The startup, with its pioneering platform that makes it easier for developers to access data, has found uptake among startups and large corporations alike
Rajoshi Ghosh (left) and Tanmai Gopal, cofounders Hasura
In 2013, Tanmai Gopal was taking the devil by the horns. The IIT Madras alumnus, with an integrated dual degree of BTech and MTech in computer science, was getting ready to take a stab at the heart of the problem. “It was insanely frustrating,” recalls Gopal, who stayed away from campus placements because he wanted to build a venture that had a huge impact.
Back then, building applications business was quite painful. Progress in technology, he reasoned, should make things easier instead of complicated. For developers and engineers, the predicament was unique. Gopal knew something was wrong. He co-founded 34 Cross, a product development and consulting firm, in 2013. “I wanted to fix the problem,” he recalls.
The same year, Rajoshi Ghosh has successfully battled her inner demons. The graduate in computational biology from National University of Singapore had started her career with a stint in research. She had been creating biodiesel from green algae in her first job, but a couple of years in to the research, she realised something was missing in her life. “I wanted to do something that had more immediate impact,” she recalls. So she took up a teaching programing for a bunch of budding entrepreneurs and students in Ghana, West Africa. After a year, she sensed that her calling was in the startup ecosystem. Back in India, she met Gopal in Chennai, and 34 Cross got a co-founder.
Four years later, in mid-2017, the bootstrapped company was fast running out of money, and the future looked bleak. “We were naive when we said we would never need venture capital [VC],” recalls Gopal. “There were dark days,” he recalls, adding that at times the fledgling venture failed to make payrolls for two months.
What, though, made journey tough was the predicament of the co-founders. As a consulting firm, 34 Cross was also into building tools to validate ideas to help developers. And the results were encouraging. “We knew the technology and products were working,” says Gopal. The problem, however, was time or lack of time. The consulting role meant that a huge chunk of time was spent on clients and their products. The team needed time and money to build their product. Ghosh summoned an emergency meeting. “Guys, we have to stop doing this, and raise VC money,” she implored.