Jaskaran Singh Thakkar: A Builder’s Legacy, An Investor’s Canvas

Jaskaran Singh Thakkar comes from a Jaipur family that built in the brick-and-mortar world. The idea he has taken into startups, public markets and a wealth platform of his own is simple: back the founder first, test the proof, and match capital to the clock.

It started with a first cheque. His father, Ravinder Singh Thakkar, a first-generation entrepreneur who built Unique Dream Builders (UDB) in Jaipur, backed Finova Capital at the idea stage, before there was any family office. Jaskaran carried that start forward by setting up the UDB family office, while the group built more than 50 residential and commercial projects and moved into hospitality, a call taken on the back of Jaipur’s tourism sector.

After engineering at MNIT Jaipur, Jaskaran spent three to four years in corporate data science and then in venture capital, before going deeper into angel investing through 2020-23, learning from failed bets as much as from winners. The UDB family office invests across public and private markets, including public equities and pre-IPO opportunities, and has backed more than 130 startups, including Zypp Electric (mobility), Anveshan (consumer), Shadowfax (logistics) and Alt Carbon (climate), and many more.

The POP framework

People: the founder and their domain knowledge. Opportunity: the market, the customer and the scale it can reach. Proof: the data and rigorous analysis behind the thesis. It is the lens he applies from startups to real assets. In real estate, People is the partner or promoter, Opportunity is the market call, as with Jaipur’s tourism-led move into hospitality, and Proof is comps, absorption and footfall data.

An early mistake shaped the framework: "I backed a company with product-market fit but no founder-market fit. Founder-market fit is the one that is essential." He also weighs "the founder, the business, and the timing" and questions the value of being first: "First-mover advantage is overrated. The first mover often just creates the market for the second player."

After his engineering, and having done his CFA, Thakkar went on to pursue an MBA in Finance from Esade x Chicago Booth, Class of 2026. He also co-founded Ilios 72 Alternative Capital with Shivansh Sabharwal and Valmik Iyer, CFA. Once his own family office was up and running, friends and family began asking how they could invest; Ilios turned that practice into a multi-family-office concept. In a couple of years since inception, Ilios 72 Alternative Capital has grown to manage and advise upwards of ₹1,500 crore for 300+ UHNI families across India, the Middle East and the US, with offices in Gurgaon and Jaipur. Its edge lies in alternates: pre-IPOs, unlisted markets, and international markets through the LRS route, pieces most investors in India miss.

The work runs on different clocks. A Jaipur property project takes years to build; a young company needs time to find its market; a family portfolio must stay coherent across generations. Jaskaran’s approach holds across all three: back the founder first, test the proof, and match capital to the clock. Alongside scaling Ilios, the family office keeps investing across public and private markets, and the UDB Group keeps building.

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