I moved back to India in 2013 with a simple mission: to build AI for the country. Since then, I've been incredibly fortunate to build Haptik, invest in 100+ startups, co-create TEAM for Mumbai and contribute to our sovereign AI strategy through the IndiaAI Mission. Today, all of it comes together in my next act. Introducing Activate: India’s AI Venture Fund. We believe AI in India will be built by technical crack teams. Activate is created for such founders, engaging with them well before company formation and investing $500k-$3M at inception. With @177pc, the one & only person in the world I'd want to do this with. It starts here. It starts now. It's time to Activate.

Bangalore has the smartest people of our generation in India. Bombay should seriously be worried about becoming the next Calcutta in 20-30 years.

Huggingface can see what most others can't. Soon, everyone will know. I am meeting 1 new AI startup a week now. Top technical teams thinking global first.

Living in Mumbai needs to be a case study. Roads, air, weather, airport are likely worst in the country. But phir bhi "Spirit of Bombay".

1/n New RBI guidelines released in August have major implications for angel investors who invest in startups headquartered abroad. I have now spoken to various lawyers, CAs, banks & others to arrive at the below understanding. P. S. This is still evolving :)

Heard from a legend founder today: "An entrepreneur is passionately optimistic and perpetually paranoid."

Excited to share my new role as Advisor to the India AI Mission. In March this year, the Union government sanctioned Rs. 10,300 Cr to build the sovereign AI footprint of the country, including compute infrastructure, foundation models, startup financing & more. Humbled, honored and privileged to take on this mandate, with the hope of making our country one of the AI superpowers of the world! 🙏🏻🇮🇳 pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.…

Building AI in India

Varun is running the most underrated AI company in India. They make marketing videos for clients, where 80% of the work is done using AI. AI-led services in action, with the potential of software like margins.

Entrepreneurship is such a brutal game. You drop the ball for a minute and everything falls apart. Focus. All the time. Every single day.

I am not going to participate in any more AI conferences in India. This is not against anyone specific, but the conversation is all the same and the audience is not gaining anything. Founders should instead spend this time building or with customers, that's it.

If you are trying to build an AI startup from India for the world, stop. Move to SF. Then start.

We are excited and proud to announce that Haptik has entered into a strategic transaction with Reliance Jio. The total deal size is 700 Cr, with Jio holding ~87% of the combined business on a fully diluted basis. bit.ly/2FMcCWl

In 2021 I heard more than 100 startup investment pitches and invested in 27. Only 3 takeaways: 1. Founder quality in India is as good / better than anywhere else 2. India TAM is a moot point. This is a supply constrained market. 3. Timing of the idea is everything. Why now?

The most here and now AI opportunity in India is Infosys 2.0. - More & more enterprises want custom tailor made solutions, not a one size fits all SaaS tool. - CIOs have many business problems, but with AI they don't know where to start. - The business model for this is not man hours driven, but outcome based where economics are closer to a software company. Unlimited TAM. Requires product DNA with IT services like GTM. Ping me if you are doing something here :)

😀🙏🏻

When I grow up, I want to be Satya Nadella.

Startups :)

Very few people truly want to work hard to achieve something. In the corporate world, you can make a lot of money and go places as long as you know how to work the system. Startups on the other hand are like sports teams. You need insane hard work, perseverance, failure, sweat & tears to get somewhere. If you join a startup, think you're signing up to be an athlete. Train like a Virat or a Kobe or a Novak if you truly want to be the best.

I was offered at least 5 of these. Passed "hard" every single time. Went out of the way to make sure none of my friends invested. No pride in saying "I called it", but something did not feel right about this right from the get-go.

(1/3) Excited to finally announce the world's first end to end shopping experience within WhatsApp, powered by Haptik. Browse catalogs, add to cart and make payments all without leaving the WhatsApp chat. economictimes.indiatimes.com…

To all Founders: When an investor asks who you compete with, give a clear precise answer on the alternates and how you are different from them. Don't beat around the bush to finally say "no one". In most cases, no competition is worse than too much competition.

