The Startup Fridays Podcast

Startup Fridays S5 Ep11: Zepic's founders on their approach to marketing automation

Startup Fridays S5 Ep11: Zepic's founders on their approach to marketing automation

Startup Fridays S5 Ep10: Ideaspring's partners on backing the next-gen deep techs in India

Startup Fridays S5 Ep10: Ideaspring's partners on backing the next-gen deep techs in India

Startup Fridays S5 Ep10: Ideaspring's partners on backing the next-gen deep techs in India

Startup Fridays S5 Ep10: Ideaspring's partners on backing the next-gen deep techs in India

Startup Fridays S5 Ep9: Clairco and Sensiable join forces on decarbonising buildings

Startup Fridays S5 Ep9: Clairco and Sensiable join forces on decarbonising buildings

Startup Fridays S5 Ep8: Parithi Govindaraju on Okulo's long-endurance drones for India

Startup Fridays S5 Ep8: Parithi Govindaraju on Okulo's long-endurance drones for India

  • Startup Fridays S5 Ep7: Abhishek Poddar and Saurabh Arora's experiment with tech and radical transparency

    Startup Fridays S5 Ep7: Abhishek Poddar and Saurabh Arora's experiment with tech and radical transparency

    In this episode, Abhishek Poddar and Saurabh Arora, founders of Plum Benefits Insurance Brokers, talk about how they are using tech to reimagine employee health benefits and insurance. In this conversation, Abhishek and Saurabh, who started Plum five years ago, also talk about how the journey so far has been one of discovering "a culture of radical transparency" with all stakeholders, which is at the heart of their success

  • Startup Fridays S5 Ep6: AI for India - Jan ki baat, Sthaan and other use cases from People+ai

    Startup Fridays S5 Ep6: AI for India - Jan ki baat, Sthaan and other use cases from People+ai

    This episode is part 2 of a conversation with Tanuj Bhojwani, head of People+ai, a non-profit effort that's working to find population-scale applications of artificial intelligence that are relevant to large problems in India. In this conversation, Tanuj about how both the development and applications of AI in India will be different from what we see happening in the rich countries. People+ai is funded by Nandan Nilekani, chairman of Infosys and former chairman of UIDAI, through his EkStep Foundation

  • Startup Fridays S5 Ep5: AI for India - How people+ai was born

    Startup Fridays S5 Ep5: AI for India - How people+ai was born

    In this episode, Tanuj Bhojwani, head of people+ai, a non-profit effort that's working to find population-scale applications of artificial intelligence that are relevant to large problems in India, does a quick recounting of how the initiative was seeded. In this conversation, which I hope will be the first of many on AI for India, Bhojwani also gives us a quick overview of the four main objectives at people+ai, funded by Nandan Nilekani, chairman of Infosys and former chairman of UIDAI, via his EkStep Foundation

  • Startup Fridays S5 Ep4: Axio's founders unpack lessons from BNPL success

    Startup Fridays S5 Ep4: Axio's founders unpack lessons from BNPL success

    In this episode, Sashank Rishyasringa, and Gaurav Hinduja, co-founders of Axio, a buy-now-pay-later specialist in Bengaluru, talk about how, while a strong regulatory environment is critical in fintech, it can also become an enabler of innovation. Lower cost of money for "new entrants and challengers" with innovative financial products can benefit millions of consumers, which in turn can help India's economic growth, they say

  • Axio's founders unpack lessons from BNPL success

    Axio's founders unpack lessons from BNPL success

    In this episode, Sashank Rishyasringa, and Gaurav Hinduja, co-founders of Axio, a buy-now-pay-later specialist in Bengaluru, talk about how, while a strong regulatory environment is critical in fintech, it can also become an enabler of innovation. Lower cost of money for "new entrants and challengers" with innovative financial products can benefit millions of consumers, which in turn can help India's economic growth, they say

  • Startup Fridays S5 Ep3: Ashok Jhunjhunwala on why India must say 'yes we can' to deep tech

    Startup Fridays S5 Ep3: Ashok Jhunjhunwala on why India must say 'yes we can' to deep tech

    In this episode, Ashok Jhunjhunwala, institute professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and president of IITM Research Park, Incubation Cell and RTBI, talks about why the next big push is needed now for India to become a nation of deep tech products over the next decade. He also asks that administrators and bureaucrats change their control mindset to allow our scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to fail without fear so that they can eventually succeed in building this ecosystem for India

  • Startup Fridays: Vinod Shankar's journey from software techie to lending books to deep tech investor

    Startup Fridays: Vinod Shankar's journey from software techie to lending books to deep tech investor

    Vinod Shankar, founding managing partner at Java Capital in Bengaluru, talks about his passion for backing deep tech entrepreneurs. Shankar started out as a software engineer but his insatiable thirst for knowledge has taken him from a software startup to leading marketing for a new-age library chain to angel investing to eventually working at a VC firm before starting one of his own. Vinod talks about why he wants to invest in deep tech ventures, and how he identifies entrepreneurs worth backing

  • Startup Fridays S5 Ep2: Vinod Shankar's journey from software techie to lending books to deep tech investor

    Startup Fridays S5 Ep2: Vinod Shankar's journey from software techie to lending books to deep tech investor

    In this episode, Vinod Shankar, founding managing partner at Java Capital in Bengaluru, talks about his passion for backing deep tech entrepreneurs. Shankar started out as a software engineer but his insatiable thirst for knowledge has taken him from a software startup to leading marketing for a library chain to angel investing to eventually working at a VC firm before starting one of his own. Vinod talks about why he wants to invest in deep tech ventures, and how he identifies entrepreneurs worth backing

  • Startup Fridays S5 Ep1: Karan Mohla at B Capital on the convergence he sees coming in India's startup ecosystem

    Startup Fridays S5 Ep1: Karan Mohla at B Capital on the convergence he sees coming in India's startup ecosystem

    And in this episode, Karan Mohla, partner at the VC firm B Capital talks about the convergence that he sees beginning to happen, which is bringing different aspects of India's startup ecosystem to points of inflection. Karan, who's backed companies including FirstCry, HealthifyMe, XpressBees and CropIn, also talks about how he figured out early that entrepreneurship was not for him, but backing founders was. He talks about learning from early mistakes as a VC investor and the importance of being self-aware and honest when deciding on investments

  • Startup Fridays S4 Ep24: Kavita Shenoy, Anand Gopal part 2 — from nearly running out of money to a done deal

    Startup Fridays S4 Ep24: Kavita Shenoy, Anand Gopal part 2 — from nearly running out of money to a done deal

    This is part two of a conversation with Kavita Shenoy and Anand Gopal, on their 10-year entrepreneurial roller coaster, building Voiro, an ad-tech SaaS company in Bengaluru. In today's episode, they talk about how the $750 billion ad landscape is changing, their hopes for Voiro's future, how building their own company has been life-changing, and why it has them coming back for more every day

  • Startup Fridays S4 Ep23: Kavita Shenoy, Anand Gopal part 1: 30k from Nandan Nilekani to multinational customers at Voiro

    Startup Fridays S4 Ep23: Kavita Shenoy, Anand Gopal part 1: 30k from Nandan Nilekani to multinational customers at Voiro

    Today we bring you part one of a conversation with Kavita Shenoy and Anand Gopal, on their 10-year entrepreneurial adventure, building Voiro, an ad-tech SaaS company in Bengaluru. In today's episode, they talk about how they started Voiro, and then went from consulting and services and an "excel sheet from hell" to a software product and winning customers like Hotstar and Flipkart

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