A drone moving at 100 km/h gives a soldier five to six seconds to react. Shooting it down with a rifle is next to impossible. Jamming stopped working once drones started frequency-hopping.

And using a missile worth crores to intercept a drone worth a few lakhs breaks the economics of the fight before it even starts.That's the gap Krishna Mallawat built Agni Strike to close: a handheld, AI-powered kinetic interceptor that needs no training, no ground station, and no operator beyond someone pointing it at the target.

Point, detect, launch, impact, all in milliseconds, built entirely in-house in India.In this Dhandhe Ki Baat segment, Krishna breaks down how drone warfare evolved from the Russia-Ukraine war to Operation Sindoor, why the technology to counter swarm drones simply didn't exist a few years ago, how Agni Strike actually works under the hood, and what it took for a nine-month-old company to get in front of India's Army Chief.

⏱️ Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction

1:39 – How drone warfare began: the Russia-Ukraine war, 2022

3:31 – The Middle East war and the economics problem of drone defense

4:32 – Why existing tech couldn't counter drone swarms

5:24 – Why jamming became obsolete

7:11 – Building Stravex: the idea behind Agni Strike

7:39 – How Agni Strike actually works: point, detect, launch

9:53 – Specs: speed, GPS-denied and jamming-resistant operation

10:42 – Fully onboard intelligence: no ground station required

12:00 – Kinetic impact vs explosive variants

12:05 – Getting the army to take a young company seriously

13:40 – Demoing in front of India's Army Chief in January 2025

16:47 – What's changed in defense tech in just 3-4 years

19:02 – The next 5 years: India, Gen Z founders, and what's next for Stravex

🎙️ Chasing Impact covers six sectors shaping the next decade of India: Fintech, AI, Climate, Mobility, HealthTech, and Defense.🔔

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Sending a missile worth crores to intercept a drone worth two lakh rupees is a losing trade, no matter who wins the fight. That's the economic imbalance Krishna Mallawat set out to fix.Nine months ago, Krishna Mallawat was a fresh graduate from a tier-3 city in Maharashtra.

Today he runs Stravex Technologies, the company behind India's first indigenous, AI-enabled drone interceptor system, built to solve a problem that became impossible to ignore.

Krishna started Stravex Technologies to build something India didn't yet have: an economical, technically sound counter-drone interceptor system, at a time when jammers were already becoming obsolete against frequency-hopping drones.

In this founder story, Krishna takes us through the unconventional path that got him here: choosing electronics over computer science in a tier-3 city, building EV and gasoline race cars that hit 270 km per litre, winning a national silver medal in India Skills 2024, and the decision to bet everything on a market that, when he started, didn't even exist yet.

⏱️ Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction

1:22 – Growing up in Jalna and choosing electronics over the conventional path

2:29 – Building EV and gasoline race cars: the Shell Eco-Marathon years

2:36 – Winning a national silver medal in India Skills 2024

4:20 – The risk of building in defense: no market, no playbook

6:41 – Finding the problem: why counter-drone systems were falling behind8:44 – The moment after Operation Sindoor that shaped Stravex

9:58 – The economics problem: crores to stop a two lakh rupee drone

11:07 – Starting Stravex, nine months in

12:22 – Three mistakes founders make, and the POC-first philosophy

🎙️ Chasing Impact covers six sectors shaping the next decade of India: Fintech, AI, Climate, Mobility, HealthTech, and Defence.

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"I can write a book on this topic.

"That's how Harsh Soni responded when we asked him about the worst financial products in India. Then he listed four, and admitted he'd bought one of them himself.

The ex-CFO of Slice and founder of NIVO Money spent 16 years inside India's biggest financial institutions. Now he's building the thing he wishes existed: unbiased, goal-based financial advice for every Indian family, whether they have 50,000 rupees or 50 crore.

In Part 2, we get into the business: how NIVO works, why he refuses commission-based selling, the story behind the name, and the four products you should think twice about before your bank sells them to you.

⏱️ Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction and recap of Part 1

1:38 – Why the company is called NIVO

3:16 – The mission: making money stress-free for Indian families

4:33 – The mis-sold ULIP that started it all

7:27 – User journey: what happens when you sign up

11:58 – Mutual funds, global equities, and what's next

13:13 – "I'm not a finance guy anymore, I'm a techie": AI at NIVO

15:28 – What changes if 10% of India uses this

19:07 – The "finance guy" culture: US vs India

21:28 – His advice: start today, and don't invest on hype

23:57 – The 4 worst financial products sold in India

🎙️ Chasing Impact covers six sectors shaping the next decade of India: Fintech, AI, Climate, Mobility, HealthTech, and Defense.

