Bhargav identifies more with camels than unicorns. While unicorns are products of a VC-style investment binge that burn capital in the quest for market share at the cost of profitability and business economics, Bhargav prefers his ventures to be more like camels – use capital efficiently and drive early-stage revenues to create a viable business early in the life cycle instead of burning through millions of dollars in capital in a market share grab and then having to fix the business model, cost structures and several parameters in a bid to generate positive cash flow.
Bhargav Patel is a serial entrepreneur and technology visionary. An Electrical Engineer with a minor in Computer Science from Toledo University, Ohio, he is one of the very few to have built a world-class SaaS platform out of India in Ahmedabad (one of the very few world-class Indian-owned software product development out of India).
Bhargav holds a decade of experience building marketing and publishing platforms and leading startups. He has been building advertising and publishing platforms since 2010 and has been involved with multiple startups, one of which earned him first place in the “1176 Challenge Cup” beating out 64,000 start-up companies sponsored by the US Chamber of Commerce.
Bhargav co-founded IQM Corp (listed as the #21st fastest growing company in the US by FT.Com and #2 amongst NYC advertising/marketing companies by Inc.500) and leads a team of 75 spread over the US, India (Ahmedabad) and Canada.
IQM is the leading digital advertising platform catering to several industry-specific sectors in the US with footprints in South America, India and Europe (soon to be launched) and poised to cross $100M in revenues soon. The Company has already grown from the development stage in 2014-18 to the launch stage in 2019-2022 and is now looking at rapid expansion in its business in 2024-25.
Bhargav Patel with IQM team
IQM is amongst the rarest of rare technology companies that has not only grown without any VC or outside investor involvement, but it is also highly profitable and has distributed millions of dollars in dividends to its shareholders since inception.
In addition to IQM, Bhargav is President of Genuin, a social media platform that he co-founded in 2021. He is also an investor in Infy.TV, a CTV monetization platform. Bhargav was recently named to Crain’s 40 Under 40 list for 2019.
Always the entrepreneur, Bhargav founded Genuin Inc, a community-building platform for brands and influencers to extend their domain from beyond restrictive social media platforms to the open internet. “It is a major shift from walled gardens to hedged gardens as consumers, brands and influencers are tiring of the negative effects of social media platforms and are looking for a way to move beyond the walled gardens of Meta and Google to the hedged gardens of the open internet. There is so much diversity of content and publishers available on the open internet like websites, streaming services, apps, games, OTT streaming platforms, and several other options for consumers, brands, and influencers on the open internet. At Genuin, we are committed to bring the advantages of the open internet to the closed social media ecosystem and free consumers, brands and influencers from the constraints of the social media platforms,” explains Bhargav.
Another interesting venture that Bhargav has invested in is Infy.TV. A pioneering effort in contextual video reel advertising using SSAI algorithms to offer video viewers a seamless content and contextual ad experience, Infy.TV has also several firsts to its credit.
Bhargav’s unique business model has been to incubate and take to market all ventures with his own capital and with the capital of his family that owns interests in hospitality businesses across the US. He has no outside investors in any of his ventures so far. However, he has received several expressions of interest from investors – both institutional and HNI family offices – for Genuin’s unique video community platform. Given the scalability of Genuin’s business (it could achieve scale akin to TikTok or Instagram over time), Bhargav plans to look at investor engagement once he crosses a minimum viable product milestone through his own investment in the company.
Having built a career in advertising technology, Bhargav is now focused on harnessing the technological advances in AI/ML to bring enriching, seamless, and relevant video experiences to the consumer. His ventures have caught the interest of leading American brands and influencers who are at various stages of engagement with his companies.
Bhargav identifies more with camels than unicorns. While unicorns are products of a VC-style investment binge that burn capital in the quest for market share at the cost of profitability and business economics, Bhargav prefers his ventures to be more like camels – use capital efficiently and drive early-stage revenues to create a viable business early in the life cycle instead of burning through millions of dollars in capital in a market share grab and then having to fix the business model, cost structures and several parameters in a bid to generate positive cash flow. This approach has served him well in his ventures and having built IQM with the same philosophy and seen great success, Bhargav is keen to replicate this model in each of his enterprises.
Bhargav, his wife Miral and their two young children live in Roslyn Heights, Long Island.
