Team SC
Philip Vadley Edward Correya, a newcomer to Canada from India in 2014, made an impression in the Canadian food industry. The young Philip is the proud co-founder and CEO of PumpkinKart, a successful Canadian food-delivery startup. It sounds very fascinating, but there were reels of struggle, passion, perseverance, and consistency in efforts that made Philip achieve such a great feat at such an early age.
- Philip Vadley Edward Correya: Early Life and Academics
- Professional Life of Philip Vadley Edward Correya
- This is how Philip built PumpkinKart!
- Achievements and Future Plans of Philip Vadley Edward Correya
Philip Vadley Edward Correya: Early Life and Academics
In Kochi, Philip was born to his parents, Mr. Joseph Edward Correya and Mrs. Virginia Correya. His family also included his sister, Ms. Christina Edward Correya. Philip had a consistently bright academic career, along with great participation in sports and athletics. He was the captain of the school sportS team at Kendriya Vidyalaya, INS Dronacharya, he was a Petty Officer at the Sea Cadet Corps, and a bronze medalist in athletics in the Chennai region.
After his schooling, he completed his engineering degree in Information and technology from the reputed Anna University in India in 2014. Henceforth, he worked as a freelance trainer in the field of Microsoft Windows app development. Additionally, he was a hackathon judge at VIT, a reputed engineering college in India, and has trained thousands of students in Windows App development across South India.
He moved to Canada in 2014 for higher studies and enrolled in a 1 year Diploma in Business Analytics course. He completed this course successfully at George Brown College in 2015. Henceforth, he completed his post-graduation in project management from St. Lawrence College in Kingston in 2016.
Professional Life of Philip Vadley Edward Correya
Philips had a visionary target of entrepreneurship at the time he enrolled in his engineering course. His motive in choosing computer science as the specialization for his engineering degree was to do something unique in this particular vertical.
This entrepreneurial mindset of Philip made him recognize an opportunity amidst a very crucial pain point for immigrants in Canada. That was the absence of their native food that they love to eat. As a solution to this pain point, he co-founded Pumpkin Kart, which is now a great success in Canada.
However, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither did Philip land on this decision to pursue his entrepreneurship since the beginning of his career. A lot of learning, patience, perseverance, and consistency led him to success. Let’s take a brief peek into his career history!
As discussed earlier, he started his career as a Microsoft Student Partner during his college years. Henceforth, he moved to Canada and completed two professional courses. He also worked as an application developer at an Indian startup, Edukinect, in Hyderabad for almost 2 years. Henceforth, he led the IT team of King Component Ltd. in Toronto for 3 years as IT manager.
His leadership quotient can be felt to be an output of his community skills as well. He was an active member of the Royal Kerela Football Team and have played an extraordinary growing community role at the Canadian Cochin Club.
This is how Philip built PumpkinKart!
has to go through various types of struggles, and Philips was not an exception. But there was something that differentiated Philips from all other newcomers in Canada. And that was his capability to identify these challenges as a great opportunity.
He understood that the scarcity of non ethnic food can be a great business opportunity, if taken seriously. Staying true to his vision, he shared his idea with his friend, Mr. Visal Varghese, who is now the CTO and Tech Brain of Pumpkin Kart. In this mission, he also included his wife, Ms. Sanila Sebastian, who works as the CMO of PumpkinKart.
With the joint effort of this terrific trio, PumpkinKart started to spread the essence of ethnic delicacies all across Toronto. During the initial stages of Pumpkin Kart, he worked as delivery agent and provided customer support for his company. All his effort and struggle led to the expansion of PumpkinKart, and now it is delivering groceries, alcohol, and home cooked tiffin services throughout Canada.
Collectively, Philip and his partners were able to raise funds worth $1 million, primarily from Friends and Family, Angel Investor named Kula Sellathurai (CEO – Inter- Citi Logistics) and a Venture Capital firm Tangentia Ventures. Additionally, Pumpkin Kart received a great deal of support from the Indian community, specifically the Malayali community, and restaurant owners.
Pumpkin Kart was part of three accelerator programs for startups in Canada (Latam Startups, Brampton Venture Zone and Ecommerce North by Elevate). They were also selected for the interview rounds of Y Combinator (world’s best accelerator program). Pumpkin Kart received $20,000 grant from Toronto Metropolitan University. Pumpkin Kart was selected for the final pitch competition at Collision 2022 (North America’s Largest Tech Conference)
Achievements and Future Plans of Philip Vadley Edward Correya
In his journey of leadership and entrepreneurship, Philip received various recognitions throughout his career. His success story was featured in Hindustan Times, a leading media agency in India, and read by Indian expats throughout the world.
Additionally, he received the Youth Icon Award 2022, organized by Bluemoon Production, and the Tech Entrepreneur Award from George Brown College, Ontario. It’s worth mentioning that various colleges in Ontario included PumpkinKart as their case study for Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition 2022 and Philip was invited as Chief Judge to screen the best.
His future plans include the rapid expansion of Pumpkin Kart, along with, a parallel mission of fund raising and expanding to global markets. A new VP & CFO is going to join him shortly with a 24-member global team.
The team is working towards a collective goal of making Pumpkin Kart a Super App for Immigrants!
The struggle and achievements of Philip Correya very truly justify his statement for the youths – “Never give up, if you decide to do something bravely, take the first step without thinking much.”
