Forbes India - Tech Conversations

Our guest today is Shweta Jalan, managing director at the private equity firm Advent International. In this episode, Shweta, who’s spent more than 20 years in the industry, based in Mumbai, talks about how the PE industry has evolved in India, sectors that interest her firm, M&A in the IT services industry and why she may not invest in Indian startups just yet.

Our guest today is Harsh Rajat, co-founder of the Ethereum Push Notification Service, or EPNS, a decentralised communications layer for Web 3 users. In this episode, Harsh talks about new funding, and plans ahead, including going multi-chain, building wallet-to-wallet communications features into EPNS, and also a $1 million grant for developers with the best ideas for expanding the reach of EPNS.

(00:39) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

More on EPNS’ funding and plans

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

Our guest today is Dan Miller, founder and lead analyst at Opus Research, who’s been looking at how conversational technologies have been evolving over almost the last four decades. In this episode, Miller talks about the emergence of the conversational cloud, and how companies ranging from hyperscalers to startups to India’s large IT services system integrators are playing a role in it. 

(00:30) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:42) Our guest today — Dan Miller, founder and lead analyst, Opus Research

(01:24) A snapshot of the work at Opus Research, in particular the last decade

(03:39) Some examples of how conversational tech is being used today, in the context of customer service

(06:37) On a future where we’ll be ‘talking’ to computers in an everyday fashion

(11:23) More on automation in the customer service segment and how enterprises are deploying different solutions, moving towards conversational AI

(16:57) Conversational commerce

(20:03) Conversational intelligence

(21:21) An internet where people just talk to computers for information and tasks

(24:15) Different categories of the conversational tech vendors

(28:46) The biggest players and the specialists

(31:34) Size of the market, outside of the hyperscalers, and the emergence of the conversational cloud

More about Dan Miller and Opus Research

https://opusresearch.net/wordpress/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guests today are Nikhil Ramaswamy and Gokul NA, co-founders at CynLr, a Bengaluru startup that is developing computer vision and AI-based guidance technologies that can make industrial robotic arms much more versatile. In this episode, Nikhil and Gokul talk about their experiences, in building a deep tech hardware engineering startup out of India, including the absence of a playbook and the reality of having to deal with the ‘India discount.’

Notes:

(00:33) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:45) Our guests today — Nikhil Ramaswamy and Gokul NA, co-founders at CynLr

(02:00) A quick recap of what CynLr is about

(03:20) Replicating what computers do for data with robots and objects

(05:18) Universal factories

(08:00) More on the need for universal factories

(15:00) A snapshot of the journey so far, including early-stage funding, product milestones and early customers

(21:10) A concept of ‘object computers’

(21:50) Top priorities over the next 12-18 months

(24:10) Lessons from building deep tech hardware engineering products out of India — inventing the organisation and the team; automation;

(28:50) Difficulties on multiple fronts — including the ‘India discount’

(37:45) Optimising for a global supply chain

More on CynLr

https://cynlr.com/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Neil Shah, vice president of research, and co-founder, at Counterpoint Research, who advises businesses about their mobile, telecom, semiconductors, and IoT strategies. In this episode, Neil offers his insights into Apple’s manufacturing strategy and the iPhone maker’s growing share in India.

Notes:

(00:40) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:52) Our guest today — Neil Shah, VP of research, and co-founder of Counterpoint Research

(01:42) Thoughts on Apple’s plan to make iPhone 13 in India as well

(03:44) Reasons for Apple to ramp up manufacturing in India through its biggest contract partners

(06:09) On Apple’s market share in India over the last couple of years

(08:11) A snapshot history of Apple’s manufacturing steps in India over the last four years

(10:29) Apple has emerged as the second-biggest exporter of smartphones from India

(11:11) But phones assembled in India still constitute a very small proportion of Apple’s overall production — almost entirely in China

