Back in the 1990s, looking for a job was limited to circling ads in the newspapers. But one man saw a digital future where others saw newsprint. That man is none other than Sanjeev Bikhchandani, the pioneer of the Indian dot com era. As the founder of Info Edge and the visionary behind Naukri.com, he didn’t just build a company but changed how India went to work.
Early Life
Sanjeev Bikhchandani was born in the year 1963, into an Indian middle-class family. He grew up in Delhi and did his schooling from St. Columba’s School, followed by a Bachelor’s in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. From an early age, he displayed keen interest in business, which pushed him further to pursue a postgraduate programme from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, graduating in 1989. The exposure at one of India’s leading business schools helped shape his entrepreneurial mindset.
Following his post-graduation, he started working at Hindustan Milkfood Manufacturers (HMM), later known as GlaxoSmithKline, as a product executive, handling the marketing for horlicks. But his calling was different. In 1990, he left his job to pursue entrepreneurship. At that time, this move was unconventional in a country like India, as entrepreneurship was widely considered risky and uncertain.
The Grind
Leaving a steady paycheck and venturing into the unknown was risky, and Bikhchandani’s early entrepreneurial days were far from glamorous. He didn’t have a fancy office. He co-founded his initial business with a partner, working out of the servant’s quarters above his father’s garage in Delhi, paying his dad a monthly rent of Rs. 800. His business began with a meager seed capital of Rs. 2000.
Sanjeev spent nearly seven years drifting and doing odd corporate jobs just to keep the lights on. Initially, his company Info Edge (and a secondary firm, Indmark) did not focus on the internet. Instead, they survived by doing salary surveys and corporate HR reports, trademark databases and searches, and feasibility studies and corporate training programs. To supplement his practically non-existent business income and pay his handful of employees, Bikhchandani took up side gigs. He taught classes at local business schools on weekends and worked as a Consulting Editor for The Pioneer’s career supplement, Avenues.
The Birth of Info Edge
Ironically, the seed for Sanjeev’s multi-billion-dollar empire was planted during his short 18-month stint back at HMM. While working there, he noticed that copies of Business India, the leading business magazine of the era, would have 35 to 40 pages of recruitment ads, leaving everyone intrigued. He realized that jobs were a universal human interest, but the market was incredibly fragmented. In the early 1990s, the platform to host such a massive, centralized job database didn’t exist in India. That changed in October 1996, when Sanjeev attended an IT exhibition at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and saw a sign that read “WWW”. The commercial internet had finally arrived in India via VSNL. He instantly knew this was the time to strike the hammer.
Using the data his team had gathered over years of corporate reporting, Sanjeev launched Naukri.com in April 1997. Because servers in India were incredibly expensive, he rented a server in the United States for $25 a month through a friend.
The Revolution Begins
Naukri.com was an instant hit because it solved a massive pain point. It gave job seekers free access to thousands of listings while charging employers a fraction of what a newspaper ad cost. As the dot-com boom took off, Info Edge secured venture capital from ICICI Venture in 2000, allowing them to survive the infamous global dot-com crash that wiped out thousands of other startups. Sanjeev realized that the classifieds model could disrupt other traditional sectors in India. Over the next decade, Info Edge scaled and diversified into an unstoppable digital empire, creating 99acres.com, Jeevansathi.com, Shiksha.com.
In 2006, Info Edge made history by becoming the first pure-play internet company to list on the Indian stock exchanges (BSE and NSE), proving to the world that Indian dot-com businesses could be highly profitable.
Backing India’s startup unicorns
As Info Edge grew into a cash-generating machine, Sanjeev transitioned from an operator into one of India’s most visionary venture capitalists through Info Edge Ventures.
Long before startup culture became mainstream in India, Sanjeev had an eye for brilliant founders. His most legendary bet came in 2010 when he wrote a ₹4.7 crore cheque to Deepinder Goyal, who was running a restaurant discovery site called Foodiebay (now known as Zomato). Info Edge went on to become Zomato’s largest shareholder, a bet that paid off astronomically when Zomato launched its massive IPO.
He replicated this success by backing PB Fintech (Policybazaar), further solidifying his reputation as the Godfather of Indian startup investing.
The Philanthropist Era
Sanjeev’s impact extends far beyond technology and corporate boardrooms. Believing deeply in the power of quality education to transform a nation, he became a co-founder and founding trustee of Ashoka University, one of India’s premier liberal arts and sciences universities.
In recognition of his immense contribution to trade, industry, and the digital economy, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Shri in 2020.
Into the Frontiers of AI
Even today, Sanjeev remains at the cutting edge of innovation. As artificial intelligence reshapes industries globally, Info Edge has actively adapted, deploying hundreds of crores across emerging deep-tech and AI startups.
When asked about the future of AI and employment, Sanjeev maintains an optimistic view. He emphasizes that while AI will undoubtedly automate routine tasks, it will ultimately serve as a tool to drastically boost individual human productivity rather than causing mass unemployment. Under his guidance, Info Edge continues to position itself not just as a witness to the AI revolution, but as an active architect of it.
From a Rs. 2,000 experiment in a servant’s quarter to a multi-billion-dollar cornerstone of India’s digital economy, Sanjeev Bikhchandani’s journey is a masterclass of patience, vision, and the power of solving real-world problems.
Muskan Singh
