Ava Labs is accelerating its push in India with key strategic hires: Devika Mittal and Kamakshi Arjun, who will focus on the firm's growth in the Indian market.

Before joining Ava Labs, Devika was the Head of Token Listings for Okcoin (in the OKX umbrella), where she tripled the user and revenue footprint for the exchange. She is also a former Senior Global Corporate Strategy Manager at Microsoft, where she helped steer some of Microsoft’s early investments into blockchain. Devika has a BA from Yale and a MBA from Wharton.

Kamakshi is Polygon’s former Head of Partnerships for India. In that role, she onboarded various Web2 and Web3 companies. She also worked as a Blockchain Consultant at Tech Mahindra, and has a BTech in Aerospace Engineering from UPES. 

“I am so excited to help Ava Labs expand its reach and impact in the region, and am confident that Ava Labs is well-positioned to meet the demands of India’s large and growing population of tech-savvy individuals and businesses,” said Devika. “I look forward to working with the team to make India a leader in the global blockchain ecosystem.”

Devika and Kamakshi join at a pivotal moment for blockchain in India. The country has become the world’s second largest crypto market, and is number one globally for blockchain adoption. Ava Labs conducted an exhaustive search for each position, as India has become a critical country for the growth of Avalanche. Together, Devika and Kamakshi will focus on accelerating the adoption of Avalanche with a focus on institutional partnerships, developers, and community growth.

“Ava Labs is very pleased to announce the appointment of Devika to lead our India market growth initiatives, and Kamakshi to focus on business development efforts,” said John Nahas, Vice President of Business Development, Ava Labs. “Their extensive experience in the blockchain industry, and deep understanding of this market, will be essential as we work to expand our reach and impact in such an important region.”

In recent decades, India has emerged on the global stage as an innovation hub. In 2023, India’s technology industry is projected to bring in upwards of a trillion dollars in revenue. Such explosive growth is spilling over to blockchain, and with the new India team, Ava Labs and Avalanche are perfectly positioned to capture this explosive growth. Notable projects in the country already include Loco, the streaming and esports platform that generated $22.7B in revenue in 2022.

Further, Ava Labs is making India a focus area not only because of the organic passion for blockchain, but because the Indian government has shown a desire to spur development through efforts such as launching a Centre of Excellence in Blockchain Technology. State governments like Telangana and Goa have also initiated their own efforts to leverage the technology for real-world use cases, such as land records and marriage certificates. 

This week, Ava Labs is sponsoring the hackathon at Unfold, one of India’s top blockchain events.

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About Ava Labs

Ava Labs makes it simple to launch decentralized applications on Avalanche, the fast and secure smart contracts platform. We are empowering people to easily and freely digitize all the world’s assets on one open, programmable blockchain platform.

Ava Labs was founded by Cornell computer scientists who brought on talent from Wall Street to execute their vision. The company has received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Initialized Capital, and Polychain Capital, with angel investments from Balaji Srinivasan and Naval Ravikant.

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