(12:59) Apple’s strategy so far in the Indian market

(16:09) More on the Indian market share

(18:30) Some qualitative guidance on Apple’s fiscal Q2 performance

(20:44) On Apple’s services push

(22:55) iPhone subscription plans in the US

(26:27) Broader smartphone trends

(30:30) Apple’s strategy versus Xiaomi and Samsung in India

(33:58) Apple’s gains globally over the last two years, versus Android

More about Neil Shah

https://www.counterpointresearch.com/author/neil/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Anirudh Suri, managing partner of India Internet Fund, whose book 'The Great Tech Game' was published recently. In this episode, Suri talks about the strategic imperatives for India in technology, including the importance of identifying the next big waves of tech and for India to find ways to be an early surfer of those waves.

(00:39) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

Our guest today is Srikrishnan Ganesan, co-founder and CEO at Rocketlane—a startup that offers a feature-rich customer onboarding platform, to other fast-growing startups. In this episode, Srikrishnan talks about eliminating the hit-or-miss in customer onboarding. He also talks about the long-term aspirations at Rocketlane, and some takeaways from being a second-time entrepreneur.

(00:41) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:53) Our guest today — Srikrishnan Ganesan, co-founder and CEO, Rocketlane

(01:33) A brief backgrounder on Rocketlane

(02:49) Why a specialist customer onboarding platform might be necessary

(04:51) Rocketlane’s target customers

(06:20) The time that companies spend onboarding customers without a dedicated tool for it

(07:03) Some benefits of using an onboarding tool

(08:20) Some of the metrics that customer onboarding teams track

(10:22) A snapshot of what’s been happening at Rocketlane in recent months

(12:27) A free customer maturity model that Rocketlane has developed

(15:30) Using the maturity model — a self-service assessment

(18:28) On the state of automation in customer onboarding

(19:57) Trends in how multiple SaaS software packages are being developed and used

(23:18) On Rocketlane the product, maturity, plans for the near future

(26:44) Finding the right talent and other challenges

(28:54) Top priorities over the next 12-18 months

(30:11) On more second-time entrepreneurs coming to the fore

(32:51) Longer-term plans for becoming a bigger company and the opportunities that can be tapped for that

More on Srikrishnan and Rocketlane: https://www.rocketlane.com/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Duncan Emerton, executive director, custom intelligence and analytics, at Informa Pharma Intelligence. Informa is a UK based business intelligence provider and consultancy. In this episode, Duncan explains some of the basics of why biosimilars are a huge opportunity and how Biocon’s deal to purchase the biosimilars unit of its long-term partner Viatris ticks several boxes for the Bangalore company.

(00:40) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

Biocon’s press release

More about Duncan and Informa

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Our guest today is Aditya Bhamidipaty, founder and CEO of FirstHive, a customer data platform provider based in Silicon Valley and Bengaluru. In this episode, Aditya talks about how platforms like FirstHive that help enterprises get closer to a holistic view of consumers in the B2C space, will also help those enterprises become much more autonomous. On the business front, he also spoke about putting together a team in the US.

(00:41) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

More about Aditya and FirstHive:

Recent funding announcement:

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

Our guest today is Mohanjit Jolly, partner at Iron Pillar, a relatively young, mid-stage, growth capital provider that has notched up a small roster of very promising tech startups on its portfolio, which is into its second fund now. In this episode, Mohanjit talks about his career, which had multiple interesting transitions, the companies Iron Pillar is backing, and the value that the partners bring to them in the world’s biggest tech markets.

Notes:

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:53) Our guest today — Mohanjit Jolly, partner at Iron Pillar

(01:30) A snapshot of Mohanjit’s career — from Ludhiana, Punjab to VC investor

(07:25) Iron Pillar’s investment thesis

(09:23) The playbook at Iron Pillar for portfolio companies to scale

(16:06) Examples of companies that Iron Pillar has invested in, including Fund II

(32:35) Thoughts on India’s deep tech ecosystem and signs that it is growing

More about Mohanjit and Iron Pillar

https://ironpillarfund.com/people/mohanjit-jolly/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds