UT Arlington College of Engineering
UT Arlington

Alumni Profile
Rakesh Mathur – Entrepreneur Extraordinaire

Rakesh Mathur (MSIE ’80) has been a very busy man. As co-founder and managing director of Skyblaze Ventures, a venture capital firm working to identify, support and accelerate technologies that shape the Internet economy, he has been the founder or co-founder of a handful of technology start-up companies and an early stage investor in several others.

He started his first company, Sona Computers in 1983, in San Jose, California. Sona was the first company in the world to be able to display color graphics in a gray scale on LCD-based portable PCs. Other developments soon followed.

In 1986, he started Renaissance Software in Calcutta, one of the first Indian companies to develop packaged software for worldwide consumers.

Rakesh founded Armedia, an early leader in chip designs for the video component of the DVD standard, in 1994. Armedia was acquired by Broadcom in 1999.

In 1996, Rakesh founded Junglee.com, whose virtual database technology led to the creation of comparison shopping on the Internet. Junglee merged with Amazon.com in 1998.

He also founded PurpleYogi, now Stratify, which provided enterprise solutions to the management of unstructured data. Stratify was acquired by Iron Mountain in 2001.

His latest creation, Webaroo, came in June 2004. Among Webaroo’s innovations is a program allowing users to surf and search portions of the web without an Internet connection. A far-flung enterprise, Webaroo has offices in Silicon Valley, Seattle, Mumbai and Delhi.

“It may sound odd, but I really didn’t think about any personal recognition when I worked with associates to create these companies and processes,” Rakesh said. “It’s just a matter of putting things together. However, I especially enjoy the early stages of a company’s development, where the challenges are the greatest. As the company evolves, a good outcome for everyone seems natural.”

Over the years, several organizations recognized Rakesh for his achievements. In 1998, Upside Magazine rated him as one of the 100 most influential people in the Information Technology industry. Also that year, Junglee technology was given the Computerworld - Smithsonian Award as one of the top five technologies. Rakesh was named one of the India Today Global 100 in 2001. He currently sits on the advisory board for the London Business School.

“I’ve been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time,” he mused. “I’ve also made some good decisions along the way. More right than wrong, anyway.”

We asked Rakesh for his thoughts about UT Arlington, the College of Engineering and Maverick Spirit.

What does it mean to you to be a Maverick and how does this apply to you?
Being a Maverick means doing things differently, being your own person, having the freedom of thought and initiative to do what you enjoy. My whole career has been creating start-up companies, doing things unconventionally.

What do you know about UT Arlington that others may not?
There once was a large apartment building on the corner of Cooper and Mitchell. It was destroyed in a spectacular fire in 1979. 

What is your fondest memory of your time on campus?
Making a happy transition in my life. I was out of my comfort zone when I arrived here; a lot of changes were going on. But I found I could adapt quite well to my new surroundings.

What lessons of life have you discovered since you were a student?
I’ve developed a philosophy of having fun, working hard, changing the world by doing something that brings a lasting success.

What is most interesting about being an engineer?
By definition, an engineer is someone who is making new discoveries, meeting new challenges.

What do you want your legacy to be, both professionally and personally?
That I cared about whatever I did, about the people I know and love, that I put together teams of good people who made a difference.