Founders Unfiltered

By A Junior VCBusiness Entrepreneurship

Founders Unfiltered episodes

May 21, 2023 Ep 79: Building UBER for Space ft. AgniKul Cosmos
Join us as we talk to Srinath Ravichandran, the Co-Founder & CEO of AgniKul Cosmos about their story.
In 2006, Srinath Ravichandran completed his Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the College of Engineering Guindy in Chennai. He then went on to earn his master's degree in Financial Engineering from Columbia Engineering in 2009.
Additionally, he pursued a Diploma in filmmaking at the New York Film Academy. In 2021, Srinath Ravichandran furthered his education by completing a second master's degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also obtained a certification in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical/Space engineering from UCLA in 2018.
Srinath Ravichandran has an extensive professional background, having served as a Senior Director at AXA US and as an Assistant Director in Market Risk Management at AIG. Furthermore, in 2016, he took on the role of co-founder at Agnikul Cosmos, showcasing his entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to innovation.
About AgniKul Cosmos:
Agnikul is a pioneering space technology startup that specializes in the development, production, testing, and launch of orbital class rockets specifically designed for micro and nano satellites.
The team operates from the esteemed National Center for Combustion R&D at IIT-Madras, where a diverse group of individuals, including rocket scientists, engineers, former bankers, and space lawyers, collaborates synergistically. This distinctive mix of talent and expertise stands as one of Agnikul's greatest assets, contributing to their exceptional capabilities and success.
If you are excited about their journey, please reach out to them @ [email protected]
For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/
57 min
May 07, 2023 Ep 78: Providing Data Science Solutions to the World ft. Tredence
In 1996, Shub Bhowmick completed his B.Tech. in chemical engineering from IIT-BHU and later pursued his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Throughout his career, he worked with a number of companies, including Infosys, Motif, Mu Sigma, inVentic Health, American Express, and Liberty Advisor Group, before co-founding Tredence in February 2013.
Shub Bhowmick's journey is a testament to his commitment to excellence, innovation, and the pursuit of growth. His passion for data analytics and business intelligence has played a key role in Tredence's success, and his contributions continue to shape the company's future.
After earning his Bachelor's degree in Technology from IIT Madras, Shashank Dubey pursued an MBA from ISB. He then gained work experience with DRDO and Mu Sigma before co-founding Tredence.
His passion for data analytics and business intelligence, combined with his entrepreneurial spirit and leadership skills, have helped Tredence establish itself as a leader in the industry.
About Tredence:
Tredence is a global data science solutions provider focused on solving the last mile problem in AI. The ‘last mile’ is the gap between insight creation and value realization. 
Headquartered in San Jose, the company embraces a vertical-first approach and an outcome-driven mindset to help clients win and accelerate value realization from their analytics investments.
Tredence is a Great Place to Work-Certified and a ‘Leader’ in the Forrester Wave: Customer Analytics Services. Tredence is 1,500-plus employees strong with offices in San Jose, Foster City, Chicago, London, Toronto, and Bangalore, with the largest companies in retail, CPG, hi-tech, telecom, healthcare, travel, and industrials as clients.
For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/
55 min
April 23, 2023 Ep 77: Revolutionizing Jewellery Buying ft. CARATLANE
Join us as we talk to Avnish Anand, the Co Founder and COO and Mithun Sacheti, the Co Founder and CEO of CaratLane, a Tanishq Partnership, about their stories.
Mithun completed his B.com from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics. Later on, he completed his Master's from IIM Bangalore in 2010. He served as a Director of Jaipur Gems for 10 years and founded CaratLane in 2008.
Avnish completed his Bachelor's degree in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute in 1998 and later obtained an MBA from IIM Lucknow in 2001.
He has worked with several companies such as ONIDA, Standard Chartered Bank, and DuPont India before joining the founding team of CaratLane in 2007.
About CaratLane:
CaratLane, India’s first omni-channel jewellery brand, was founded in 2008 by Mithun Sacheti and Srinivasa Gopalan with a simple but courageous objective: to make beautiful jewellery accessible, affordable, and forever wearable.
With a strategic investment from Titan Company Limited, CaratLane is now a partner with India’s largest retail jeweller, Tanishq. The partnership aims to work towards a common mission: to offer customers beautiful jewellery and a distinctive shopping experience that fits today’s values and lifestyles, enabling CaratLane to grow as India’s 21st century jewellery brand.
1 hr 12 min
April 09, 2023 Ep 76: Increasing Global Opportunities for Indian Students ft. Leap Finance
Arnav Kumar is the Founder of Leap Finance, a digital platform that helps Indian students access loans for studying abroad. He completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Applied Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in 2010.
After graduation, he worked at Deutsche Bank as an Analyst and then joined UrbanTouch.com as a Vice President. In 2013, he founded Sokratik, but unfortunately, he could not find product-market fit and had a suboptimal GTM strategy.
Later on, he founded Zoomo in 2014. He then joined Elevation Capital (previously known as SAIF Partners) as an Associate Vice President. Finally, in 2019, he founded Leap Finance.
About Leap Finance:
From Sundar Pichai to Indira Nooyi and Satya Nadella to Laxman Narasimhan, Indians today lead the world’s most influential companies. Increasingly, young Indians are going beyond geographical boundaries - to study at the best global schools and pursue global careers.
Leap Finance supports future leaders from India in their quest for global impact. They create modern financial products and services that help Indian students pursue a global career. From choosing the right university and the best financing option to lining up job interviews and introductions, Leap Finance invests heavily in your success.
Leap Finance (www.leapscholar.com) offers counselling and related services for study abroad aspirants.
1 hr 2 min
March 26, 2023 EP 75: Improving How People Experience Work ft. Soroco
Rohan is an accomplished entrepreneur and computer scientist who is best known for founding the technology company Soroco.
Born in 1983, Rohan Murty is the son of N.R. Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of the Indian multinational corporation Infosys.
Rohan Murty graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Cornell University. He later went on to obtain a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard University, where he specialised in "Opportunistic Wireless Network Architectures".
He also worked as a research intern with Caltech and Microsoft. In 2010, Rohan Murty founded Soroco, a company that develops and implements automation solutions for various industries.
Apart from his work at Soroco, Rohan Murty is also an author and philanthropist. He has authored several books, including a translation of the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata. He has also established the Murty Classical Library of India, a project that aims to translate and publish classical Indian literature.
Rohan Murty's entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to innovation have made him a leading figure in the technology industry. His contributions to the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning have helped shape the way businesses operate and have set the stage for future advancements in the field.

