Sanjeev Bikhchandani - From Vision To Venture, The Maverick Behind Naukri.com
A name associated with turning the digital face of the job market is Sanjeev Bikhchandani. His venture Info Edge happens to be the owning company for Naukri.com, and in turn, an idea turned out in a billion-dollar enterprise. He had a background of a middle-class family and he has built his path from being a simple marketing executive to a famous entrepreneur by clearly showing his ordinate strength of vision and strong will.
This was about the successful incorporation of Zomato and PolicyBazaar and his own dedication and passion for the future. In this StartupTalky article, we will explore Sanjeev Bikhchandani's success story, including his early life, history, net worth, childhood, personal life, education, investments, achievements, and more.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Biography
| Full Name | Sanjeev Bikhchandani |
|---|---|
| Born | 29 June 1963 |
| Birthplace | Delhi, India |
| Education | St. Columba's School, Delhi BA (Hons) Economics, St. Stephen's College PGDM, IIM Ahmedabad |
| Height | 178 cm (5'10") |
| Profession | Founder of Info Edge (India) |
| Wife | Surabhi Bikhchandani (Businesswoman) |
| Children | 2 |
| Net Worth | INR 18,856 crore |
| Notable Awards | Padma Shri (2020) |
| Family Background | Father: Doctor (Government Service) Mother: Homemaker Brother: Professor at UCLA (PhD from Stanford) |
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Early Life and Education
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Career
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Personal Life
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Journey So Far
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Investments
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Controversies
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Awards and Recognitions
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Unknown Facts
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Early Life and Education
Sanjeev Bikhchandani’s early life and education are a story of resilience and ambition and a singular vision of the future. He was born into a middle-class family in New Delhi and grew up with the values of hard work and perseverance instilled by his parents, who were professionals in the medical and engineering fields. The family expected Sanjeev to follow in his elder brother’s footsteps to IIT Kanpur and into medicine or engineering. But the biggest problem arose when he was diagnosed with color blindness, and it effectively closed the door on those career options.
However, this setback did not hold Sanjeev back academically. He graduated in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University in 1984. This is an academic institution that is very rigorous. It has had many distinguished alumni. At St. Stephen’s, he not only learned important stuff in economics but also got used to thinking analytically.
Sanjeev completed his undergraduate studies and then went to the IIM Ahmedabad for his MBA in 1989. This was a very important period in shaping his entrepreneurial aspirations. As a campus volunteer for IIM Ahmedabad, he saw fierce competition among major companies for top talent. But this experience awakened an entrepreneurial spark for the first time since he had not realized that companies were so keen on recruiting skilled graduates.
Shevaughn Pimenta
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Career
Sanjeev was a natural innovator, so he opted out of traditional campus placements. Instead, he would go out and approach companies to get interviews and land a marketing job at GlaxoSmithKline (Hindustan Milkfood Manufacturers) on the Horlicks brand. He had been given invaluable industry experience and a view into marketing dynamics that this role had given him. With a big salary and benefits, Sanjeev felt unfulfilled and restless and resigned after 18 months to follow his entrepreneurial dreams.
In 1995, he founded Info Edge, which began with salary surveys and reports that offered clues into compensation trends for MBA and engineering graduates. This was the groundwork for what would become a major player in the Indian job market. But the initial period was difficult; there was financial instability and often he had to supplement his income by giving tuition, in addition to what his wife was earning.
It was in October 1996 that Sanjeev attended an IT Expo in Delhi, which introduced him to the World Wide Web for the first time. He was inspired by a Yahoo demonstration and saw the possibility of putting together an online job portal that would collect job listings, a very novel concept in India at the time. This vision became a reality in April 1997 with the launch of Naukri.com, which has a database of less than 1,000 job advertisements from various magazines.
Naukri.com quickly took off because of its novel pricing policy—charging companies INR 350 for a job listing versus INR 3,500 that traditional newspapers charged. Employers and job seekers alike felt a resonance with this competitive edge, and traffic and listings grew exponentially. Naukri.com became the first dot com company to list on Indian stock exchanges in a decade and has set itself up as one of the top job portals in India.
