Forbes India - Tech Conversations

Our guest today is Keshav R Murugesh, group CEO of WNS, one of India’s largest business process management companies. In this conversation, Keshav talks about how the sector, which started out as cost-saving based business process outsourcing, grew to provide more business value and is now an engine for the digital transformation of some of the world’s biggest companies in areas including financial services, travel and healthcare.

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:52) Our guest today — Keshav R Murugesh, group CEO, WNS

(01:51) WNS has played in all the three models of the BPM industry, going from wage arbitrage to value beyond cost to digital transformation

(03:07) What digital transformation means for business process management providers

(05:05) Today’s focus is to get enterprises to engage end customers directly

(07:40) Every conversation today is about solving a problem, not technology

(09:06) What is the direction in which WNS is evolving — dramatically moving away from the traditional models of business process outsourcing

(10:05) Non-linear growth models, driven by technology

(13:32) Biggest takeaways from the Covid pandemic

(15:42) “We completely changed the way we ran the company”

(18:50) WNS’s third-quarter results for the current fiscal year were the best in the history of the company

(19:40) How WNS is using the cloud model and what its customers are doing

(23:30) Everything as a service

(25:30) How recruiting and training and talent acquisition are changing in BPM today

(30:05) Biggest challenges ahead

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Adith Podhar, founder of Gemba Capital, who is just wrapping up a $10 million fund to invest early in India's next generation of tech-native startups. In today's conversation, Adith talks about going from being a restaurant owner trying to popularise crepes in India to working in private equity, to turning venture capital investor

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:56) Our guest today — Adith Podhar, founder of Gemba Capital

(01:53) A snapshot of journey from ICICI Bank to Gemba Capital via a detour into entrepreneurship selling crepes

(04:49) The story behind choosing the name Gemba — inspiration from Japan

(06:15) Early days of Gemba — figuring out an investment thesis, operating like a family office

(08:10) MyHQ — Gemba’s first investment

(09:25) Covid was tough on them and they’ve pivoted

(10:10) 2020 onwards — Gemba stepped up investments; and the plan ahead — shifting from tech-enabled to tech-native businesses

(11:55) $10 million fund — the first at Gemba

(13:12) A typical pre-seed cheque in India today

(13:40) What’s changed that’s prompting Gemba and others to commit more money at the pre-seed stage itself

(16:15) More on shifting to tech-native companies, and Gemba’s approach to investing

(20:45) Areas that Gemba wants to invest in, examples of startups the firm has already invested in

(25:25) Investments ahead, including fintech 3.0, deep tech, gaming, health tech

(26:4) What’s interesting in deep tech in India

(28:00) A bit more on a micro VC’s strategies

(30:00) Gemba Capital over the next three to five years — a second fund at $50 million or higher

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guests today are Mike Proulx, VP and research director, and Will McKeon-White, analyst at Forrester—a leading technology strategy advisor to businesses around the world. In this conversation, they point out how Microsoft’s deal to buy Activision Blizzard brings the enterprise cloud software maker out of stealth as a gaming and consumer company, as it takes a dominant position in what is essentially ground zero for the metaverse.

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:55) Our guests today — Mike Proulx and Will McKeon-White, Forrester

(02:00) Metaverse, yes, but there are immediate reasons too to buy Activision, including 400 million active users and IP and talent

(03:56) What’s the big-picture context — future-proofing Microsoft

(04:50) Microsoft had stepped up its gaming investments over the last five years

(07:12) Microsoft looking to get the game industry out of the front-loaded investment cycle of blockbusters into a subscription drive model

(08:40) Gaming — another bet to capture a large consumer market; after ceding the smartphone operating system fight to Apple and Google

(10:39) ‘Metaverse-ish’ things that people are already doing; and what is needed for an actual metaverse — interoperability

(11:40) Gaming is already 3D, making it the ideal candidate to power the metaverse

(12:50) Big trends in the video gaming industry and how this deal might impact the industry

(13:50) The as-a-service model

(15:50) Focus on mobile-first games

(17:10) Microsoft wants to make any device a gaming device

(18:07) Competition from Netflix

(19:20) Will there be a bundled service?

(21:36) Is the tech now ready for cloud gaming?

(26:30) Is this deal good for the gaming industry — Pros and cons.

(30:28) Forrester survey — Facebook is most associated with metaverse and Microsoft the least

(31:30) How might companies like Twitter and others react to this deal

(34:00) Growing worry for Nintendo and Sony

(34:47) Are there any enterprise business opportunities here as well?

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Manas Fuloria, CEO (custodian of entrepreneurship in the organisation) of Nagarro, an Indian heritage software services company listed in Germany. In this conversation, Manas talks about the 13,000 strong product engineering company’s future and his own entrepreneurial journey—from apparel to education to software.

Our guest today is Chitresh Sharma, a serial entrepreneur, whose latest venture, Refyne, has notched up over 700,000 users and funding of some $106 million in under a year, backed by investors including Tiger Global. In this conversation, Sharma talks about why he thinks Refyne will go on to be the category creator in India for earned wage access. 

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:53) Our guest today — Chitresh Sharma, co-founder and CEO, Refyne, an earned wage access fintech

(02:00) The path to Refyne — a serial entrepreneur’s journey; starting with an outsourcing outfit at 19

(04:50) The problem that Refyne is solving and why it’s an opportunity

(08:25) Partnering the employers to give staff earned wage access 24/7

(10:15) Started only in Feb 20221, and seeing strong early response

(11:350 Funding snapshot — strong investor backing; raised $106 million to date

(13:35) Valuation — a 6.5X increase from Series A to Series B

(14:10) Using the money for product development — already supports 12 languages, for example; money hits the bank in 60 seconds; need to hire top talent

(16:25) The simple workflow of getting the money — a few taps and choices on the app and a consent

(17:50) Highly automated process

(19:00) Earned wage access — not really a loan

(21:10) Tech stack — importance of data security, and a plug-and-play product for employers

(23:20) Innovations around data — integrating a banking experience into Refyne; understand customers better

(26:45) Profiles of people who use Refyne, and how often

(27:38) Should Refyne go overseas as well?

