“My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required….the
presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new
good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not
care to display. Nevertheless, a meeting of such people may be desirable for reasons other than
the act of creation itself”
Isaac Asimov
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New York
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Louisiana
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Europe
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India
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Brazil
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Advisors
Kirthi Ramakrishnan
President and CEO
Based in NYC, Kirthi co-founded TOPXIGHT LABS and oversees product strategy and global operations.
With over 20 years in new venture creation, business consulting, product management, and financial
engineering, he has developed TOPXIGHT’s s2S process, its unique operating model, and the
indie-commerce concept. He is also the main driver behind ALPHABETA INC, the first portfolio company
in financial services. Previously with Cognizant, Financial Models, and BBVA Bancomer, he has a
B.Engg from Anna University and an MBA from Tulane University.
Siva Visveswaran
Chief Technology Officer
Siva is a visionary with a track record of predicting technology adoption trends over the last 20
years. He is the driving force behind many of the TOPXIGHT foundational themes and was prescient in
the influence of gaming, data visualization and active learning on serious business. As CTO, he
influences the technology selection and architecture design for the portfolio companies. An avid
jazz drummer, he is also the principal product manager for Manoke Inc, our venture in the music
industry. Previously with Cognizant, PwC, IBM, and TCS, he holds a BS from BITS Pilani, an MS from
Wayne State University, and an MA from the University of Delaware
Joe Kowalski
Lead UX Designer
Working out of his Brooklyn studio, Joe is instrumental in the visual and interactive design of all
TOPXIGHT products. Combining his natural creativity with a practical eye to user workflow, his
designs reflect a minimalist and understated flair. Over the last 15 years as a graphic designer at
multiple game studios, his credits include Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Brutal Legend, and numerous titles
for Double Fine. His personal work has been featured in Babycastles Gallery, Electric Literature,
Boing Boing, and Rooftop Films. Joe graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2003.
Jennifer Bersamin
Operations Director
Jennifer oversees finance, legal, and HR and US facilities management functions for TOPXIGHT through ValCap
Advisory Services LLC. She previously was the Global Operations Manager at PL Advisors and in Counterparty
Relationship Management at Plural Investments (2008-2012). Prior to this she spent over a decade as an associate
in equities at Moore Capital Management, Eton Park Capital and Maverick Capital. An accomplished violinist,
she ran instruction and production for COS, an orchestral program for gifted children in Long Island, NY. Since
2009, she has been a Member of the Board of Directors for MuSE, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating
and showcasing original works in performing arts.
Peggy Babin
Managing Director - TOPXIGHT LA
Peggy Babin is the CEO for Valmiki 504 LLC, the Louisiana venture capital subsidiary of the Valmiki Capital
Management LP and the General Partner to the Fund. She joined Valmiki recently to start up the office and
its Louisiana operations and is in charge of academic programs and outreach for Alphabeta. Prior to that,
she served as the Associate Dean at the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University for 17 years.
She has been a leader in management in academia, having managed career services, external relations, alumni
affairs, fundraising, and other departments for the business school in that period. Ms. Babin came to the
Freeman School from LL&E where she spent almost two decades in a number of positions with the company,
ending as manager of natural of natural gas trading generating annual revenues in excess of $350 million.
Dr. Charles LeDoux
Engineering Manager
From our lab in Lafayette, Charles manages the software engineering team responsible for commercialization
of the Cythereal product suite. His specialty is in the design and development of scalable deep learning
systems for automated malware similarity analysis. He invented methods for intrusion detection at McAfee,
linking malware binaries through semantic hashes and an assembly obfuscator at the ULL Software Research
Laboratory at ULL, and code obfuscation at the Air Force Research Labs. He holds an MS and a Ph.D from the
University of Louisiana
Sam Noon
Intern Analyst
Expecting to graduate from Tulane University in 2019 with finance and management degrees, Sam has been
working at TOPXIGHT LA since Jan 2017 on various projects. He currently runs the social media marketing
and student evangelization efforts for ALPHABETA Guide and is deeply involved in automated testing and
financial analysis across projects. He has been a TA for Business Analytics at the AB Freeman School of
Business, where he realized his passion for research and learning using data driven strategies. He has
also been a supervisor for Tulane Athletic Marketing performing market research and SWOT analysis.