🔔 Subscribe for a new episode every week.

Harsh Soni spent 15 years structuring some of India's largest financial transactions. D-Mart's IPO at Kotak. Nykaa, Zomato, Delhivery at Bank of America. The LIC IPO. And then one Friday in February 2022, he got his bonus, paid off his home loan over the weekend, and walked into office Monday morning and quit.

Not to join another bank. Not for a better title. To take a 60% pay cut and join a fintech startup.Then he did something no one in Indian fintech had done before: merged a fintech into a bank and turned the bank into a fintech. Two and a half years.

Six levels of regulatory approvals. First of its kind.And then he left that too. To build something he'd been thinking about for years.India's top 1% gets world-class financial advice. The other 99% gets sold whatever product earns the highest commission.

Harsh Soni is building NYVO to fix that: quality financial advice for anyone with 50,000 rupees or 50 crore rupees.

In this episode, Shreyas Jani sits down with Harsh Soni and gets into:

→ What it actually felt like to lead the D-Mart IPO, and why they refused to raise the price even when investors offered more

→ The Slice-North East Small Finance Bank merger: why it took two and a half years and why no one had done it before

→ What 17 transactions at once during COVID actually looks like from the inside

→ Why he called himself a "deal junkie" and what made him walk away at the top

→ The financial advice gap in India and what NYVO is building to close it

→ His one piece of advice for anyone thinking about leaving a corporate career for Entrepreneurship

This is Episode 2 of Chasing Impact. The people building the next decade of India.

Full episode link in the comments.🎙️ Chasing Impact covers six sectors shaping the next decade of India.

Fintech. AI. Climate. Mobility. HealthTech. Defense.

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Wing Commander Jaydev Desai spent nearly three decades in the Indian Air Force, working on MiG-21s, Mirage 2000 engines, and serving through the Kargil War. Today, he's building Avia Lightwings, India's first ultralight aircraft company, with a vision to put personal aircraft within reach of everyday Indians.In this conversation, we cover:His Air Force journey and three landmark contributions to Indian aerospaceWhy DGCA's 2023 clearance of ultralight aircraft is a turning point for general aviation in IndiaThe case for gyrocopters and ultralight helicopters across tourism, policing, forest surveillance, disaster management, and cargoWhy ultralight aircraft under 600 kg could cost less than a luxury car, and what that means for personal mobilityThe tourism opportunity, from Statue of Unity joyrides to coastal Mumbai experiences, and why the ROI case is realAvia Lightwings is assembling and air-testing aircraft in India right now. This is what the future of general aviation looks like.Chasing Impact covers six sectors shaping the next decade of India: Fintech, AI, Climate, Mobility, HealthTech, and Defense. New episodes every week.🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss what's next.

Welcome to the very first episode of Chasing Impact — a new series hosted by Shreyas Jani, where we explore the people, ideas, and innovations shaping the next decade of India.

In Episode 1, we sit down with Wing Commander Jaydev Desai (Retd.), a veteran of the Indian Air Force with over two decades of service, who is now on a mission to transform India's aviation landscape through Avia Lightwings.

From working on MiG-21s, Mirage engines, and serving during the Kargil War to building one of India's first companies focused on affordable ultralight aircraft, Jaydev sir shares a remarkable journey of service, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

This conversation explores:

✈️ From Indian Air Force to Entrepreneurship

✈️ The story behind Avia Lightwings

✈️ Why India has almost no personal aviation ecosystem

✈️ Affordable aircraft priced lower than luxury cars

✈️ Tourism, border patrol, forestry & disaster management use cases

✈️ How ultralight aircraft can democratize aviation in India

✈️ The regulatory journey with DGCA

✈️ Why the future of mobility may not be limited to roadsIf you've ever wondered what India's aviation future could look like beyond commercial airlines, this episode is for you.

TIMESTAMPS

02:46-The story behind Avia Lightwings03:40- The Journey of Wg Cdr Jaydev Desai From Indian Air Force to Entrepreneurship

About Chasing ImpactChasing Impact is a long-form conversation series hosted by Shreyas Jani, exploring founders, innovators, policymakers, and visionaries building the future across sectors that will define India's next decade.