Excl: Cloud telephony startup Knowlarity's co-founder and COO Pallav Pandey quits

Gurgaon-based cloud telephony startup Knowlarity Communications' co-founder and chief operating officer Pallav Pandey has left the company and will now look at starting another venture.

Started in 2009 by IIT Kanpur batchmates Ambarish Gupta and Pandey, with initial funding from friends and family, the company raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding from Emergic Venture Capital and Progressivist Investment Capital in 2011 and soon followed it up by raising $6.6 million from Sequoia Capital in January 2012, according to VCCEdge, the financial research platform of VCCircle.

Speaking to Techcircle.in, Pandey said, "This is not a sudden move. After Sequoia funding, we were waiting for the company to generate stable revenue run rate. The company is now generating stable revenues and will be in a new avatar and look for more growth. I also wanted time to think what I would do after this, needed time for planning, and so I have made this move."

However, Pandey has not yet decided on the new startup that he proposes to set up, which will be his third entrepreneurial venture. Prior to Knowlarity, he had founded a political market research consultancy firm called Viplav Communications. Earlier, the electrical engineer started his career with Nvidia as a design engineer.

Pandey said that cloud telephony is a different and tough market, but the company is doing fine. He also added that the startup would not look at a replacement for his executive role.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)