This stream is a conversation with someone building community for founders and builders in India. We get into how a community like this takes shape, what keeps people coming back, and what it takes to build something people want to belong to. We also talk about the wider builder scene, what it rewards, and where it is going.

Today's guest: Akhil BVS | Co-founder, Inner Circle

Akhil is the co-founder of Inner Circle, a Bengaluru-based community for early-stage founders and builders. What began as a small group has grown into a collective where people come together to build, ship and learn from each other. Inner Circle also runs open build sessions that bring the wider founder community into one room.

In Stream 115 of The Offline Network, we look at what it takes to build in each of these markets: how a consumer brand earns trust when the category itself is new, how a deep tech company sells into cautious industrial buyers, what founders learn from staying close to production, and how each of them decides what to build next.

Guests for today:- Sanjana Rishikesh | Founder, Cosmos Diamonds

Sanjana Rishikesh is the founder of Cosmos Diamonds, a Bengaluru-based jewellery brand built around lab-grown diamonds. She trained as a designer at the National Institute of Design and started the company after finding the diamond buying process opaque while shopping for her own wedding jewellery. Cosmos Diamonds sells fine jewellery direct to customers, with a focus on transparent pricing, heritage-inspired design and a buyback policy on its pieces.

- Aniruddha Banerjee | Co-founder, SwitchOn

Aniruddha Banerjee is a co-founder of SwitchOn, a Bengaluru-based company that builds AI software for visual quality inspection in manufacturing. He started the company with Avra Banerjee after engineering roles at Nvidia, Samsung and other hardware firms, where he saw how much factory inspection still relied on manual checks. SwitchOn's platform, DeepInspect, uses computer vision and edge AI to detect surface defects, verify printed codes and flag assembly errors on production lines, and is used by manufacturers across automotive, pharma and consumer goods.

In this stream of The Offline Network, we sit down with two founders building in very different corners of the Indian startup world. One is changing how the next generation handles money, the other is developing new cancer treatments. Across fintech and biotech, consumer technology and deep science, this conversation in Stream 114 explores what it takes to build for the long term in India, the problems each founder chose to take on, and the ideas that translate across very different fields.

About the guests:Sambhav Jain is the co-founder of Fam, a Bengaluru-based fintech built for teenagers. The app lets minors make UPI, card and P2P payments without a traditional bank account, with parents completing verification and keeping oversight of spending. He started the company in 2019 with Kush Taneja to give India's younger users a first, secure handle on their own money. 

Kavitha Iyer Rodrigues is the founder and CEO of Zumutor Biologics, a biotech company developing antibody-based cancer therapies. Zumutor works in immuno-oncology, using its own antibody platform to design treatments that target innate immunity and the tumour microenvironment. She is a repeat founder in the biologics field, having built and led biotech companies before Zumutor.

On this stream of The Offline Network, we bring together two different sides of India's tech story. One side is building consumer social products for Bharat, where voice and regional languages open up new ways for people to connect. The other is building enterprise AI that helps brands create video content at scale across many languages. In Stream 113, we get into what it takes to build for Indian users, how AI and Indian languages are changing both consumer and enterprise products, and the lessons these founders have learned while building.About the guests:

Bhanu and Harshvardhan are co-founders of Interact Group, the company behind FRND, a voice-first social discovery app built for users across Bharat. FRND helps people in smaller towns and cities make friends and connect through voice chat and live interactionsDevender is the co-founder and CTO of TrueFan AI, a company building AI video technology for enterprise marketing and content creation. TrueFan AI lets brands produce personalized, multilingual video content at scale, generating videos in many languages from a single recording and plugging into existing marketing workflows. 

In Stream #112 of The Offline Network, we look at Indian startups from both sides of the table. Subeer Monga backs early-stage companies as a venture investor, while Rhea Chaterji builds the infrastructure that lets Indians buy, hold and use gold digitally. Together we explore how venture capital decisions get made, why gold is going digital, and what both mean for the future of money and investing in India.

About the guest:Subeer Monga is a Partner at Sorin Investments, an early-stage venture capital firm co-founded by former KKR India CEO Sanjay Nayar. The firm backs Series A and Series B companies across fintech, consumer and enterprise tech in India. His investing career includes long stints at Mayfield's India-focused fund and ICICI Venture, backing companies across financial services, consumer and enterprise sectors. 

Rhea Chaterji is Co-Founder and COO of SafeGold, which builds the digital infrastructure connecting consumers, jewellers and financial platforms in India's gold market. The platform lets people buy, sell and hold vaulted gold digitally and powers digital gold offerings for banks, fintechs and jewellery brands. Rhea oversees operations and leads the company's consumer business and partnerships.

The Offline Network brings together two founders solving very different problems across India's technology landscape. Livestream 111 puts elder care and factory automation in the same conversation, exploring how one founder builds support systems that help older adults live well in their own homes, while the other builds AI that lets factory robots learn new tasks by watching rather than being reprogrammed. 

It is a conversation about technology meeting real human need, in the family home and on the factory floor, and what it takes to build for each.

About the guest

Saumyajit Roy has spent close to two decades in India's elder care sector and co-founded Emoha, a Gurugram-based company focused on senior care. Emoha is a technology-led service that helps older adults live independently at home, combining health support, emergency response, everyday assistance and social engagement through an app and a round-the-clock help desk. It runs on a subscription model and serves elders along with their families.