About Soroco:
Soroco's mission is to enable organizations to enhance how teams experience work and drive higher productivity by scaling empathy through Scout work graph. Today, teams spend over 60% of the workday on unstructured interactions across emails, documents, and custom applications – outside of ERP, CRM, and other systems of records. This massive enterprise data is untapped and undocumented. Our flagship product Scout, powered by the work graph, provides near real-time, structured insights into this last mile of manual digital work and helps enterprises accelerate their transformation journey. Unlike traditional solutions, the "work graph" provides a single source of truth. We are a deep tech company with ~40 patents. We have operations across the USA, Europe, UK, Singapore & India, with a roster of Fortune 500 customers across 30 countries. Visit www.soroco.com to learn how we help teams discover their work graph.
1 hr 18 min
March 12, 2023 Ep 74: Haptik’s AI Journey, Is reliance a good investor?
Join us as we talk to Aakrit Vaish, the Co-Founder & CEO of Haptik about their story.
Aakrit Vaish holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which he completed in 2008. Following his graduation, he gained valuable experience by working with renowned companies such as Motorola and Deloitte in the Bay Area. In 2011, Aakrit joined Flurry Inc., where he served as the Director of Global Business Operations and India, playing a pivotal role in the company's success. In the years that followed, Aakrit went on to co-found several companies, including Flato.to and Interakt. He also served as a managing partner for Peercheque and as an advisory board member for H2 (h2.co), where he shared his expertise and insights with fellow entrepreneurs. In July 2013, Aakrit co-founded Haptik, a groundbreaking conversational AI platform that has revolutionized the way businesses engage with their customers. As the company's CEO, Aakrit has been instrumental in driving its growth and success by building a team of talented professionals and leading the development of cutting-edge technology.
About Haptik: Haptik is a prominent conversational AI platform that helps brands create engaging and personalized experiences for users across 20 channels and 100+ languages. By using cutting-edge AI technology, Haptik enables brands to design delightful experiences that improve conversion rates throughout every stage of the customer journey. With a vision to create the most compelling conversational commerce platform of the 21st century, Haptik has established itself as a leader in the industry. The company has a global presence with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Singapore and boasts an impressive client roster that includes KFC, Whirlpool, Starhub, HP, Reliance Jio, CEAT, Disney Hotstar, OLA, and Zurich Insurance, among others. Haptik's Conversational Commerce platform has received widespread recognition and acclaim from leading industry experts, including Gartner, G2, Opus Research, and many others, who have hailed the company as a category leader in the space. Through its innovative technology and commitment to excellence, Haptik is poised to continue driving growth and success for its clients well into the future.
55 min
February 28, 2023 Ep 73: Democratizing Education ft. Propelld
Join us as we talk to Victor Senapaty, the Founder of Propelld about their story.
Victor Senapaty is a highly acclaimed Indian entrepreneur and the founder of Propelld, a groundbreaking startup that provides assistance to students in securing education loans for higher studies. He earned his bachelor's degree in technology from IIT Madras, and his MBA from the esteemed University of Delhi's Faculty of Management Studies. Prior to founding Propelld, Victor served as a senior analyst for Deutsche Bank and also co-founded the StockUpp app. His experience and expertise in the finance and technology domains, coupled with his vision and passion, led him to establish Propelld in August 2016.

