Arpan doesn’t believe in boring problems. Where others see complexity, he sees a chance to transform some of the most overlooked corners of a business. “The really unsexy parts of companies tend to be where there is a ton of opportunity,” he says. 

Growing up in Kolkata, Arpan loved playing chess and solving puzzles. He studied electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University. After graduating, he joined the founding team at Robinhood where he led the data team and built many of the company’s foundational platforms and products across infrastructure, data growth, and risk. During his time at Robinhood, he helped grow the business to more than 2,000 employees and $15 billion in value. He left to found the fintech company Flannel, which Plaid acquired in 2021. At Plaid, Arpan was an engineering leader responsible for all of the company’s infrastructure, developer efficiency, and data.

Before joining Spark, Arpan was a partner on the investing team at Pear VC and worked as a scout at Sequoia. A founder at heart, Arpan loves helping startups navigate the pivotal moments in building a company, while letting founders lead the way in making big decisions. He often works with fintech, AI, and enterprise infrastructure companies who believe in making enterprise software as intuitive and compelling as any consumer product. “Technical people who build for other technical people have a second-order level of impact,” he says. “When you serve technical customers really well, you’re accelerating development for everyone.”