As of August 2024, Haptik is a Rs. 275 Cr ($33m) ARR SaaS business. EBITDA profitable. Cash Flow positive. Growing 50% YoY. Pretty good right? But what's unique about this? The company has 0 US customers. 80% of the business is from India. (1/4)

Just going to say it. What's happening around us sucks. I feel for my team and their families. I am tired of working from home and out of creative juice. I can't be as productive as I usually am. And that's okay. - Every Founder in India

Life update that’s been long overdue. Last year, after more than a decade of building Haptik, I stepped down as CEO and handed over the reins to long time Haptikan Ahshad Jussawalla. When we started in 2013, my biggest task was to educate people on why AI and chatbots mattered. From there to building one of India’s largest conversational AI platforms—and now in the generative AI era—I feel extremely lucky to have lived this journey. As part of Jio Platforms, Haptik has grown from a $500k business to $35 Million ARR in just over five years, while turning cash flow positive. I have immense gratitude for everyone at Reliance, who partnered with a startup and helped turn it into a real company. It’s been a PhD in business building working alongside them, truly a corporate institution like no other. We conducted an exhaustive CEO search, and it soon became clear that the answer was right in front of us. Ahshad joined us 4 years back to lead the Interakt business, which today is the default WhatsApp CRM for SMBs in India. Over this past year as incoming CEO, Ahshad has grown the business by 30% and successfully steered the company's roadmap to build for the Agentic world. While I step away from day-to-day operations, I continue to serve on the Board and am excited for some big announcements in the near future. Lastly, I wouldn’t be here without my brother in arms @SRajdev. From roommates in college to building together for 15 years, it's the one relationship that has transformed my life more than any other (and yes my wife would agree)! 😀 I moved back from the US in 2013 with the mission of building AI for India. Today, the continued pursuit of that mission feels more real than ever. Grateful, excited, nervous, overwhelmed, all at once. It truly is 1913, and we are building cars.

Knee jerk reactions all around. 1. Govt issues open ended advisory on AI models after a couple of platforms mess up. 2. World goes crazy thinking India is moving back, license raj again, etc. 3. Govt tweets a clarification it's not for startups, again leading to more questions than answers. Truth is not much is going to change. This is just a poor job in communication, resulting from the need to do something in an election year. Remember an advisory has no legal ground. Govt will issue clarifications and things will settle down. Still long on AI for India. 🇮🇳

No BMW bike can replace this feeling.

Jampad I have always been fascinated by the idea of an open braistorm session amongst aspiring founders. Ever since I learnt about when Travis Kalanick used to host these, and how Uber actually came out of it. Today we had our own version of the Jampad. 7 of us with varied professional backgrounds jammed for a few hours on all sorts of ideas. From educational toys to D2C brands, the potential of generic medicines, a new form of wealth tech and even how home buying in India needs to be disrupted. It was by far one of the best ways to spend a Saturday morning. We are now going to make this a regular affair and aim to have at least 1 every month. The "-1 to 0" stage of starting up is where you figure out the foundation of the company you will build. The idea of Jampad is to make this a collaborative exercise with a high quality peer group. Reach out if interested in joining or learning more :)

Great meeting @sama this morning. So much to do for AI in India, an exciting few months coming up! 🚀🇮🇳

This is for all my young Indian AI founder friends incorporating in Delaware: A SaaS company at ~$100M ARR with 40% of revenues from the US is flipping back to India, raising money from Tier 1 Indian PEs to eventually IPO here.

Dad just asked "beta what is going on with these unicorns?" Guys we've made it as an ecosystem, congrats.

