Astha joined Accel in 2025 and focuses on Consumer, AI and B2B SaaS companies. Prior to Accel, she was at Elevation Capital where she oversaw B2B SaaS/AI investments. She was previously at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where she worked with large consumer companies on their GTM, direct costs and operational optimisations. She is an alumni of IIT Kharagpur.
Get to know Astha
What’s the most impactful piece of advice you’ve received?
Growing up, whenever I was worried about how silly failing at something would make me look, my mother used to refer to the Roosevelt's Sorbonne speech "“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...". She encouraged me to be curious and take up creative pursuits saying that even if I failed, it would be more glorious than not trying.
What was your first job?
I was a Coach for India's Debate Team for Worlds Schools Debating Championships in my pre-final year of undergrad- I helped select the contingent and worked with these high school debaters over a year to improve their arguments, structuring and knowledge across geopolitics, economics, IR and philosophy. While I'd been doing parliamentary debating for a long time then, being a coach made me feel closer to the sport, gave me new perspectives from the lens of younger debaters, and helped me discover my love for just teaching in general!
What’s your all-time favorite movie, TV show, OR book?
I love the "Song of Solomon" by Morrison- I quite like the depiction of multi-generational search for identity and fight with lyrical prose and complex family histories. I also like "Catcher in the Rye" by Salinger for it's authenticity and realness. Arundhati Roy's "God of Small Things" is one of my all-time favourites due to strong visual imagery, poetic narration and yet a fierce critique of society!