Purbalee Dutta
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Personal Life
Sanjeev is married to Surabhi Bikhchandani, who is also an IIM Ahmedabad alumni. During the first phase of Sanjeev’s entrepreneurial journey, he was trying to build Naukri.com, and Surabhi was taking care of household expenses with a job at Nestlé. It was critical support as Sanjeev leaped at a safe corporate career to the vagaries of entrepreneurship.
They have worked together to build a successful business and raise a family.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Journey So Far
Info Edge was a struggle that took seven years to get off the ground. It included a bunch of small initiatives like training and report writing. It was in 1997, with a simple observation of how his colleagues behaved around job listings, that Naukri.com came to be a breakthrough. Bikhchandani started Info Edge from a servant’s quarter with INR 2,000 capital and grew it into a digital conglomerate worth more than $9 billion with 4,500 employees.
The company added 99acres.com, Jeevansathi.com, and Shiksha.com to its portfolio. He was a businessman who invested in unicorns like Zomato and PolicyBazaar.
Bikhchandani is different because he is frugal and focuses on solving real customer problems. Info Edge’s sustainable growth strategy has been built on his philosophy of valuing customer money over investor money. Below is the timeline of Sanjeev Bikhchandani's life:
- 1995: Bikhchandani founded Info Edge in 1995 and the company is headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. Through Info Edge, he established many website businesses like Naukri.com, 99Acres.com, Jeevansathi.com, and Shiksha.com. India's internet industry celebrated a milestone when Info Edge's IPO in 2006 was successful. The company went public with the name Naukri. This is because more than 70% of the company's revenue comes from the job portal Naukri.com. In 2020, the company established a venture capital fund, Info Edge Venture Fund to invest in online startup companies.
- 1997: Bikhchandani founded an Indian employment website, Naukri.com in 1997. He set up the job portal on a server in the United States. It was a website business that helped its users to search online for job opportunities in India. He later established Quadrangle, which is an offline executive search business. Eventually, Naukri.com became India's largest web-based employment site in 2005.
- 2004: Bikhchandani founded an online matrimonial portal, Jeevansathi.com. The company uses a customer-to-customer (C2C) business model. Jeevansathi offline centers were also set up with matchmaking services. The first offline center was launched in Mumbai in 2008. Jeevansathi.com grossed profits for the first time in the first quarter of 2016-2017 and earned INR 65 lakhs before interests and taxes.
- 2008: Bikhchandani launched the online education site, Shiksha.com in May 2008. It helps its users to select the right college through the comprehensive details of several universities. It provides courses and college selection easy for students willing to pursue undergraduate and post-graduate courses in India as well as abroad. Shiksha.com eventually became the most visited study-abroad website in India with 20 million users every year.
- 2005: Bikhchandani launched another portal for the real estate database website, 99Acres.com in 2005. It helps users to browse and search for properties through mobile. The company has invested INR 3 crore in Zippserv, a real estate risk assessment company.
- 2006: Sanjeev founded Naukrigulf.com in 2006 to connect recruiters and job seekers and is headquartered in Dubai. It is the fastest-growing job site in the Gulf. The company has a robust presence across the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
- 2020: Sanjeev was awarded the Padma Shri for his contributions.
Pratyusha Srivastava
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Investments
Info Edge shareholders have reaped rich returns from his early investments in Policybazaar and Zomato. Below is a detailed table showcasing all the investments made by Info Edge to date:
| Announced Date | Organization Name |
|---|---|
| Nov 17, 2019 | Burger Singh |
| Jun 1, 2018 | Slurrp Farm |
| Aug 10, 2015 | Wow! Momo |
| Apr 4, 2023 | Stealthed |
| Feb 22, 2022 | Shipsy |
| Jan 26, 2022 | Shopkirana |
| Nov 23, 2021 | greytHR |
| Nov 25, 2020 | Shipsy |
| Dec 21, 2018 | NoPaperForms |
| Nov 18, 2014 | Zomato |
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Controversies
The controversy that erupted recently over SN Subrahmanyan, Chairman of L&T, who praised a 90-hour work week and six-day work schedule. While interacting with employees, he apologized for not being able to make them work on Sundays and said a controversial remark, 'How long can you stare at your wife?' This sparked a huge spate of criticism and memes on social media and drew reactions from prominent industrialists Anand Mahindra and Harsh Goenka.