Here we go. IndiaAI Mission invites proposals from startups, researchers and entrepreneurs to build state-of-the-art foundation models for the country. The models can be Large Language Models (LLMs) or Small Language Models (SLM), across multimodal text, voice or video. They must be indigenous AI models that align with global benchmarks, while addressing unique Indian challenges such as cultural, linguistic & societal context. Everyone is welcome to apply, multiple proposals will be selected with the goal of having SOTA ready India models by the end of the year. Proposals need to be sent to tenders[at]indiaai[dot]gov[dot]in. Time to put India on the map! 🚀🇮🇳 @OfficialINDIAai @GoI_MeitY indiaai.gov.in/article/call-…

Entrepreneurship is truly wild. One day you could be thinking you are Superman. Your company is going to rule the world. Unstoppable, invincible, conquering hero. And literally the next day you could wake up thinking, "wtf am I doing with my life"!

Jampad Saturdays. Founders in the -1 to 0 stage of company building, jamming on what to build next. Saturday afternoon done right :)

Current state of seed investing in India: - Nothing in AI - India for the world SaaS is still a struggle - D2C is the flavor of the season, a lot of high quality founders - Fintech is tough due to the regulatory landscape - India for India SaaS is underrated Most funds have done only a handful of deals this year. Trend looks like it will continue through the rest of the year and into 2025.

If you're an Indian founder building SaaS for the world, the "for the world" part needs to start from Day 0. There is no point in getting the initial traction in India, then flipping. Takes you 2 steps back on product and the quality of revenue is sub-par.

All 4 Mumbai born and headquartered. For all the noise around which is the "tech" capital of India :) @mumbai_tech_

6 months back @miten and I launched peercheque. A venture syndicate to invest in the most ambitious founders from India. After making 75 angel investments, it felt like the right time to convert this into a franchise. (a) Gap in true operator capital in India in the 0-to-1 phase (b) Angels & friends increasingly looking at us to co-invest with (c) Top quality founders starting great companies during a downturn Since we started, in 6 months we've met 180 startups and made 5 investments, with an average cheque size of $100k. Look forward to backing many more founders like they deserve, as peers :) More here: peercheque.com/ @peercheque @agarwal_shivamm

As an entrepreneur in India you are always in wartime. Cockroach mentality is the only way to build businesses. There is no innovation, no magical inflection point. Only day to day grind that compounds over a long period of time.

1/n Alright, here we go. Excited to announce the formation of Technology Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM), with the mission of advancing the tech ecosystem in the city. We recognize there are many problems that prevent the city from being a destination for startups.

Interesting dynamics at play in India startup land. On one end, all YC unicorns flipping back to IPO locally. Meesho, Zepto, Razorpay, etc. paying a $300M+ tax bill. On the other hand, majority of new AI-native startups incorporating in Delaware, while their center of gravity still is India. How does one objectively decide as a new startup founder today? @vaibhavbetter @RTinkslinger @aviralbhat @177pc

For all those who are "baffled" by the WhatsApp price, take a look at this. #WhatsApp

Just completed 72 hours of total snooze - no email, Slack, work calls. Only this 👇

I'm amazed by the number of new startups in the last few months. On average, @miten and I meeting about 10 a week. About to make our 17th investment in 2020. Covid, digital adoption, number of unicorns - so many factors at play. Long on India! @tellmepc

Over the past few months, at least a dozen Indian professionals based abroad (mostly in the Bay Area), have reached out to me asking: What is the AI landscape in India? The context is they want to move back home and build here. Ideally start with a soft landing at a startup and then go out on their own. The belief is the India opportunity over the next decade is too huge to miss out on. They are mostly in their mid-30s, have enough saved from the big tech stock boom, and now want their kids to grow up here close to grandparents. The current geopolitical situation is a further accelerant in this decision. If you are an AI-native startup looking to hire top tier product & tech talent, let me know :) Long on AI in India! 🚀🇮🇳