Bastian Huck
Managing Director, TOPXIGHT LABS SRO
Bastian runs our European operations and is also the founder and CEO of FlyBy NAV Inc. Additionally, he is
involved in several projects within the TOPXIGHT portfolio companies. Bastian is a passionate aviation
professional who spent six years as a commercial, instrument, and private pilot. He has spent ten years with
startups and venture capital at TOPXIGHT, Valmiki Capital, and Quandoo. He is also specialized in project
finance, M&A, business operations, e-commerce, and equity and debt placement. He earned a Masters in Finance
from Fordham and Bocconi.
Dr. Joaquin Trigueros
Head Of Quantitative Research
Dr. Joaquin Trigueros is a seasoned “quant” having spent the last 17 years in high performance trading
environments at Greenwich Capital, JP Morgan, and Capula Global. He was the winner of the first D.E.
Shaw Best Paper Award at the first annual CIFEr conference in 1997 for his pioneering research in genetic
algorithms and programming applied to predictive variable selection in accounting and finance. Among his
various research responsibilities were the overseeing of the propriety PRIMUS risk engine and the development
of the trading decision making applications of the Proprietary Positioning Business (PPB) at JP Morgan.
Dr. Trigueros earned his Ph.D. in accounting and finance from Tulane University in May 2000.
David Gouveia
Software Engineer
David Gouveia is a software engineer from Portugal, with a MSc in computer science, and 8 years of experience
in game development and audio programming. He works directly with Manoke and other Topxight companies and is
the chief architect/engineer behind Manoke Stage and Manoke Studio products. He's the author of the "Getting
Started with C++ Audio Programming for Game Development" book, and one of the top contributors to the
"Game Development StackExchange" website. He's also been playing the piano and studying music since an early
age, having taken courses in classical, jazz, and modern music.
Ivan Peska
2D/3D Artist and Game Developer
Ivan Peska is a 2D/3D game artist and game developer with several published mobile titles under his belt
(some of them self-published). His creative endeavors do not end here - he is also an avid music producer,
working in several styles and genres. He has held various roles in creative industries during his ten-year
career.
Sundara Nagarajan
MD and COO, TOPXIGHT Research Labs (India)
Sundar oversees the TOPXIGHT India operations and is responsible for finance, administration, HR, legal,
and audit functions. He also oversees our industry and academic outreach and partnership programs for the
APAC region. With over 27 years of prior technology experience, he was the Head of IT Outsourcing for Lloyds
Banking Group in India and multiple strategy and operational leadership positions across geographies at
Cognizant. He has an MBA from the SP Jain Institute of Management.
Sathya Palaniappan
Vice President, Product Management
Based in Chennai, Sathya oversees product management, business analysis, quality assurance and data
management across multiple TOPXIGHT initiatives. AT Cognizant, he spent 15 years in capital markets
strategy and transformation consulting for UBS, Franklin Templeton, BNY Mellon, Wells Fargo, Citi, RBC,
Fidelity, Northern Trust, State Street, World Bank, Capital Group, Dreyfus, ABN Amro, Standard Chartered
Bank and Qatar National Bank. Prior to that, he held risk management and investment operations positions
at Citicorp, HDFC Mutual Fund, and Sundaram Mutual Fund. With a consistent track record of thought
leadership and publishing, Sathya is an ICAI-qualified Chartered Accountant and a GARP-certified Financial
Risk Manager.
Varun Mundra
Head of Business Development, India
Based in Mumbai, Varun runs business development in India across TOPXIGHT companies, targeting online
education platforms, stock exchanges, financial services companies, and educational institutions. He has
over 10 years of B2B and B2C sales, product, and digital marketing experience in the technology and
construction sectors at Courses.ninja, roadtonaukri, and Rupam Marbles. He has an MBA from SP Jain Institute
of Management and an MIB from IESEG (France).
Namasivayam Ravi
Manager, Data Analytics and Quality Assurance
Namasivayam oversees data analytics and quality assurance for ALPHABETA and other TOPXIGHT portfolio companies.
He is a seasoned professional with experience at Smart Advisors, Probe Equity research, and Scope
International. He has experience with business planning, fund raising, strategy building, financial modeling,
valuation, fund management, and analytics. He has received multiple degrees, including an MS in business
analytics from the State University of New York, an MBA with a focus on finance from Amrita University, and
a B.Tech with a focus on IT from Anna University.
