Navya Naveli Nanda is steadily building an identity of her own beyond the massive business legacy of the Nanda family.
The 28-year-old entrepreneur recently announced the launch of Naveli Ventures, the strategic venture arm of the Nanda Family Office, with a focus on backing emerging Indian businesses across sectors such as deep tech, space, clean energy, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and healthcare.
Announcing the venture on Instagram, Navya said she had been working on the idea for some time and was excited to finally make it public.
According to her, Naveli Ventures aims to support entrepreneurs who are building technologies and businesses that could shape India’s future.
Navya stressed that promising startups need more than just funding. She said founders also require long-term partners who can offer relationships, expertise and patience as they scale their businesses.
“Beyond capital, we show up as those partners, with the relationships, expertise, and patience to help great companies grow,” she wrote.
She added that India’s future belongs to entrepreneurs who are building new solutions to real-world problems, with Naveli Ventures aiming to support them through “capital, capacity, and conviction.”
Her announcement received warm reactions from family and friends. Her mother, Shweta Bachchan, expressed pride in her daughter, while filmmaker Karan Johar and Suhana Khan also congratulated her on the new venture.
Building Her Own Identity
Navya’s latest venture comes at a time when she has increasingly spoken about creating an identity beyond her famous surname and family background.
Her father, Nikhil Nanda, Chairman and Managing Director of Escorts Kubota Limited, had earlier said that his children would eventually represent the Nanda family’s shareholder interests, but their surname alone would not guarantee them positions within the company.
Speaking about Navya, he said she had shown growing interest in participating in Escorts Kubota but would have to “earn her position.”
Navya, who recently graduated from IIM Ahmedabad, has also publicly spoken about the importance of building her own professional identity.
At the launch of Aparajita, the Hindi edition of former SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya’s memoir Indomitable, Navya said she would never want her identity to be restricted to her last name.
At the same time, she acknowledged the scale of the legacy she has inherited, saying it was far greater than anything she could individually create.
Navya has also credited her grandmother, Ritu Nanda, as an important influence on her ambitions. She has spoken about witnessing her grandmother’s strength, ambition and professional journey while growing up.
Entrepreneurial Journey
Navya has already been involved in several entrepreneurial and social initiatives.
She co-founded Aara Health and Project Naveli and is also associated with Nimaya, an initiative focused on empowering women.
Nimaya has been involved in programmes aimed at improving opportunities for women, including its GenAI Ready Naari initiative, which was recently expanded to Assam.
With Naveli Ventures, Navya is now moving deeper into India’s startup ecosystem, combining the resources and network of the Nanda Family Office with her ambition to support businesses working on emerging technologies.
The new venture marks another step in her attempt to build a professional identity of her own while using the advantages of her family network to back the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs.