Centre Court Capital

Faraz is a founding member of Centre Court Capital. He was an investment professional at Birthstone Capital across consumer and healthcare, worked in restructuring and turnaround at EY, and started out at Centrum Capital on the team that set up the Kalpravish Fund. He's played tennis and rugby competitively, grew up in Dubai, and has lived across London, Geneva, Singapore, and Mumbai. He holds a BA from Pace University, New York. He flat out refuses to name a single goosebumps moment, so you get all of them: Neeraj in Tokyo, Rooney's bicycle kick in the 2011 Manchester derby, "through goes Hamilton" at Silverstone in 2022, and Federer on pretty much any given day. The athlete he'll back through anything is Lewis Hamilton for that eighth title, and his founder picks are Federer, for the discipline and taste and grit, and Eileen Gu, whose answer to "do you think before you speak?" completely won him over. His favourite lesson from sport comes from his ball kid days in Dubai in 2006. Federer had just finished practice, a friend asked for his headband, and he turned and said there's no way he's giving you that. Federer walked over, handed it to the kid and smiled. "You don't ask, you don't get" has stuck with him ever since. He's also been a PC gamer growing up and played eSports tournaments before they were called that, and he's still friends with his clan members.

Priya has spent over eleven years in fund accounting, investor reporting, compliance and fund operations. She was at Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors on private debt funds, handling onshore and offshore compliance, and before that managed trade settlements and brokerage at HDFC Mutual Fund. She's a Chartered Accountant with a B.Com. Her goosebumps moment is Jemimah Rodrigues getting to her hundred in the 2025 World Cup semifinal, chasing 339 against Australia under real pressure, and marking it with nothing more than a quiet nod. As a CA, that kind of composure is the part she admires most. The team she irrationally believes in is India, full stop, and none of the logic or the recent form matters; every time they walk out to bat she's convinced they'll win. Her founder pick is Smriti Mandhana, who leads without trying too hard to, calm and dependable and trusted, which is usually what great founders look like too. Her most controversial opinion, from someone who happily admits she barely follows cricket, is that Kohli should have retired from Tests a little earlier. And the lesson she keeps coming back to is that the comeback is usually stronger than the setback.

Kislay, prior to joining Centre Court Capital, was a VP of Investments at Lumikai, India's first gaming and interactive media fund, where he led deals across the gaming ecosystem. Before that he ran consumer internet investments in India for Xiaomi's global arm, and he started out in M&A at JP Morgan. Thirteen-odd years in venture, corporate development and banking, and a degree from BITS Pilani. He's got two goosebumps moments and won't drop either. One is Sachin tearing into Kasprowicz in Sharjah in '98, the Desert Storm innings, with Tony Greig losing his mind on commentary, still the best sound of bat on ball from his childhood. The other is Dhoni's six in the 2011 World Cup final, and the few hours afterward on the streets of Delhi with what felt like the whole city out celebrating. Like most 90s kids, the athlete he irrationally believes in is Sachin, and later Federer. On founders he wants two people for two jobs: Ganguly to build the thing from nothing, because he'll bet on unproven people and isn't afraid to look stupid, and Dhoni to run it once it's real, because he stays calm in chaos and makes the calls nobody else will. His most controversial take is that most GOAT debates are just nostalgia dressed up as analysis, since the player you watched at 14 is always going to feel like the best one. And after roughly 3,000 hours on Steam, from CS to FIFA to a deep DOTA phase, he'll tell you PC gaming wins, no contest.