In this episode, Sreeraman "SMG" Mohan Girija shares how Fynd became the retail technology backbone powering 2,300+ brands, 20,000 stores, and 20 million consumers across India. From nearly dying as a touchscreen kiosk company in 2015 to being acquired by Reliance Industries in 2019, SMG reveals the pivotal lessons about building at the transaction layer, optimizing for customers over engineering bandwidth, and why conversational commerce powered by LLMs will kill traditional e-commerce homepages. He also opens up about the brutal first year of cultural integration post-acquisition, scaling a 100-person design organization, and why Fynd is now exporting India-hardened retail infrastructure to global markets like GCC, UK, and Canada.

He shared this candid journey with host Akshay Datt, exploring everything from hiring for empathy over skills to why beautiful products often fail without proper business fundamentals. If you're building in retail tech, SaaS, or preparing for AI-native commerce, this conversation is essential viewing.

Key Highlights:

👉How Sreeraman Mohan Girija pivoted Fynd from hardware failure to becoming India's largest unified commerce platform powering Reliance Retail

👉Inside the ₹295 crore Reliance acquisition: selling 87.6% equity while retaining operational independence and achieving 60x revenue growth post-deal

👉Why conversational commerce and LLMs will fundamentally reshape shopping UX, killing traditional e-commerce homepages by 2030

👉The design philosophy behind scaling from 1 to 100 designers: hiring for empathy, optimizing only for end customers, and preventing "engineer's MVP" syndrome

👉Fynd's complete retail tech stack: from AI-powered catalog generation and AR try-ons to omnichannel POS systems and marketplace integrations across Amazon, Flipkart, and emerging ONDC networks

👉Strategic lessons on B2B SaaS pricing innovation, the cold start problem in marketplaces, and why sitting on the transaction layer is non-negotiable for retail technology companies

Don't forget to subscribe to the Founder Thesis Podcast for more deep-dive conversations with India's most ambitious builders. Follow Akshay Datt on LinkedIn and X for behind-the-scenes insights and updates on upcoming episodes.

#RetailSaaS #IndiaEcommerce #QuickCommerce #ONDCIndia #StartupAcquisition #MADeals #FashionTech #IndiaUnifiedCommerce #RetailInfrastructure #POSSystems #WarehouseManagement #StartupPivot #FounderThesisPodcast #AkshayDatt #IndiaStartupEcosystem #B2BSaaS #EnterpriseRetail #AICommerce #LLMShopping #FutureOfRetail #RetailAutomation #DesignLeadership #ProductManagement #ScalingStartups

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel

Sreevathsa Prabhakar is the serial entrepreneur behind Servify, the B2B insurtech platform that powers extended warranty programs for Apple, Samsung, HP, and 70+ global brands.

In this candid conversation with host Akshay Datt, he reveals how Servify achieves 90% AI automation in claims processing, generates 70% revenue internationally, and maintains 18% EBITDA margins in the competitive device protection market. From being locked in a Dharavi home as a BPL service engineer to receiving a welcome sign at Apple Park, Sree's 25-year journey offers rare insights into operational excellence, platform leverage, and building lasting enterprise partnerships.

Key Highlights

👉How Sreevathsa Prabhakar built Servify into a profitable insurtech platform managing ₹2000 crores with just 15 operations people through 90% AI automation

👉Servify's asset-light business model breakdown: retailer margins, OEM royalties, insurance partnerships, and the path to 18% EBITDA at scale

👉Why 70% of Servify's revenue comes from international markets and the geographic arbitrage strategy for Indian B2B startups going global

👉The 16-year Apple partnership strategy, from running India's first AppleCare center to powering device protection across multiple countries

👉Real insurtech innovation: how Servify disrupted insurance by capping loss ratios, eliminating fraud through technology, and making claims self-service

#InsurtechIndia #ExtendedWarranty #DeviceProtection #AppleCare #SamsungCare #StartupIPO #BootstrapExit #AIAutomation #FintechPlatform #B2BInsurtech #AfterSalesService #ApplePartnership #GlobalExpansion #ProfitableStartup #FundingWinter #OperationalExcellence #PlatformBusiness #IndianStartups

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel

Dr. Ritu Verma, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Ankur Capital, breaks down her decade-long journey from experimental physics at the University of Pennsylvania to building one of India's most respected deep tech VC funds.