(28:55) Biggest challenge ahead

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Sandipan Mitra, co-founder and CEO of HungerBox, his second venture in the food-tech scene. In this conversation, Mitra talks about persevering through Covid-19, and the long-term vision for the company—which has raised $16.5 million in funding so far—offering both a food tech SaaS platform and a food operations management service.

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(01:00) Our guest today — Sandipan Mitra, co-founder and CEO, HungerBox

(01:32) The journey to HungerBox — building and exiting hungrybangalore.com, for a decade, a consumer-facing web service

(03:35) Early days of Hungry Bangalore — a solution that couldn’t beat ordering over the phone

(05:30) Inflexion point — ending 2014 as an app company

(06:15) The problem/opportunity that HungerBox started with — institutional food service. Building a digital cafeteria solution

(08:30) Going from 2016 to 2019 — getting the eight out of the 10 largest private sector employers in the country to use HungerBox

(09:23) The scale of operations just before Covid struck — 1.2 million registered users

(10:25) The problems that HungerBox was solving for different stakeholders

(18:20) Repercussions of Covid

(20:00) Anticipating a bounce-back after the third wave, and being better prepared

(21:00) The biggest evolution at HungerBox — going beyond corporate businesses to multiple sectors: “Covid opened our eyes”

(24:35) Using tech to find the right value of food delivered — choice, nutrition, price and so on.

(25:40) Growing the business on two fronts — pure tech provider on the SaaS model and offering a food operations and cafeteria management service

(30:35) Funding, investors and plans

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Darshan Bathija, co-founder and CEO of Vauld, a crypto trading exchange and lending startup. In this conversation, Bathija, who comes from a long line of financiers, talks about his disillusionment with traditional finance to make positive change, and his ambition to make loans from the crypto world accessible to anyone who needs them, anywhere on the planet.

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(01:00) Our guest today — Darshan Bathija, co-founder and CEO of Vauld

(01:32) How Vauld was started

(03:18) Starting off in 2018, wanting to build for the world — identified the gap between traditional finance and crypto finance

(04:34) First MVP didn’t take off at all, and led to a pivot to a more straightforward credit product on the lending side of the business

(06:15) Vision for Vauld’s place in the crypto world — customer centricity for crypto-based financial services

(07:05) Ambition to become the Revolut of the crypto world

(09:56) Explaining what customer centricity really means in crypto finance

(12:05) Erosion of the purchasing power of currencies — one more reason for the attractiveness of crypto

(14:00) A perspective on the volatility of Bitcoin

(16:25) Surge in crypto deposits and the number of millions of customers

(17:18) Innovative features at Vauld

(20:00) Native banking integrations in India, and “a lot of customers from India as well”

(22:47) Tax on crypto and other government regulatory clarity needed

(26:00) Expectations from India’s budget announcements

(27:11) Developments in crypto in 2021 — the rise of the ‘Layer 2’ blockchains, proof-of-stake, NFTs

(30:52) Next big steps at Vauld

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Sravanth Aluru, founder and CEO of Avataar, a Silicon Valley and Bengaluru company specialising in AI and computer vision for spatial-visual discovery. Avataar recently announced a $45 million Series B funding round led by Tiger Global. Existing investor Sequoia Capital joined in. In this conversation, Sravanth talks about his effort to develop a platform to deliver a holistic view of the consumer to enterprise customers, and about future applications in the metaverse

Our guest today is Sunil Gupta, co-founder and CEO of QNu Labs, a five-year-old Chennai startup that has developed commercially ready quantum-safe security products and solutions. In this conversation, Gupta talks about the founders’ vision of building a globally recognised deep tech company from India in the quantum-safe cybersecurity space.

(00:40) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:60) Our guest today — Sunil Gupta, co-founder and CEO, QNu Labs, a quantum security company

(01:38) How QNu Labs was started — a bit of context

(04:00) Early challenges of setting up a deep tech company in India

(05:00) Going from proof-of-science to proof-of-tech

(08:05) QNu’s products — a quantum random number generator, a quantum key distributor and a post quantum cryptography software solution

(09:30) Why interest and investments in quantum computing are picking up — three reasons to understand

(16:10) Setting up a quantum lab for the armed forces, and other customers

(17:05) QNu’s tech — both hardware and software; moving from complex, but breakable, math to universal and unbreakable laws of physics

(19:10) Qubits and how they work

(21:15) Hackers may get encrypted data, but never the decryption key

(23:10) Satellite based quantum key distribution

(24:55) Customers in India and overseas as well

(26:00) Quantum secure VPN tunnel

(27:37) Challenges ahead for the next phase of growth of QNu — to demonstrate proof-of-scale

(29:30) Competing against ecommerce unicorns for talent and funding — finding people with the vision of nation building

About QNu Labs

https://www.qnulabs.com/people/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Vinay Ravuri, co-founder and CEO of EdgeQ, a Silicon Valley chip design company working in the area of open cellular networks. EdgeQ’s first commercial product, a 5G base-station-on-a-chip is currently being evaluated by customers. In this conversation, Vinay talks about how 5G takes cellular well beyond smartphones into the internet and large enterprise operations. He also talks about the company’s development centre in India