🤖 New SummitUp episode!

AI company building in 2025 isn't what anyone expected. While the technology keeps advancing at lightning speed, the real challenge has shifted to distribution, talent wars, and navigating an increasingly crowded market.

After 15+ investments in AI-native companies over the past two years, we're seeing clear patterns emerge around what works - and what definitely doesn't.

Just since our last conversation with Krishna Mehra (AI Partner) and Poorvi Vijay (Principal) in February, the AI landscape has been completely rewritten, with ever more sophisticated reasoning models, multi-billion dollar M&As and multimodal interaction becoming standard.

In this follow-up episode, they join Krishna Veera Vanamali (AVP Marketing - Content) to unpack what we're seeing on the ground and offer a tactical deep-dive into the current state of AI opportunities and company-building motions.

The conversation explores several critical areas:

>Where Elevation is investing

> India's enterprise adoption challenge

> The agentic stack revolution

> Scaling dynamics of small teams

> The new talent wars

> Building distribution and moats

> Voice AI's breakthrough moment

…and more

🔊New Day One podcast episode! 🎙️

📈 "2x the number of traders are profitable on Sahi compared to the industry average..."

Just six months after launch, these early results are validating Dale Vaz's thesis that India doesn't need another broker, it needs a broker that actually helps traders win. When a SEBI report revealed that 91% of Indian traders lose money, most saw it as proof that retail trading is irresponsible. Dale saw it differently: "It actually points to a gap…people need a tool that can help them become better in their craft."

To get here, Sahi reimagined every aspect around actual trader workflows. Single-screen trading that eliminates constant tab-switching. Real-time market analysis that updates every five minutes. Professional-grade charts built in-house from scratch. All delivered at ₹10 per order - half the industry standard.

This obsession with trader success stemmed from Dale's own 17-year trading journey. As CTO at Swiggy, he'd quiz colleagues about their investing habits, discovering a pattern: everyone had broking apps, but nobody knew how to trade successfully. Dale watched retail traders struggle with tools designed for execution, not success.

In this conversation with Vaas Bhaskar (Partner, Elevation Capital), Dale reveals how personal obsession, customer-backward thinking, and a willingness to take the hard path have shaped Sahi.

In this episode, you will gain insights on:

> Why Sahi decided to build their own chart engine

> Creating single-screen magic for mobile traders

> Blending professional-grade tools and delightful experiences

> Building an AI-first company

…and more

“Why is it easier to buy a car online than to get someone to wash your dishes?"

Despite having solutions for everything else on his phone - cabs, food, groceries - reliable home help remained frustratingly elusive for Aayush Agarwal. When he realized this was a problem many around him were facing, Aayush turned his personal frustration into Snabbit.

Aayush uncovered a unique insight that house help absenteeism is a 2-4x monthly universal pain point. By solving this, Snabbit has unlocked a new category of urban convenience. Today, it is "Uberizing" home services across India, with customers using it for everything from organizing wardrobes to cutting vegetables.

In this insight-packed conversation with Manish Advani (Principal, Elevation Capital), Aayush shares how Snabbit is formalizing this sub-segment within home services for the first time in India and why it represents the biggest disruption in consumer internet in India this decade.

In this episode, you will gain insights on:

> Why Snabbit represents the biggest consumer interne disruption this decade

> Building full-stack vs marketplace in services

> Why subscription models failed where on-demand succeeded

> The "rigor x depth" framework for hypergrowth hiring

> The social impact of formalizing India's home services sector

> Building without a co-founder: the 80-20 challenge

…and more

💳 New Day One podcast episode! 🎙️

Within a year of launching their revolutionary credit card, Scapia faced an unexpected hurdle – their core product issuance was paused due to external factors. It was a moment that would have broken many founders, but not Anil Goteti. Instead of retreating, Anil made a counterintuitive decision that speaks volumes about his leadership: he invested more in his team and product.

"Last year was fantastic for our product," Anil recalls, explaining how they expanded from just two travel categories to six, innovated on their airport experiences proposition, and built deeper partnerships with banks and card networks. When card issuances finally resumed in March 2025, Scapia emerged not wounded but transformed, stronger and more capable than before.

In this candid conversation with Mridul Arora (Partner, Elevation Capital), Anil shares how he is building a travel fintech powerhouse that delights Gen Z & millennials and how Scapia’s integrated experience passes more value back to customers.

In this episode you will gain insights on:

> How Anil landed on the idea for Scapia

> Creating both financial services and travel commerce infra

> Building trust through transparency and delightful experiences

> Using difficult periods to strengthen product offerings

> Finding product-market fit before scaling

…and more

“We are obsessed with patient experience and outcomes. EBITDA is just a byproduct.”

This philosophy has guided MOC Cancer Care and Research Centre to profitable growth while delivering exceptional chemotherapy care through 24 community cancer centers. Founded by four medical oncologists, MOC began with a vision to bridge the massive gap between expensive private hospitals and overcrowded government facilities. Today, MOC is India’s largest network of purpose-built centers that focus exclusively on delivering standardized, high-quality cancer care closer to patients' homes.

