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Abhishek Poddar is a popular name among Indian entrepreneurs. His success story is indeed an inspiring one for all those who wish to venture into the business world. Abhishek Poddar completed his higher studies at Stanford Graduate School of Business, which is counted amongst the most prestigious universities in the world He acquired a Stanford MBA, determined and keen to start his venture which led to the beginning of Plum, an organization that aims at providing a new way to set up & manage employee health insurance & health benefit plans. This blog explores the success story of Abhishek Poddar and his incredible business venture, Plum.
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Abhishek Poddar’s Education
Abhishek Poddar completed his undergraduate studies with a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 2007. Then he went on to pursue an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2011 and completed his degree by 2013. He has been a recipient of the Academic Excellence Award in the years – 2005 and 2006. In addition to his outstanding academics, his inclination towards sports has also been remarkable. He won the Excellence Award in Sports in 2006.
Early Career and the Birth of Plum
Upon completing his graduation from Stanford Graduate School of Business, Abhishek Poddar worked at several organizations to gain work experience and correct exposure.
- In the year 2007, he joined McKinsey&Company, where he worked as a Business Analyst for 2 years.
- Then he took up the role of the Product Head of Digit, New Delhi, India’s largest tech website for another two years.
- He has also worked with Google for three years (2013-16) as a Product Manager where he was in charge of the launch of Android Pay consumer and merchant experience now known as Google Pay and Google My Business.
- From 2016- 2019, he worked as a Chief Product Officer at HyperTrack in San Francisco.
- It was in 2019, that he along with Co-Founder Saurabh Arora founded Plum.
- In addition to Plum, he is also the CoFounder of RentZeal, which was founded in 2013. RentZeal is an online marketplace that brings together consumers & small rental shops. It was launched in Palo Alto and expanded to the San Francisco Bay Area. He also has one patent that is credited to his name- ‘Systems and methods for receiving sensor data from a mobile device’. This patent was issued in 2020.
Courtesy: Business Line
The Rise of Plum
Plum was launched in Bengaluru in 2019 by Abhishek Poddar and Saurabh Arora. They launched Plum intending to accelerate the adoption of health insurance in India. Abhishek Poddar believes that only a section of the population can buy health insurance in India and most people are dependent on employers to provide health insurance. Hence, Plum was launched to help small and medium-sized enterprises, also known as SMEs and startups acquire the right health care solution for their employees.
“With Plum, we are imaging and co-creating group health insurance products from the ground-up. We are on a mission to fix health insurance and health benefits. So, we are building a modern health benefits company that understands the needs of a corporation and guides them to smart choices. We are improving health benefits by providing employers & employees with more flexibility, transparent pricing, and higher quality healthcare experience. Plum combines modern technology with robust processes to deliver unprecedented simplicity & efficiency”– Abhishek Poddar.
The Success Story of Plum
The journey of Plum to success can be credited to the continuous hard work and dedication of CEO Abhishek Poddar. Plum has recently raised ₹7 crores in seed funding.
The round was led by Incubate Fund. Companies that participated were Gemba Capital and Tracxn Labs along with angel investors including Abhijit Gupta and Ram Sahasranam of Praxify Health; Sudheendra Chilappagari of Belong.co; Nitin Jayakrishnan of Pando and Alvin Tse of Xiaomi.
Abhishek Poddar says, “The use of this funding is to scale the business through innovative distribution channels and build engineering teams to solve some of the hardest engineering challenges.”
Be a Part of Stanford University
Just like Abhishek Poddar, you too can make your dream of studying MBA abroad come to reality with Leverage Edu. We, at Leverage Edu, help students fulfill their dreams of pursuing higher studies abroad. Stanford Graduate School of Business is one of the most reputed and prestigious business schools across the globe. It helps students in securing a career of their choice for themselves. To know more about the acceptance rate and eligibility criteria, read our blog on Stanford MBA Acceptance Rate.
Relatable Reads
So, this was all about the CEO and Co-Founder of Plum, Abhishek Poddar. Hope you found this blog insightful. If you want to pursue an MBA from Stanford and need help with the cumbersome application process, get in touch with our Leverage Edu experts for assistance at every step of your application! Sign up for a free session with us now!
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