For Rakesh Verma, co-founder and managing director of MapmyIndia, leaving a successful career to venture into an unexplored and niche segment was a risk worth taking. In a span of two decades, Verma’s company has become one of the key players in digital maps and data, global positioning system (GPS) navigation, location based services (LBS), geographic information system (GIS) and related business intelligence solutions space in India.

Verma entered the Indian navigation industry in the early 2000s when commercial GPS and LBS were not viewed as a critical value proposition in the IT space. At that time, GIS was mostly under the domain of large government organisations.

Driven by his vision to digitally map the length and breadth of the country, MapmyIndia has revolutionised the Indian consumer navigation market by creating comprehensive, exhaustive and information-rich digital maps. The company launched the country’s first internet mapping portal MapmyIndia.com and over the years, has expanded its offerings to provide navigation maps and driving directions in the country through the internet, GPS/in-dash devices for car, and maps for mobiles.

However, the journey has not been easy as everything had to be started from scratch. According to Verma, creating a map for India is challenging, considering the country’s sheer size and changing landscape.

A first-generation entrepreneur, Verma had a successful corporate stint before his entrepreneurial instincts took over. After working with General Motors in the US for about a decade, he returned to India and joined Telecommunications Consultants India Limited for a brief period.

Verma was elected as the World’s GPS Businessman in 2007 by GPS Business News, Chicago, USA. In 2012, he was nominated to the National GIS Core Group of the Planning Commission, Government of India. The July-August 2013 edition of the Harvard Business Review featured a case study on MapmyIndia as a customer-funded start-up. Recently, on the Golden Jubilee of BITS Pilani, a book, BITS of Success, was released, which featured 50 BITS achievers over the last 50 years and included Verma’s inspiring entrepreneurial success story.

Verma is an engineer from BITS Pilani and an MBA from Eastern Washington University, USA. He enjoys travelling with his wife Rashmi, who co-founded MapmyIndia, and their two children.