Below is all that matters. Everything else is just narrative, to whoever it suits best. - DeepSeek is an incredible feat in the evolution of AI, the next big inflection point after ChatGPT released in Nov 2022. - They have proved once again what we have known forever: in AI, talent over everything else. It was the very reason a non-profit lab called OpenAI was put together in 2015, to assimilate the best research talent to take on Google. DS has played the exact same move against OAI a decade later. - The difference this time is that the talent is not what you would typically think AI Research, but rather a crack team of software engineers, infra architects, mathematicians and DevOps. This IMO is as significant a moment as anything else, that to build great AI models you no longer need to compete for limited expensive AI talent ($1-5m salaries). - This would not have been possible without decades of AI research compounding, and without OpenAI o3 already being out there. DS used AI to generate data to build best in class AI. The hilarious part is OpenAI still makes a unit loss on their inference, which means DS caused them losses in more ways than one! - Even if DS is fabricating the costs, the paper proves it is still an order of magnitude cheaper than anything else so far of similar quality. This will lead to an explosion of more teams & companies building models, and many will play in specific niches. This is a very very good thing. - As a result, the eventual demand for compute will still stay in a similar range, or maybe even to up because so many players will now get into the game. Jevons Paradox in full action. - Cheaper models will lead to cheaper inference. Cheaper inference will lead to startups using AI for all sorts of things for both building products and internal tools. Cost of company building will go down and the one person $1b enterprise that Sam has talked about is no longer a pipe dream. - This also has implications on Venture Capital in AI. IMO there will be small funds and then very large funds. A $1m seed can now probably take you very far, even profitability. And then you need serious growth capital for world dominance. Good time to be in private equity. What a time to be alive, and fortunate to be working in this industry. Time to put India on the map! 🚀🇮🇳

The quality of Founders these days starting companies in India is just 🔥🔥 We're going to run out of money angel investing 😂 @miten

That was a fun evening :)

Every single founder needs to read this. There is no better piece of content to come out of startup land in a long time. "Hire good people and give them room to do their jobs. Sounds great when it's described that way, doesn't it? Except in practice, what this often turns out to mean is: hire professional fakers and let them drive the company into the ground." paulgraham.com/foundermode.h…

peercheque turns 1 :) We started with the belief that in a world where capital is a commodity, founders want investors who can be true peers in the 0-to-1 journey. Towards this goal, we've made 14 investments in the last year. 🧵

To build a successful long term company in India, you have to go very slow before going very fast. The founder's deep understanding of the market & customer pain point IS the moat. True for a Jio. True for a cool tech startup.

Just wired my 75th angel investment. It's been such a rewarding journey to get a ringside view of so many amazing companies being built in India. @unacademy @mydukaanapp @pepper_content @GetOneCode @WintWealth @Toplynehq @SmilesAiDentist @onsurity @AppsForBharat @ekacareHQ

The most common question I get asked these days is, "Where are the Gen AI startups in India?" The underlying reference here is not just any startup, but ones born in AI and showing breakout traction. Below, I've tried to put together a list of 30 such companies. Most of them started post ChatGPT, or their trajectory changed significantly with Generative AI. And they very much originated from India, with Founders/CEOs/majority team based here. (in alphabetical order) Alltius Atomicwork Bridgetown Research Composio Confido Creatr Dashtoon Deccan AI Ema Emergent Figr AI Gan AI Greylabs invideo Jivi AI Krutrim Metaforms Murf Neysa Nurix Portkey Rapidclaims Realfast Sarvam Sifthub Simplismart Smallest Thesys Truefoundry Writesonic In India, we are used to volume, so the expectation is there will be hundreds of companies that erupt quickly. But if you take a step back, there's at least 3-5 unicorns in the making here in a little over 2 years. And the pace will only increase. Within 12-18 months, I think we will see 100 notable AI startups with at least 10 emerging unicorns. Long! 🚀🇮🇳

The ultimate goal for Founders has now changed from Unicorns to Padm Shri and IPOs. Raising the bar indeed.