With portfolio companies like Captain Fresh heading toward a billion-dollar IPO, Offgrid Energy Labs pioneering zinc battery technology, and String Bio revolutionizing precision fermentation, Ritu shares the contrarian strategies that generated 30% IRR returns. From raising Fund I with a random Colorado angel investor to securing commitments from British International Investment and the US DFC for Fund III, this conversation covers the scrappy realities of VC fundraising in India, the multiplication formula most founders miss during term sheet negotiations, and why mediocrity in early hires destroys startups.

Ritu also unpacks India's transformation from IP-averse to filing 100,000 patents annually with 50% domestic share, the codification thesis powering B2B marketplace unicorns, and how Indian defense is becoming the guinea pig customer for deep tech. She shared these hard-won insights in this candid conversation with host Akshay Datt, offering a masterclass in patient capital, portfolio construction, and ecosystem building through initiatives like ThinkAg and the Deep Science Forum.

What You'll Learn:

👉The multiplication formula for VC returns that most founders negotiate wrong during fundraising (Returns = Valuation × Ownership %)

👉Why Ankur Capital's ₹50 crore Fund I failed structurally and what emerging fund managers must avoid

👉How codification strategy turned fragmented fish and fruit supply chains into billion-dollar B2B marketplaces

👉The mediocrity trap: Why hiring safe corporate executives in early stages kills startups faster than product failures

👉India's deep tech moment: From getting kicked out of IITs for asking about IP in 2008 to 50% domestic patent share in 2025

👉Captain Fresh's 5-year seed-to-IPO journey and what it signals for real economy tech companies versus consumer apps

If you found value in this deep dive into deep science VC and early-stage investing in India, subscribe to The Founder Thesis Podcast for more unfiltered conversations with founders and investors shaping India's startup ecosystem. Follow host Akshay Datt on LinkedIn and X for episode highlights, startup insights, and exclusive content.

#RituVerma #AnkurCapital #DeepTechVC #DeepScienceIndia #CaptainFreshIPO #IndiaStartups #VCFundraising #EarlyStageInvesting #AgritechIndia #BatteryTechnology #ZincBatteries #OffgridEnergyLabs #StringBio #B2BMarketplaces #SupplyChainTech #IndiaPatents #IPRevolution #StartupFundingIndia #VentureCapitalIndia #TheFounderThesis #AkshayDatt #SyntheticBiology #PrecisionFermentation #DefenseTechIndia #SemiconductorIndia #ThinkAg #DeepScienceForum #IndiaUnicorns #StartupIPO #PortfolioConstruction #VCReturns #FounderAdvice #HiringStrategy #TechnoCommercialRisk #PatientCapital #ImpactInvesting #CleanTechIndia #EnergyStorageIndia #RDIFund #BritishInternationalInvestment #AngelInvesting #FundManagement #StartupEcosystem #IndiaInnovation #globalexpansion

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel

In this episode, Ashok Hariharan, Founder and CEO of IDfy, shares the raw, unfiltered story of building India's largest background verification and digital identity platform from scratch. From nearly dying with just two months of runway in 2013 when 12 employees chose deferred salaries over leaving, to surviving a 90% revenue collapse during COVID by betting everything on Video KYC technology built three years early, Ashok reveals how patience and strategic readiness beat blitzscaling.

He discusses IDfy's evolution from a ₹3.5 lakh background verification startup to a comprehensive RegTech platform processing 65 million verifications monthly across onboarding, fraud detection, and DPDP Act compliance.

Ashok shares contrarian insights on incremental compounding over spike growth, building a 15% ESOP pool (largest in Indian tech), and why IDfy doesn't have "founders" but a leadership team designed for 40-year longevity. He unpacks India's hidden ₹10,000 crore fake employment industry, the technical architecture behind handling 100,000 requests per second, and why contributing to India's privacy law in 2018 positioned IDfy to dominate the DPDP compliance wave.

