Forbes India - Tech Conversations
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Divyansh Saini at Houseware on winning the Snowflake challenge and bringing data to those who need it
Our guest today is Divyansh Saini, co-founder and CEO of Houseware, whose eponymous data management product recently won the Snowflake Startup Challenge. In this episode, Divyansh talks about making data more accessible to revenue-facing teams so they can "bring intelligence from metrics into their data apps." He also talks about how India's SaaS ecosystem has evolved from the days when he first got interested in it, several years ago as an engineering student
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Sirisha Bandla at Virgin Galactic on the potential for collaboration with Indian space tech startups
Our guest today is Sirisha Bandla, VP of government affairs and research operations at Virgin Galactic, which is looking to open commercial space tourism operations early next year, offering short rides to near space, around 60 miles above the surface of the earth. In this episode, Sirisha talks about how she always wanted to be an astronaut, and now, helping to run the business end of Virgin Galactic, how she's looking at collaborations with Indian space tech startups
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Yoav Zeif, CEO at Stratasys, on advances in 3D printing and the challenges in the way of greater adoption
Our guest today is Yoav Zeif, CEO of Stratasys, a well-known US-Israel 3D-printing technologies company. In this episode, Yoav, who's currently visiting his Indian team of 10, talks about the advances in 3D-printing tech, and how lack of awareness, and businesses being locked into traditional manufacturing processes, are the challenges to be overcome for greater adoption of this technology, the demand for which has surged after the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic
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Krishna Kumar at Cropin on mapping crops and land around the planet, and building an AI cloud for agri intelligence
Our guest today is Krishna Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Cropin Technology Solutions, an agri-intelligence provider to customers around the world. In this episode, Krishna talks about mapping crops and land around the planet and building an AI-based cloud platform for the agri and food sectors. He also talks about a new AI lab and taking Cropin to $100 million in revenue over the next three years
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Ecozen Solutions' co-founders on plans to take their connected tech beyond Agri into EVs
Our guests today are Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pandey, co-founders of Pune-based Ecozen Solutions, who offer motor controls, IoT tech, cold storage and energy storage products, powered by solar energy. In this episode, the trio talk about how they started with customers in the Agri sector, establishing a significant market share. They are now looking to expand into other areas, including the EV space, and markets outside India
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The Big Picture: 'Bubbles compress time, busts expand it, so use this downturn wisely' — Sridhar Vembu
Our guest today is Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of Zoho Corp., India's biggest software products success story. In this episode, Sridhar talks about how the wise entrepreneur will use the current downturn to nurture talent, invest in R&D and lay a solid foundation for a sustainable, long-term business. He also talks about how SaaS companies are yet to reckon with the power of AI to replace software programmers themselves
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Shruti Kapoor at Wingman on being acquired by Clari, plans ahead, and AI's influence on sales
Our guest today is Shruti Kapoor, co-founder and CEO at Wingman, a conversational AI provider for sales teams that has just been acquired by Clari, a Silicon Valley company. In this episode, Kapoor talks about the rationale behind the decision to be acquired. Also shares some of the conversations that she and her co-founders Muralidharan Venkatasubramanian and Srikar Yekollu had about this, what comes next, and some thoughts on how AI is overhauling the enterprise sales process
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Akshay Singhal at Log9 on the imperative for India to seek self-reliance in commercial EV cells
Our guest today is Akshay V Singhal, founder and CEO of Log9 Materials, which is building quick-charging, longer-lasting batteries for electric vehicles in the country. In this episode, Singhal offers an update on the pilot plant Log9 opened in April, in Bengaluru, for local cell manufacturing, India's first, and the plan to expand it into a full-fledged commercial 'Giga factory,' with a capacity of cells worth 5GWh (Giga watt-hour), over the next 3-5 years
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Jatin Desai and Venkat Vallabhaneni at Inflexor on the way ahead for India's deep tech startups
Our guests today are Jatin Desai and Venkat Vallabhaneni, managing partners at Inflexor Ventures, a VC firm focused on deep tech ventures in India. In this episode, the duo talk about how India's engineering based ventures are beginning to mature, in areas ranging from augmented reality to rocket fuel; they also talk about their own aspiration to make Inflexor a pre-eminent technology-focused VC firm in India
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SolarSquare's co-founders on the $50 billion opportunity to bring solar power to Indian homes
Our guests today are Neeraj Jain, Nikhil Nahar and Shreya Mishra, co-founders of SolarSquare, which became the first Indian startup investment for well-known US investor Chris Sacca's Lowercarbon Capital. The entrepreneurs are betting they can differentiate themselves with their idiot-proof tech and superior after-sales service to bring solar power to millions of homes in India, which they say is a $50 billion opportunity
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The Big Picture: Sauvik Banerjjee at Tata Digital and Anand Chandrasekaran at Mad Street Den on 'whither personalisation'
Our guests today are Sauvik Banerjjee, founding CTO of Tata Digital, and Anand Chandrasekaran, co-founder and CTO of Mad Street Den, whose AI platform blox.ai plays an important role in the personalisation features of the Tata Group's new consumer app, Tata Neu. In this episode, Sauvik and Anand talk about bringing the power of AI to the evergreen quest for understanding the individual consumer's behaviour more intimately. They also have a non-techie piece of advice for aspiring CTOs