of the most prestigious business schools in the world. He graduated in 2013 and was part of the Stanford Ignite program, designed to foster innovation and entrepreneurship among working professionals.

Career and Achievements

Abhishek Poddar started his career as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company, where he worked for two years from 2007 to 2009. He then joined 9.9 Media as the product head of Digit, India’s largest tech website, where he worked for another two years from 2009 to 2011.

Product Manager at Google

In 2013, after completing his MBA from Stanford, Abhishek Poddar joined Google as a product manager. He was responsible for launching Android Pay consumer and merchant experience, now known as Google Pay, and Google My Business, a platform that helps businesses connect with customers online. He worked at Google for three years from 2013 to 2016.

Chief product officer at HyperTrack

In 2016, Abhishek Poddar moved to San Francisco and joined HyperTrack as the chief product officer. HyperTrack is a location intelligence platform that enables businesses to track and optimize their operations using live location data. He worked at HyperTrack for three years from 2016 to 2019.

Partnership

In 2019, Abhishek Poddar co-founded Plum along with Saurabh Arora. Plum is a company that aims to transform employee healthcare experience by providing high quality and affordable health insurance and health benefits to employers and employees. Plum offers a cloud-based platform that enables companies to customize their health plans, access real-time data and insights, and manage claims and wellness programs. Plum also partners with leading insurers, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and wellness providers to offer a seamless and hassle-free healthcare experience.

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Success Mantra: Leaving a positive impact on the lives of others and making a difference in the world that endures beyond my lifetime.

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Funding

Plum has raised over $20 million in funding from investors such as Tiger Global with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Tanglin Venture Partners, Incubate Fund and Gemba Capital. Other angel investors who participated as a part of this round include – Kunal Shah, founder, Cred; Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh, founders of Unacademy; Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain and Ishan Bansal, founders of Groww; Ramakant Sharma and Anuj Srivastava, founders of Livspace, amongst others.

Awards and recognition 

Plum has also won several awards and recognition for its innovation and impact, such as:

• Featured in ET 40 Under Forty 2023, a list of India’s brightest young business leaders by The Economic Times.
• Named among India’s Top 10 Emerging Startups of 2020 by YourStory.
• Selected as one of the Top 50 Startups to Watch in 2020 by Inc42.
• Awarded the Best Startup in Health Tech category at the India FinTech Awards 2020 by India FinTech Forum.

Patent

Abhishek Poddar holds one patent for ‘Systems and methods for receiving sensor data from a mobile device’, which was issued in 2020 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Personal Life and Interests

Abhishek Poddar is married to Shilpy Upadyay who is also an entrepreneur and the co-founder of RentZeal, an online marketplace that connects consumers and small rental shops. They have a daughter  named Tashi Poddar.

Passion and Hobbies

Abhishek Poddar is passionate about sports and fitness. He loves to read non fiction books and is also fond of traveling and exploring new places and cultures with his family and friends. He also enjoys swimming and water polo

Vision 

Abhishek Poddar’s vision is to accelerate the adoption of health insurance in India and make it accessible and affordable for everyone. He believes that health insurance is not just a financial product but a social good that can improve the quality of life of millions of people.

Values

Abhishek Poddar’s values are shaped by his education, experience and mentors. He follows the best advice he ever got, which is to always stay humble and grounded, no matter what happens around him. He never loses sight of what truly matters in life. He also strives to leave a positive impact on the lives of others and make a difference in the world that endures beyond his lifetime. He defines success as pursuing ideas that change lives, organizations and the world.