This candid conversation with host Akshay Dutt covers everything from rewiring the entire platform in Elixir during Diwali, to expanding internationally with 15% revenue now coming from Philippines and Indonesia, to the cultural philosophy of "Saraswati over Lakshmi" that shaped IDfy's approach to wealth distribution and organizational design. Whether you're a founder navigating the funding winter, building in RegTech or fintech, scaling background verification or KYC solutions, or simply fascinated by resilient startup journeys, this episode delivers actionable frameworks on manufacturing luck, surviving near-death moments, and building sustainable profitable growth in India's digital identity ecosystem.

#AshokHariharan #IDfy #IdentityVerificationIndia #BackgroundVerificationIndia #KYCSolutionsIndia #VideoKYCIndia #RegTechIndia #DigitalIdentityIndia #FraudDetectionIndia #DPDPActCompliance #IndianStartupJourney #StartupFundingIndia #FounderThesisPodcast #AkshayDutt #IncrementalCompounding #ManufacturingLuck #GigEconomyIndia #FintechIndia #AadhaarVerification #UPIFraudPrevention #IndiaStack #PrivacyComplianceIndia #CrimeCheckIndia #SyntheticIdentityFraud #StartupResilience #ProfitableStartupIndia #B2BSaaSIndia #EnterpriseTechIndia #SEAExpansion #PhilippinesStartup #IndonesiaFintech

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel

In this episode, Utham Gowda, Founder and Group CEO of Captain Fresh, reveals one of the most dramatic startup transformations in Indian agritech. After raising $90 million and hitting $100 million in revenue, Utham did the unthinkable - he admitted to investors that Captain Fresh wasn't worth its $500 million valuation and shut down the entire domestic business. What followed was a masterclass in radical honesty, strategic M&A, and global expansion.

He shares the journey in this candid conversation with host Akshay Datt, unpacking how Captain Fresh went from domestic marketplace to global seafood conglomerate, achieving profitability with 3,421 crore revenue in FY25 while competitors like eFishery collapsed in fraud scandals. From wiring $49 million on a flight to acquiring 10 companies with zero debt, from living on 50,000 rupees monthly to building a $2 million revenue-per-employee machine, this is the playbook for building anti-fragile B2B platforms in the age of supply chain nationalism and capital scarcity.

What You'll Learn:

👉How Utham Gowda built Captain Fresh into a $600M+ seafood platform and survived India's funding winter with radical business model honesty

👉The equity swap M&A strategy that acquired $120M+ in companies with zero debt and zero management changes, tripling EBITDA in acquired businesses

👉Why Captain Fresh exited India's $100M domestic market and how the global pivot to US and Europe unlocked 145% revenue growth and profitability

👉How Trump's tariffs accidentally validated Captain Fresh's origin-agnostic supply chain, enabling a 45-day flip from 66% Asia to 66% LatAm sourcing

👉The "Lion vs Cow" founder philosophy behind achieving $2 million revenue per employee and targeting 27-28% ROCE by FY27

👉Inside the collapse of eFishery's $1.4B valuation fraud and why boring tech beats fake tech in B2B physical goods businesses

#UthamGowda #CaptainFresh #FounderThesis #AkshayDatt #SeafoodStartupIndia #B2BSeafoodMarketplace #AgritechIPOIndia #IndianUnicorn2026 #StartupPivotStrategy #EquitySwapAcquisitions #MandAStrategyStartups #ProfitableStartupsIndia #GlobalSeafoodSupplyChain #StartupFundingWinter #IndianFoundersGoingGlobal #B2BStartupsIndia #SeafoodExportIndia #AntiDumpingTariffsIndia #SupplyChainResilience #AssetLightBusinessModel #StartupMandAPlaybook #IndianAgritecth2025 #CaptainFreshIPO #SeafoodIndustryIndia #FoodSupplyChainDigitization #IndianStartupSuccess #FromBankerToFounder #ZeroDebtAcquisitions #OriginAgnosticSupplyChain #FrugalFounderPhilosophy Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel

In this episode, Dr. Arjun Jain - Founder of Fast Code AI - reveals why the AI industry's trillion-dollar bet on bigger models is failing, and what's replacing it. Dr. Arjun Jain isn't your typical AI founder. After training under Turing Award winner Yann LeCun at NYU, working on Apple's secretive autonomous vehicle project, and leading Mercedes-Benz's robotaxi AI, he returned to India to bootstrap Fast Code AI with zero venture capital. In just two years, his company grew 8x by doing what the AI giants won't: charging for outcomes instead of software seats, deploying Small Language Models that outperform GPT-4 for specific tasks, and building agents that actually work in production.

