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Rajiv Kumar
Building a Healthcare Company from Rhode Island: ShapeUp CEO Rajiv Kumar (Part 7)
Sramana: What has your overall financing strategy been for the business? I know you raised $1.3 million in your early angel rounds. Have you raised additional funds? Rajiv Kumar: We raised $8 million dollars during our first Series A, and this past fall, we did a $5 million Series B. Sramana: Where are you in
Building a Healthcare Company from Rhode Island: ShapeUp CEO Rajiv Kumar (Part 6)
Sramana: Was the transition process contentious or was it something that happened naturally? Rajiv Kumar: It was not contentious, although it was not easy. Change is hard, but it felt like the right thing to do. The ideas I was presenting and my evangelism were compelling. It took some planning, but I was impressed with
Building a Healthcare Company from Rhode Island: ShapeUp CEO Rajiv Kumar (Part 5)
Sramana: What were some of the interesting challenges you faced when raising VC money? Rajiv Kumar: What Brad and I decided to do while we were raising our venture round was to return to school and get our medical degrees. We felt that we should be able to do that and have a growing, successful
Building a Healthcare Company from Rhode Island: ShapeUp CEO Rajiv Kumar (Part 4)
Sramana: Was there any kind of targeting or segmenting that you were doing when approaching enterprises? Rajiv Kumar: Absolutely. We had a very specific approach for employee wellness. We learned that it was an uphill battle for companies that did not believe in employee wellness to begin with. If they were not already investing in
Building a Healthcare Company from Rhode Island: ShapeUp CEO Rajiv Kumar (Part 3)
Sramana: Is that when you started ShapeUp as a for-profit company? Rajiv Kumar: I got together with one of my colleagues, Dr. Brad Weinberg, who was in the same program as I was. He was a technologist and a self-taught computer programmer. He decided to help me build a software platform that would organize this
Building a Healthcare Company from Rhode Island: ShapeUp CEO Rajiv Kumar (Part 2)
Sramana: What time-frame are we talking about when you were conceptualizing ShapeUp? Rajiv Kumar: This was in 2005. Sramana: That is when social media was starting to get introduced to the world at scale. Rajiv Kumar: It was. Facebook was created in 2004. The concept behind ShapeUp was less about technology and more about approach.
Building a Healthcare Company from Rhode Island: ShapeUp CEO Rajiv Kumar (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. You wouldn’t think of Rhode Island as a hot bed of startups. However, a very nice eco-system is coming together, and success stories are emerging. Read ShapeUp’s wonderful journey … Sramana: Rajiv, let’s begin this story by exploring your background. Where are you from? What kind