Interestingly, entrepreneur Sanjeev Bikhchandani told a different story based on a recent meeting with Subrahmanyan. In a detailed post on X, Bikhchandani called him humble and inquisitive about entrepreneurship and digital transformation. In their hour-long meeting, Bikhchandani suggested to L&T that it invest some of the substantial amounts of cash reserves (approximately ₹50,000 crores) that it has in India’s startup ecosystem.
This has set off a larger debate about work-life balance in corporate India. Subrahmanyan’s business acumen and leadership of L&T are no doubt respected, but his comments about extended work hours and his lack of care for family time are not.
The tension between the imperative of aggressive corporate growth goals and the growing importance of workplace wellness has been a focus of attention.
Sakshi Jadhav
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Awards and Recognitions
- In 2008, Bikhchandani was awarded the “Ernst and Young – Entrepreneur of the Year” for Business Transformation.
- In the same year, Sanjeev also won the Dataquest Pathbreaker Award & the Teacher’s Achievement Award for Business.
- In 2011, he was conferred the Distinguished Alumnus award by IIM Ahmedabad.
- In 2012, he received the CF Andrews Distinguished Alumnus award from St. Stephen’s College.
- The Lakshmipat Singhania – IIM Lucknow National Leadership Award, Young Leader in the Business Category for the year 2012, is for him.
- He was one of India’s fifty greatest CEOs ever, as per Outlook Magazine in April 2017.
- The Financial Express gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in IT in 2019.
- Chiratae Ventures honored him with the Pride of India Award 2021 for Lifetime Achievement.
- Amity University awarded him an honorary doctorate in December 2021.
- He recently received the ET Start Up Awards 2021 in the Midas Touch category in January 2022.
- Sanjeev received the Padma Shri Award in 2020.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani - Unknown Facts
- Color Blindness: In his teens, Bikhchandani discovered he is partially color blind.
- Early Business Location: His first venture began from the servant quarters of his father, and he paid INR 800 a month as rent.
- International Server Setup: When India didn't have servers in 1997, Naukri.com's first server was set up in the US with the help of his brother at UCLA.
- Early Team Building: He paid people money, but instead of paying money, he gave equity stakes to early team members, which included his brother for 5%, 7%, and 9%, to two programmer friends who built Naukri.com.
- Early Internet Days: When Naukri.com was launched, there were 14,000 average web users in India. When newspapers started covering Internet-based businesses in India, the website became popular.
- Side Job: To make ends meet, he worked as a Consulting Editor for The Pioneer's career supplement 'Avenues' while building his business.
- Market Dominance: Alexa.com shows that Naukri.com gets about 75 to 80 percent of the online job search traffic in India.
FAQs
Who is Jeevansathi owner?
Jeevansathi is owned by Info Edge (India) Limited, the same company that owns Naukri.com, 99acres, and Shiksha.
Who is Naukri founder?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani is Naukri.com owner. He founded the company in 1997.
Who is Info Edge owner?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani is the founder and owner of Info Edge (India) Limited. He started the company in 1995.
Who is Naukri.com CEO?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani, an Indian businessman, is the founder and executive vice chairman of Info Edge, the company that owns the job portal Naukri.com.
What is Jeevansathi founder net worth?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani net worth is INR 18,856 crore as of January 2025.
What is Sanjeev Bikhchandani education?
Sanjeev Bikhchandani completed his schooling at St. Columba's School, Delhi, earned a degree in Economics (Honors) from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, and pursued an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.