He shared this contrarian journey in this candid conversation with host Akshay Datt. From explaining why "we have but one internet and we've used it all" (quoting OpenAI's Ilya Sutskever) to revealing how procurement agents train by negotiating with themselves millions of times, this episode dismantles the AI hype and shows what enterprise automation actually looks like. Whether you're a founder evaluating AI vendors, an engineer choosing between foundation model labs and application companies, or an investor trying to separate signal from noise, this is the reality check the industry needs.

What You'll Learn:

👉Why scaling laws have stagnated and what test-time compute and reinforcement learning mean for enterprise AI's future

👉How Fast Code AI captures "Salary TAM" (30-70% of revenue) through outcome-based pricing instead of traditional SaaS seat licenses

👉The real reason AI engineers command $10-100 million salaries, and why this won't last as foundation models commoditize

👉Why Project Athena (Mercedes-Bosch's multi-billion euro robotaxi venture) failed, and what end-to-end learning beats modular approaches

👉How Small Language Models fine-tuned on company data outperform massive generic models at 1/10th the inference cost

👉The "self-play" reinforcement learning methodology that makes Fast Code's agents reliable in production, not just impressive in demos

#DrArjunJain #FastCodeAI #AgenticAI #AIScalingLaws #EnterpriseAI #SmallLanguageModels #OutcomeBasedPricing #ReinforcementLearning #AIAgents #YannLeCun #BootstrappedStartup #IndiaAIStartups #AIServices #TestTimeCompute #FoundationModels #LLMLimitations #AIForEnterprise #ProcurementAutomation #AIEngineers #AutonomousDriving #ProjectAthena #SalaryTAM #AIInference #AIDeployment #BangaloreAI #AIConsulting #MachineLearningExplained #DeepLearning #TransformersAI #FounderThesisPodcast

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel

Mark Kahn is the Managing Partner of Omnivore, India's pioneering agriculture and rural economy venture capital fund with over $325 million in assets under management. Since 2011, Omnivore has backed 50+ startups including DeHaat (India's near-unicorn agritech platform), Pixxel (space tech), Ecozen (climate hardware), and dozens of companies transforming India's 600 million rural population.

In this conversation with host Akshay Datt, Kahn unpacks his contrarian thesis on smallholder farming, explains why "B2B SaaS is fucked by AI," dissects the horseshoe politics blocking GM crops in India, and reveals why Trump's 50% tariffs and Modi's dairy farmers are on a collision course. From his operational years at Godrej Agrovet to building India's leading agritech VC, Mark offers a masterclass in sectoral investing, the realities of raising from DFIs, and why India's bioeconomy could hit $300 billion by 2030 - if entrepreneurs stop becoming software engineers and start doing actual biology.

What You'll Learn:

👉Why Mark Kahn believes India will never have a unicorn agritech company by traditional metrics, and why he's okay with that

👉How Omnivore's portfolio companies like DeHaat, Arya.ag, and Captain Fresh are approaching profitability and IPOs while others like WayCool imploded

👉The "Kirana shop analogy" - why Indian smallholder farmers are more productive than you think and will beat US industrial agriculture

👉Why both the Indian left and right agree on blocking GM crops (horseshoe theory), and how Indians have been eating GM food derivatives for 20 years without knowing it

👉Mark Kahn's provocative take on US-India trade negotiations: why dairy imports should be blocked but feed ingredients should be welcomed

👉The shocking reality that India's biotech sector has produced zero new billionaires in 20+ years, and what the $300 billion bioeconomy opportunity requires

CHAPTERS:

