Mandar Agashe

Agashe was born in Mumbai on 24 May 1969 to Dnyaneshwar Agashe and Rekha Gogte.[1][2] Him and his siblings, Ashutosh Agashe and Sheetal Agashe, are the grandchildren of industrialist Chandrashekhar Agashe.[3] He also has two children from a former marriage.[4]

Beginning his career in 1994, Agashe became director of three family-held businesses, including his namesake Mandar Agashe Finance & Investments.[5] Between 1994 and 2000, he established EBZ Online, a software company, along with Oracle;[6][7] and established Codito, a chip-processing company Codito.[8][9][10]

In 1998, he explored the Ayurvedic skincare market under Brihans Pharmaceuticals,[11] eventually establishing Brihans Natural Products Ltd. in 2000.[12] Agashe was one of the directors implicated in the controversial case surrounding the alleged scam by the Suvarna Sahakari Bank in 2008.[13][14]

In 2000 Agashe founded Sarvatra Technologies, a financial technological company that provides payment software to the Indian rural/co-operative banking sector.[15] As of 2018, it has 450 co-operative banks on India's National Financial Switch.[16][17] Agashe has served as the company's vice chairman since.[18]

In the mid 90s, while a student of computer engineering, Agashe launched an internet radio website called Musicurry.com.[19][20] He formally came into the music field as a co-music director with Pandit Hridayanath and sang his first playback song with Asha Bhosle.[21] In 1998, he released his debut mainstream effort, Nazar Nazar. The album was recorded in Hindi and English, with several songs from the album and their accompanying music videos charted well on MTV India.[22]

In 2003, Agashe planned to go international and released a single in Germany called I Need Someone. India Times' Huned Contractor said: "It is a track that showcases a different style altogether with Mandar providing it with a laidback attitude and the smoothness of a drawl."[23]

In 2016, he released a reprise effort with Asha Bhosle in the form of an album called "82", reflecting the veteran singer's age at the time of recording.[24][25] Acting as music director, he featured six of Suresh Bhat's ghazals, that Bhat had given Agashe prior to his death.[26][27][28]

• Mandar Agashe's channel on YouTube