I am excited to share the launch of TEAM Angels, a collective of Mumbai's leading founders to back the next wave of unicorns from the city. For Mumbai HQ'd startups at the earliest stages, @mumbai_tech_ founders will invest collectively up to Rs. 1.5 Cr (~$175k) and provide hands-on mentorship to help them grow. Investors in the collective include @harshjain85 @AnupamMittal @mittersain @mayank_kmr @RevantB @helloanand @naiyyasaggi & many more. TEAM has had a singular focus since inception - advance the tech startup ecosystem of the city. TEAM angels is the next big bet towards that. Apply now: mumbaitech.team/team-angels

MumbaAI for the world :) @Dev_Fadnavis @kdhavse

Noticing a weird trend last few weeks in India tech. The quality of Founders starting companies is better than ever. But the quality of ideas is really poor. This may point to the market saturating. Not enough left to solve, and no new platforms to solve for.

My family has been in the business of home textiles for close to 25 years. Today, I am excited to share their entry into the D2C space with the launch of Naksh, a new age bed & bath brand for the modern Indian home. naksh.co/

The next flagship global AI summit is in India in February 2026. As part of the lead up, @GoI_MeitY and @OfficialINDIAai are inviting proposals to host official pre-events from now till January. If you are a startup, VC, enterprise, academic or anything in between, this is a great way to get involved.

Many startup investor updates these days look like this: - 20% growth on $1M ARR - Burn is flat - But we have 38 months runway, so we are good for now This is a zombie business, not growing fast enough for VC or throwing out cash for founders. You can't shut it down even if you wanted. You are anything but "good for now", this is the worst possible place to be in. The over capitalisation of 2021 was the worst thing that happened to an entire generation of founders. I would encourage such companies to define an aggressive near term north star such as 100% growth or FCF generation or even go work on something entirely new, to become relevant for someone.

Founder WhatsApp groups are the most underrated resource for startups building in India. Search anything or anyone and you'll find your answer.

I am excited to introduce peercheque origins. A program designed to help you navigate the -1 to 0 phase of starting up. Your co-pilot in figuring out what to build next. w/ @miten peercheque.com/origins

It's time for India SaaS. And by that I mean Indian software companies building for Indian businesses. Growth in consumption, new age enterprises, local support and compliance are all pointing to the onset of a massive industry. AI of course is a major accelerant. India SaaS will have to be built differently, it won't follow the Silicon Valley T2D3 or Rule of 40 or 70%+ GMs. But ultimately there are large profit pools waiting to be captured. Indian public markets will happily take $25m+ ARR companies with high EBITDA and retention. I know at least fifty such businesses doing $10m+ ARR that fit this profile, and can keep compounding for the next 2 decades. If you are an Indian founder just starting up, while it is cool to build for the world, do not ignore your own backyard.

The best Advisors are those where after a call with them you feel uncomfortable, displaced and yet get an immense sense of clarity. Also: they don't charge equity for advice.

Powered by @haptik! 😊

Incredible meeting @balajis and seeing what he's doing with Network School. The world needs a reimagination of cities & communities, and today we got to experience one such beginning. More power to you! 🚀

The most precious award of the year (and life!!!!) 😃 We have been blessed with a baby girl last week. Both mother and Navya are doing well. Thank you so much for all your kind wishes! 🙏

Later this week, close to 10,000 AI enthusiasts, developers, business executives, policy makers & founders will show up in Mumbai for India's biggest AI event so far. The NVIDIA AI Summit will be held in only 3 cities globally this year, and Mumbai is one of them. It will be headlined by none other than Founder & CEO Jensen Huang, with his opening session also including a fireside chat with Mukesh Ambani. The event has been sold out at capacity for weeks, and tickets now are harder to get than Coldplay. With side events and evening mixers all week, the city will truly be a melting pot for all things AI. Let's go Mumb-AI! 💪🏻🇮🇳 @mumbai_tech_

I disagree. Indian VC & tech has faced a perennial problem of trying to replicate what's worked in Silicon Valley here. And the true outliers have been ones that looked at India-first problems with first principals to create massive outcomes (Quick Comm, Fintech, Consumer brands have enough examples). The same thing has just not happened in B2B software. Founders haven't approached truly solving for this market with all heart & intent. If you treat Indian enterprises like your ticket to ultimately go to the US, expect the same short sightedness from them. I believe the TAM is now big enough in several segments for India-first B2B software/AI companies to get to $50-75M in ARR in 5-7 years, without requiring too much capital. At 10-15% EBITDA and 100%+ growth rate, that's a unicorn in Indian public markets. Watch out for companies like @GreyLabsAI, @last9io, Navana, amongst many others.