00:00 - Mark Kahn's Journey to Omnivore VC

01:18 - Why Agritech Over B2B SaaS

02:52 - India's Agritech Unicorn Problem Explained

06:37 - Bharat Economy Beyond Agriculture

09:49 - India's Agricultural Future Vision

13:27 - GM Crops Controversy and Yield Gaps

18:26 - The GM Foods Paradox

23:21 - Omnivore's Investment Thesis and Portfolio

30:35 - Fund Size and LP Strategy

31:45 - Origin Story of Omnivore

40:06 - Early Days at Omnivore

50:12 - Agriculture Protection and Trade Policy

52:25 - US-India Agricultural Trade War

57:52 - Why India's Farm Policy is Soviet

1:01:08 - The Farm Reforms That Failed

1:06:13 - AgriStack Digital Infrastructure

1:09:04 - Smallholder Farmers vs Industrial Agriculture

1:13:01 - Zero Percent Probability of Reform

1:14:13 - India Through an Immigrant's Eyes

1:20:31 - Advice for Founders Raising VC

1:26:56 - The Bioeconomy Opportunity

#MarkKahn #OmnivoreVC #AgritechIndia #VentureCapitalIndia #IndianAgriculture #AgritechUnicorn #DeHaat #RuralIndia #BharatEconomy #GMCrops #AgriculturePolicy #USIndiaTrade #TrumpTariffs #BiotechIndia #SpaceTech #Pixxel #Climatetech #ImpactInvesting #AgricultureVC #StartupFunding #IndiaVC #FarmersIndia #SmallholderFarming #AgricultureReform #FoodSecurity #SustainableAgriculture #AgriFintech #RuralFintech #DigitalAgriculture #AgriStack

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel

Madhav Krishna's journey from Silicon Valley to solving India's 450-million blue-collar workforce challenge is a masterclass in finding product-market fit. Starting with a voice-based English teacher called Lakshmi in 2016, Madhav pivoted three times before discovering the real painkiller: recruitment, not training. Today, Vahan.ai powers hiring for Zomato, Swiggy, Blinkit, and Uber using a unique agency-powered model combined with GPT-4o voice AI that costs just ₹2 per minute compared to ₹3-4 for human recruiters.

He shared the complete journey in this candid conversation with host Akshay Datt, revealing why his WhatsApp bot with 500K users meant nothing until he embraced local recruitment agencies instead of trying to disintermediate them. From Y Combinator to backing by Khosla Ventures and Temasek, Madhav explains why SaaS fails in India, how outcome-based pricing became their moat, and why India's trust deficit requires human intermediaries even in the age of AI. With 150 employees generating 40,000 monthly placements and a clear path to profitability at just 3X scale, this is essential viewing for anyone building in India's gig economy, exploring vertical AI applications, or trying to understand what actually works in Indian enterprise markets.

Key Highlights:

👉How Madhav Krishna built Vahan.ai from ed-tech pivot to India's largest blue-collar hiring platform with 40,000 monthly placements

👉Why 500K monthly active users meant nothing and how the agency model became the breakthrough to true product-market fit

👉The contrarian insight: why engagement doesn't equal revenue in India and how outcome-based pricing beat SaaS subscriptions

👉Building Voice AI for India: how GPT-4o, proprietary call data, and Hinglish capabilities created a ₹2/minute recruiter cheaper than humans

👉Lessons from scaling through India's funding winter: the path to EBITDA profitability with just 150 employees and capital-efficient growth

👉Why blue-collar workers don't look for jobs online and how Vahan.ai digitized 2,000 local agencies instead of disrupting them

👉The future of gig economy hiring: AI agents, regulatory changes, expansion to manufacturing, and the vision to reach 1 billion people globally

#MadhavKrishna #VahanAI #BlueCollarHiring #GigEconomyIndia #VoiceAI #AIRecruitment #IndiaStartups #YCombinator #ProductMarketFit #QuickCommerce #ZomatoSwiggy #DeliveryJobs #GPT4o #VerticalAI #OutcomeBasedPricing #SaaSIndia #KhoslaVentures #StartupPivot #IndiaLabourMarket #WorkforceSolutions #HRTech #RecruitmentPlatform #IndianGigWorkers #AIForIndia #StartupFunding #FounderJourney #TechInIndia #BlueCollarJobs #HiringPlatform #FutureOfWork