About Propelld: Propelld is an innovative startup based in India that aims to revolutionize the education loan industry. The company was founded in August 2016 by Victor Senapaty, a renowned Indian entrepreneur with a background in finance and technology. Propelld provides a platform that offers hassle-free, digital loan processing to help students secure education loans for higher studies. The company's vision is to make education accessible to all, and its innovative approach has helped thousands of students in India to fulfill their dreams of higher education. Propelld's dedication to leveraging technology to solve real-world problems has made it a trusted and reliable name in the education financing space.
45 min
February 12, 2023 Ep 72: Loadshare's $300M Journey | Leaving being a McKinsey Partner to Start
Join us as we talk to Raghuram Talluri, the Co-founder and CEO at LoadShare Networks about their story.
Raghuram Talluri is a highly accomplished and visionary entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of LoadShare Networks. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Later on, he pursued his master's degree from IIM-L. Prior to co-founding LoadShare Networks, Raghuram held several senior leadership positions at well-known companies like McKinsey & Company and Myntra, where he was instrumental in driving growth and innovation.
About LoadShare Networks: Loadshare Networks is a technology driven new-age logistics company. They are building an asset light integrated logistics network stitching together SMEs in the logistics sector using a proprietary technology platform. It is co-founded by Raghuram Talluri (CEO, ex-Myntra, McKinsey), Pramod Nair (CTO, ex-Freecharge, Snapdeal, MartMobi), and Rakib Ahmed (Co-Founder, ICICI, Lunate Technologies).
54 min
February 05, 2023 AJVC Behind the Scenes 58: Can HealthifyMe Transform Health from India to the World?
Last fortnight, HealthifyMe released its campaign with Mandira Bedi, hot on the heels of its campaigns with Farhan Akhtar and Sara Ali Khan as it doubled down on celebrity marketing.
Tushar Vashisht is an Ivy League alumnus, and a Wall Street banker. When he got a chance to work with Nandan Nilekani on the UID project, he decided to come back to India. He and his roommate Matthew Cherian wanted to build a business that had a social impact, and made money too!
They decided to run an experiment - subsist for a month on what the average Indian does - just 100 rupees ($2.04) a day. The outcome - both of them lost a significant amount of weight.
People wanted a copy of the tracking journal they had maintained during this experiment. Tushar and Matthew created a business out of it.
HealthifyMe was born in 2012.
By 2014, it had 100K users on its app, grew 5X by 2015, and had a Series A round of $6M. It was well poised to gain traction in the $6B Indian wellness industry. By 2017, it had crossed 2M downloads. By 2020, it was making INR 100 Cr in ARR.
How did it leverage conversational AI (even before ChatGPT), and how will it disrupt the $5Tn global wellness market?
Read full article here: https://ajuniorvc.com/healthifyme-business-case-study-startup-tech-india-explained-weight-loss/
12 min
January 30, 2023 Ep 71: Zetwerk's $2.6B Story | Building a 20,000 Cr Business
Join us as we talk to Amrit Acharya, the Co-founder and CEO of Zetwerk about their story.

Meet Amrit Acharya, one of the co-founders of Zetwerk, an India-based online manufacturing platform that connects businesses with manufacturers. Amrit, along with co-founders Vishal Chaudhary, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, and Rahul Sharma, started Zetwerk in 2018, and it has since become a leading player in the Indian manufacturing industry. Amrit holds an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and completed his MBA from the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business in 2016. With a wealth of experience working with companies like McKinsey & Company, Monsanto Growth Ventures, ITC Limited, Avaya, and Robert Bosch, Amrit is dedicated to digitizing the manufacturing sector and making it more efficient, accessible, and transparent for businesses of all sizes.

About Zetwerk: Zetwerk is a B2B manufacturing platform that connects businesses with suppliers to streamline the manufacturing process. The platform provides tools for businesses to manage their orders, track production progress, and collaborate with suppliers. It also allows suppliers to easily manage their orders, inventory, and production schedules The goal of Zetwerk is to make manufacturing more efficient and cost-effective for both businesses and suppliers by providing a seamless and transparent platform for communication and collaboration Today Zetwerk manufactures over 9M parts for 1,800 active customers delivering Indian made customer products to over 20 countries

59 min