On behalf of TEAM, I am excited to launch a Monthly Founders Dinner in Mumbai. Inspired from the famous SF and NYC dinners, here's how it works: - Maximum 15 Founders - Running tech startups of all sizes - Meet for dinner - To chat about company building & founder life - In a structured session No speakers, no investors, no sponsors. Just founders and their souls :) The first one is May 26. Apply here if you're interested: forms.gle/v4pv8GuoWDSfiUe19 @mumbai_tech_

More than a dozen new AI startups in India have raised seed rounds just in the last 3-4 weeks. Tier-1 VC firms, micro VCs, angels all on overdrive. Unprecedented level of activity, as India's AI ecosystem reaches an inflection point.

In case you missed this.. 🙂✌🏻 livemint.com/companies/news/…

Two big AI takeaways SF trip this time. 1. Agents, of course. Enough has been said. 2. But what's fascinating is the AI-led services opportunity. I like to think of it as a full stack services business, with AI at every step of the workflow. Three examples: 🧵

One year back, a bunch of us got together with the mission of putting Mumbai tech on the map. We were hoping we would get a few people interested. Little did we know we were igniting a movement. As if people just needed a trigger to solve a problem that so many cared so deeply about. Happy first birthday TEAM :) @mumbai_tech_ Thank you @peakxvpartners for hosting the wonderful celebration for us. And the best is yet to come: save the date for Mumbai Tech Week Jan 22-25!

Just heard today from another founder (of a unicorn): "People don't realize that when you raise money, it's not an accomplishment but an obligation." 💯

It's been a month since I joined the IndiaAI Mission. Every single day, I witness the immense potential India has to be a global leader in AI. And today, I am excited to share that we are opening up 4 key roles to join us on this incredible journey. (1/n)

Freshworks market cap is now more than Zendesk. For me, this is the most defining moment of the India internet & software story so far. Legend status @mrgirish @FreshworksInc.

It's been a decade since I moved back to India, built an AI chatbot company, pivoted to SaaS, started angel investing, and overall had a lot of fun. Have been hesitant in the past about sharing my journey in so much detail, but couldn't say no when @waitin4agi_ called. We go over all the topics I feel passionate about: AI, chatbots, M&A, Angel/VC landscape in India, & more. Hope this makes for a worthy year end watch :) piped.video/RcXsAAFpaLQ?si=bJYp…

(1/3) While the entire team has opted to work from home, Ahmed is the first one in to open the office. #MumbaiRains

The India software market continues to surprise. Prediction: In the next decade, we are going to see several $100m software businesses built from India for India. They will follow an entirely different playbook to US SaaS startups. An entire industry waiting to be disrupted :)

Emotions of a founder at different stages of selling the company (thread): 1. Before 1st meeting with the potential buyer: I am not really interested in selling, only if it's a great offer.

We have some news. Jio and Haptik are excited to introduce Interakt. Setting up and managing your business on WhatsApp is an unnecessarily complex process. It's time somebody changes that :) Available for early access now. interakt.ai/

I have now read this many times over. Anyone looking to build or invest in AI, this is a must read. "It is easy to create an AI startup, gain attention, and generate excitement, but it is much more challenging to compete and win." h/t @balap longform.asmartbear.com/ai-s…

Lot of people reaching out this morning about the Klarna customer support chatbot. Unpopular opinion: I think this has more to do with great UX than great AI. I've always maintained that providing great customer support is a design first problem, the technology has been there all along. Klarna just proves this point with the examples below. Each transactional query generates a response and then introduces an action or a visual element that's already present elsewhere in the app. It's like a modern IVR, text first. Solving transaction related support issues is a set of workflows. If this happens, then do that. Yes, with LLMs you can do a better job of detecting the intent, but this was possible with earlier versions of NLP and keyword matching as well. The challenge all along for decades has been that businesses, particularly large enterprises, have treated the CS/CX function like a cost centre and NOT a product. What Klarna shows here is that if you put your best product minds to it, you can build a beautiful experience that not only reduces costs but improves CSAT/NPS, ultimately leading to better customer retention. I guess what the current AI hype will do is make enterprises more confident this is doable, but the end product still has to be more workflow and less GPT.