MOC’s model built on the two cornerstones of enhancing the cancer patient's journey and improving the medical oncologist's experience has proven remarkably successful. What's even more impressive is their roster of 48 medical oncologists with zero attrition - unheard of in an industry where doctor mobility is the norm.

In this conversation with Mayank Khanduja (Partner, Elevation Capital), co-founders Dr Vashisht Maniar, Dr Ashish Joshi and COO Manish Jobanputra discuss their journey of creating a standardized, patient-centric cancer care delivery system.

In this episode, you will gain insights on:

> Identifying the structural inefficiencies in India's cancer care system

> Scaling standardized care across multiple centers

> Creating a dual focus on patient journey and caregiver experience

> Building doctor satisfaction through autonomy and support

> Achieving growth through patient outcomes

🎙️New Day One podcast episode!

"We wanted to make the experience of receiving international payments exactly the same as domestic…"

This crystal-clear vision is what led Srivatsan Sridhar and Movin Jain to build Skydo, which is quietly dismantling the confusing, opaque world of cross-border payments for Indian SMBs and freelancers. Srivatsan was acutely aware of the challenges Indian exporters face with international payments from his experience running his family's automotive export business as a second-generation entrepreneur. This deep understanding of exporters' pain points became the compass guiding Skydo's product development.

Founded in 2022, Skydo has emerged as a transformative force for Indian SMBs and freelancers handling international payments. Processing $200 million in payments annually from 80 countries and serving 10,000+ businesses, they've built a platform that eliminates the opacity, delays, and excessive fees that have long plagued the industry.

Skydo is also the first company in its category to secure a cross-border payment aggregator licence from RBI. In this illuminating conversation with Mridul Arora (Partner, Elevation Capital), Srivatsan shares how building deep infrastructure before scaling has positioned Skydo to become the "cross-border operating system", while revealing how compliance-first thinking has been the cornerstone of their success.

In this episode, you will gain insights on:

• Building financial infrastructure as a competitive moat

• Creating a compliance-first culture across the organization

• The complex mechanics of international payments

• Building trust with regulators and banking partners

• …and more

🎙️ Presenting the first episode of ‘No BS by Elevation Capital’, a brand new podcast series where, as the name suggests, we cut through the noise and bring you actionable insights on navigating the earliest days of venture-building.

No BS will share the tribal knowledge we've accumulated over 20+ years of working with India's best early-stage founders to the benefit of anyone early in their entrepreneurial journey.

In our debut episode, Kshitij Jayakrishnan (Vice President, Elevation Capital) and Vaibhav Chowdhury (AVP, Elevation Capital) join Krishna Veera Vanamali (AVP Marketing - Content, Elevation Capital) to deconstruct the art and science of crafting the perfect pitch deck.

Featuring never-seen-before slides from the first pitch decks of category-defining Elevation portfolio companies like Swiggy, Urban Company, Blissclub, Comet, Atlys, PlaySimple and Meesho, they break down six key principles that consistently appear in winning pitch decks.

Stay tuned for more episodes tackling the questions every early-stage founder wants answered.

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Chapters:

00:00 Coming up

01:26 Series Intro

02:32 Episode Intro

02:56 Importance Of Pitch Decks

07:12 Winning Principles

08:32 #1 Introducing Concisely ft. Blissclub, Swiggy

12:48 #2 Captivating Your Audience ft. Atlys

21:45 #3 Going Deeper Into Insight & Product ft. Swiggy, Dezerv, UC

30:25 #4 Results Of Your Insight & Product ft. Blissclub, Comet, Swiggy

37:26 #5 Why Is The Team Special ft. Dezerv, Blissclub, Swiggy

41:18 #6 Paint Your Ambition ft. PlaySimple

43:45 Closing Thoughts

🎙️ We have a special episode today - one where our entire Fintech and Financial Services team showed up!

Mridul, Vaas, Kshitij, Ashray, Ishwar and Akshaya gathered around one table to share their unfiltered takes on what’s shaping the future of this space in India. The team breaks down the most notable trends they’re seeing and what they mean for founders. 

In this candid conversation, they dive into:

1. The blurring lines between fintech and traditional finance

2. The magic of India’s DPI story

3. Opportunities in non-lending areas like wealth, insurance & verticalized payment

4. The rise of AI in financial services

5. Tech solutions making banks future-ready

6. The return of consumer fintechs

7. What personally excites each team member about the space

If you're curious about where fintech and financial services sector is headed or building something exciting in this space - tune in for an episode packed with sharp insights.

🤖 New SummitUp episode!

“It’s no longer just roti, kapda, aur makaan - it’s roti, kapda, makaan, aur SIP,” remarks Manish, co-founder of ZFunds, highlighting how deeply mutual funds have become embedded in Indians’ financial planning. He’s seen candidates switch jobs based on their ability to continue their SIPs, and customers plan major life decisions around their mutual fund investments.

Chapters: