Pune-Origin Indian American Becomes Youngest Self-Made Woman Entrepreneur: Hurun

Neha Narkhede is the founder of the tech startup confluent with a net worth of $580 million i.e. Rs. 47 billion.

Neha Narkhede, the Indian American co-founder of Confluent, a streaming data technology company, features in the recently published IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022, as the youngest self-made woman entrepreneur.

The 37-year-old businesswoman has an estimated wealth of $580 million (Rs. 47 billion) and was ranked 336th in the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022 which features people with a net worth of at least $123 million (Rs. 10 billion).

Narkhede was also one of five Indian American women among 100 women who were featured in the Forbes 2022 list of America's Richest Self-Made Women, as per the list released in July 2022.

She ranked 57th in the Forbes list with a net worth of $490 million.

Narkhede grew up in Pune, India, and studied Computer Science in Georgia Tech and advises a plethora of technology startups. In her role as a LinkedIn software engineer, Narkhede helped develop the open source messaging system called Apache Kafka which handles the networking site's huge influx of data, according to a report by American Bazaar.

Narkhede and two of her colleagues at LinkedIn Jun Rao and Jay Kreps left to found Confluent, a tech startup that helps organizations to process large amounts of data on Apache Kafka. Confluent turned into a $388 million company in revenues when it went public in June 2021 at a $9.1 billion valuation. Narkhede and her family own about eight percent of the shares.

In 2022, the list featured 1,103 individuals which is 96 more than last year spread across 122 cities. About 67 percent of the individuals on the list are self-made or entrepreneurs compared to 659 in 2021 and 367 five years ago.

Gautam Adani climbed to the top of the list with a total wealth of $134 billion (Rs. 10.94 trillion) surpassing Mukesh Ambani and family who are at $98 billion (Rs. 7.94 trillion).

"India has the third-highest number of unicorns and gazelles (fast-growing enterprises with base revenues of $100,000 or more) in the world."

Anas Rahman Junaid, Managing Director and Chief Researcher, Hurun India

Mumbai became the home of the highest number of wealthy Indian individuals at 283, followed by New Delhi at 185 and Bengaluru at 89, according to the list.

(With inputs from the American Bazaar & Bloomberg)