SaaS being built in India for the world no longer has significant cost advantages. It's a level playing field globally. To win you need a world class product and differentiated GTM. Indian founders should keep in mind they are competing with local US based teams.

This is why the tech ecosystem is special. People give back, pay it forward, and most importantly close the loop. This from a founder whose company is now at $20 million+ ARR 👇

AND THEN THERE WERE 2! 🙏🏻🎉😀😍

Some of us have been engaging with the government over the past few days on the recent AI Advisory and LLM regulations. Together with the good folks at @PeoplePlusAI, we are collating views on this topic from India's AI community & startup ecosystem. These will be shared with @GoI_MeitY to create an ongoing dialogue that leads to responsible AI policies in the long term. Please fill up this quick survey: tally.so/r/m62EWP Long on AI in India! 🇮🇳

Just discovered an amazing product: Cooby for WhatsApp. It's a chrome extension that adds tabs to WhatsApp web (read/unread, groups/1:1, etc) scheduled message sending, follow up reminders, ++ more. Basically all the features you wished WhatsApp had. @JoinCooby H/t @ku1deep

I spent my Diwali break meeting 6 people thinking about starting up. Discussed ideas like AI in schools, supply chain in pharma, what's broken in real estate, vertical micro SaaS, and even a new water company for India. -1 to 0 is wild fun :)

Heard at Techsparks Mumbai: "This event is like a bollywood blockbuster!" "This morning was like Dadar station." Indeed an amazing response to Mumbai's first big startup event in years :) @SharmaShradha @YourStoryCo @mumbai_tech_

What an amazing story. 1. 22 y/o @177pc cold emails me out of nowhere 2. Joins @miten and me part time to help with angel investments 3. Learns the ropes, builds the network, truly helps Founders 4. Gets a real VC career with @shubg at the amazing new Together Fund Proud! 🎉🙏

Q: How will tech startups move the country and our people forward? A:

In the history of Silicon Valley, AI has to be the first platform shift where incumbents are moving faster than startups. Why? - They have all the data - AI is not a new consumer surface like say the PC or the smartphone, so there is no new way to acquire customers - Foundation models are expensive to build AI is an enabler, and right now it's enabling big tech, ITSM & enterprises to super charge their existing products.

"The Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM) has elected Dream Sports' Harsh Jain and Haptik's Aakrit Vaish to chair its 8 member Governing Council, in its inaugural elections." Humbled, excited and determined :) 🙏 economictimes.indiatimes.com…

India is not for beginners.

A huge win for all of us! Thank you @GoI_MeitY for always being open to a dialogue and listening to startups. I've always maintained that nothing will come in the way of innovation in this country. Long on AI in India :) 🇮🇳 techcrunch.com/2024/03/15/in…

I've been saying this to friends for some time. As much as India has a large market opportunity, the gap in innovation happening in the Bay Area vs any other part of the world has exponentially increased over the past few years. For someone starting up and truly wanting to make a dent in the world, Silicon Valley is still THE place.

Repeat Founders have one disproportionate advantage to 1st time Founders, particularly in current times: Hiring. If you've run a company before, likely there at least a few people who will want to work with you again (for reasons more than money).

Something amazing happened yesterday. One of Haptik's product launch announcements got flashed on Times Square! 😄💯🎉

(thread) In 2013, @gauravmunjal started @FlatchatApp and I joined the ride as the first and only investor. We sold the business to @commonfloor in under a year. It was a fun ride and was clear that Gaurav, who was still only 23, was going to do amazing things in life.