Indian-origin banker quits JP Morgan to join an AI investment bank: 'I have no regrets'
Indian-origin banker Varun Agarwal left JPMorgan to join AI startup OffDeal, saying he now gets more dealmaking experience with less grunt work.
For most finance graduates, landing a job at an investment bank like JPMorgan is a dream come true. But for an Indian-origin investment banker, the allure of artificial intelligence proved stronger. In an interview, Varun Agarwal, 25, shared that he left his job at JPMorgan to work at OffDeal, an AI investment bank that aims to transform dealmaking through technology.
Agarwal, who previously also worked at Piper Sandler, acknowledged that his time at traditional firms helped him develop critical skills, but he said he wanted more. “The biggest lesson I learned from investment banking was how to perform a wide variety of tasks efficiently. It also taught me how to ask the right questions when evaluating businesses,” he told Business Insider.
But while his experience was rewarding, the 25-year-old said that it also created a deep intellectual curiosity, one that was difficult to ignore. The fast-paced world of investment banking sharpened his judgement, but something was still missing.
“Seeing 21-year-olds start companies and raise millions of dollars was exhilarating. I thought to myself then, ‘Hey, why can't I do that too? Why don't I join a startup and take a big risk myself?’ That's when I started speaking to founders and investors to map out the next steps of my career,” Agarwal shared.
How is OffDeal different from traditional investment banks?
This is when he came across a post on LinkedIn from Ori Eldarov, the founder of OffDeal, an AI-native investment bank. “I was drawn to OffDeal's mission and its use of AI and software to address the exact pain points I faced as a junior banker at JPMorgan,” he said.
“Their focus on small businesses resonated with me at a personal level. My mom runs her own dental practice and is a small-business owner. Growing up, I saw that most business brokers could not run a proper Wall Street-level process when handling transactions for small businesses. I knew I had to be a part of OffDeal,” he added.
Agarwal explained that OffDeal is different from traditional investment banks because of its unique approach to deal-making. Each deal is handled by a two-person team - one banker and one engineer. This meant that the 25-year-old was no longer confined to the long hours and tedious tasks of his previous roles, he said.
“At bulge bracket banks like JPMorgan, a company valuation could take weeks or even months to complete. At OffDeal, it can be completed in one to two days at most,” he told the outlet.
Best time to join AI startup
He added that AI has transformed how he works: from automatic meeting transcriptions to AI-generated pitchbook revisions, much of the “grunt work” has been eliminated.
“We don’t have to spend hours going back and forth with clients to polish pitchbooks. Instead, our AI agent makes those revisions automatically, saving us a lot of time,” he explained.
Agarwal believes that the future of finance lies in AI. “There's a very small window of time where you can actually succeed and push your career forward in AI before it becomes a more mature industry. Becoming AI native and learning how to incorporate it into your workflow will pay huge dividends in the future,” he said.