Puru Rastogi is a robotics engineer who trained at IIT Guwahati and Carnegie Mellon and co-founded Mowito. The company builds Physical AI software for industrial robot arms, letting them learn manufacturing tasks from human demonstration instead of fixed programming, so a robot can adapt when a part or process changes. Mowito works with automotive and electronics manufacturers, with a team based across Bangalore and Detroit.

In livestream 110 of The Offline Network, we bring together two founders building in very different parts of India’s operating system: circular economy and private wealth. Pranshu Singhal of Karo Sambhav is working on responsible collection, recycling, and material recovery across complex waste streams, while Ishit Lakhani of SELEQT is building a private wealth firm for families that need one accountable view across investments, insurance, tax, and succession. This stream explores how India is rethinking systems that usually sit behind the scenes, from what happens to products at end-of-life to how wealth is structured and protected over time.About the guests:Pranshu Singhal is the Founder of Karo Sambhav, a circular economy and recycling company working across e-waste, batteries, plastics, glass, and other end-of-life material streams. Karo Sambhav designs and implements Extended Producer Responsibility programmes that help brands collect, recycle, and trace waste linked to their products. Pranshu brings deep experience in sustainability, take-back systems, product stewardship, and environmental management.Ishit Lakhani is the Founder & CIO of SELEQT, a private wealth firm for Indian and globally connected families. SELEQT brings investments, taxation, insurance, and succession planning under one roof, so families are not forced to manage wealth through disconnected advisers. Ishit leads the firm’s investment philosophy, portfolio construction, and research framework across public and alternative markets.

Two founders building very different pieces of India's future join livestream 109 of The Offline Network. One is turning basalt dust and tea gardens into carbon removal infrastructure, working at the intersection of climate science and agriculture. The other is building India's AI-powered virtual humans, creating digital influencers that live entirely on screen. This livestream traces two very different bets on where Indian innovation goes next, one rooted in soil, the other in software.Sparsh Agarwal | Co-Founder, Alt CarbonAbout the guest: Sparsh Agarwal is Co-Founder of Alt Carbon, a climate technology company working on carbon dioxide removal through Enhanced Rock Weathering. Alt Carbon spreads basalt rock dust across agricultural land, beginning with tea estates in Darjeeling, to accelerate a natural process that locks away atmospheric carbon while improving soil health. The company works with global buyers on carbon removal credits and is building toward positioning South Asia as a hub for climate technology.Himanshu Goel | Co-Founder & COO, FUTR STUDIOSAbout the guest: Himanshu Goel is Co-Founder and COO of FUTR STUDIOS, a company building AI-powered virtual humans in India. FUTR STUDIOS created Kyra, India's first virtual influencer, using CGI and AI to build a digital character that has worked with brands across entertainment, advertising and lifestyle categories. Himanshu leads the studio's operations and brand partnerships, working at the intersection of AI, marketing and digital media.Also covering:India's First End-to-End OSAT Plant Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated CG Semi's Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) facility in Sanand, Gujarat, marking India's first end-to-end OSAT plant and the country's third major semiconductor facility to begin commercial operations. Built at a cost of ₹7,600 crore, the facility is a joint venture between CG Power and Industrial Solutions, Japan's Renesas Electronics America, and Thailand's Stars Microelectronics, operating under the Murugappa Group. The plant handles semiconductor packaging and testing for automotive, consumer electronics, industrial automation, and 5G applications.

In this livestream of The Offline Network, we sit down with the two co-founders behind Shram, a work management tool built around how people actually do their work. Ojasvika Sahu and Jay Gadekar both trained as architects before moving into software, and they bring that design-first thinking to a category usually run by spreadsheets and status meetings. Stream 108 explores what it takes to build a product company out of India, how design and engineering share the founder's seat, and why they think work management is due for a rethink.About the guests:Ojasvika Sahu and Jay Gadekar are the Co-Founders of Shram, an AI-native work-management tool that connects daily work with performance. Shram helps teams organise projects and tasks, track progress in real time, and recognise the people doing the work. Both founders trained as architects before moving into building software.

In this episode of The Offline Network, we bring together two founders working at very different frontiers of Indian deep tech. One is building voice AI so people can use technology by speaking in their own language, the other is building the community and support that helps climate and materials startups move from the lab to the market. Episode 107 explores how each of them thinks about access, adoption and building for the long term in India.Dheemanth Reddy | CEO, Maya ResearchDheemanth Reddy is the CEO of Maya Research, a voice AI company building conversational models for people who prefer to speak rather than type. Maya develops open-source speech models designed to sound natural across Indian and other languages, so that technology reaches users who have been left outside text-first interfaces. The company's work focuses on voice as the primary way the next wave of users will interact with software.Mridu Jhangiani | Founder, TerrariumMridu Jhangiani is the founder of Terrarium, a founder-first platform supporting startups working on alternative materials and climate biotech in India. Terrarium runs curated offline gatherings and programmes that bring together founders, investors, researchers and policymakers to help science-led ventures move from lab to market. Her background spans design and sustainability, and Terrarium sits at the intersection of biotechnology, materials and climate.