Abhinav Ramkrishna
Client Partner
Abhinav works with Manoke and is responsible for relationships with music schools, musicians, and content
production. He has five plus years of experience in business development and customer support functions. He is
a graduate in travel & tourism with additional qualifications from IATA. Abhinav completed 5th-grade music
theory at ABRSM(The Associated Board of the Royal School of Music) and is the protégé of Mr. Paul Augustine,
a prominent exponent of western classical music in Chennai.
Divya Gosain
Senior Manager, Product Management
Based in Delhi NCR, Divya is responsible for financial modelling, research and product management initiatives across multiple TOPXIGHT companies. She has over 8 years of experience in financial services and information technology across merger and combination analyses, proprietary financial analysis, asset management and post trade processing. Divya has previously worked with Cognizant Business Consulting (Capital Markets) and J.P. Morgan Investment Banking (NA Energy). Digital disruptions in financial services is her focus area of interest. She is an MBA (Finance) from Management Development Institute and a Manufacturing and Automation Engineer from Delhi University.
André Schaan
Founder and CEO of VOX Game Studio
Based in Porto Alegre, Andre co-manages Vox, TOPXIGHT’s development partner in Brazil. Starting with 2 years
in animations in Adobe Flash, he then worked with game development as a Unity 3D programmer at Aquiris
Game Studio for 5 years. He then founded Vox, which has steadily grown and is the largest external partner
for TOPXIGHT LABS today. The studio focuses on the programming of games and mobile applications using the
Unity 3D engine as the primary tool.
Laurent Quevedo
Technical Director of VOX Game Studio
Laurent is best described as a savant and legend has it that he started professional programming after just
one course in computer science. Starting as a programmer in ALPHABETA, he is now the development lead
managing a fantastic group of young programmers. He has been working with ALPHABETA since its infancy and
now has also taken on the role of guiding its architecture.
Carlos Alexandre Lopes
DevOps and Systems Manager
Carlos Lopes is a veteran systems analyst with TOPXIGHT’s Brazil Operations. Impressively, Carlos started
to code in 1988 at the early age of 6 on his old IBM XT using QBasic for MS-DOS. Carlos joined TOPXIGHT as
the lead backend developer, DevOps engineer, server administrator and systems analyst. Previously, he worked
as a freelance developer and then joined UOL (Universe Online). At UOL, Carlos worked in the backend
development of a payment gateway for online gaming companies such as Riot, EA, and Valve. Besides a
developer, Carlos became the Scrum Master of a little team of developers, organizing, helping and planning
the team tasks.
Diego Francke
Project Manager and Information Officer
Diego coordinates technology projects across TOPXIGHT companies with teams in 4 continents. In addition,
he manages internal communications, workflow, and documentation across the incubator. He spent four years
coordinating a technology department of a pre-university course in Brazil, before joining the gaming
industry and mobile apps. He has eight years of team and project management experiences. After working as
a developer, he went back to team organization, working as a project manager. Diego is also a coordinator
and co-founder of an NGO that takes care of homeless dogs and cats since 2009.
Ravi Suria
Managing Partner, Valmiki Capital Management LP
Representing the lead institutional investor, Ravi takes an active advisory role in governance, corporate
development, and strategy across the TOPXIGHT companies. He serves as Chief Investment Officer for Valmiki,
and its subsidiaries, overseeing an investment team with similar incubator relationships across industries.
Prior to founding Valmiki, he ran multi-billion dollar global macro and equity portfoios with Duquesne Capital
Managment and Moore Capital. Prior to that, he was an All Star analyst and head of convertibles research at
Lehman Brothers and PaineWebber. He has a BE from Annamalai University and an MBA from Tulane University
Mallika Das
Marketing Advisor
Mallika Das is a Marketing Advisor with 15 years in marketing and communication strategy. She has global
work experience with multinational agencies and companies. Previously, she worked as the Planning Director
at Mcgarrybowen New York, the Regional Planning Director at Mullen Lowe Group Thailand, and the Product
Manager for Johnson & Johnson India.
Rao Peddada
Investor and Incubation Facilitator
As an independent investor and advisor, Rao serves as a liaison between TOPXIGHT and the young entrepreneur
community in India and the US. His interests lies in creating execution capability and scale for promising
ideas and entrepreneurs by bringing them into an ecosystem of labs, accelerators, and incubators working on
cutting edge technologies with 15-20 years of potential enterprise impact. He spent four decades incubating
and growing multiple billion dollar technology and consulting businesses, primarily in financial services in
the US, Europe, and India. He has an M.Tech from IIT Bombay.
