The Startup Fridays Podcast
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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
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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
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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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Viral Shah on the journey of Julia programming language to tackle the 'two language problem'
Viral Shah, co-inventor of Julia programming language and co-founder of Julia Hub, an enterprise software startup, talks about the opensource language's journey since he first started exchanging emails on the idea with his co-founders back in late 2009. Julia Hub was founded in 2015 and has raised about $43 million in funding. Shah and his co-founders are helping scientists and engineers innovate faster — in pharmaceuticals, aerospace, semiconductors, and industrial engineering
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Startup Fridays S4 Ep22: Viral Shah on the mission at Julia Hub to help scientists and engineers innovate faster
Viral Shah, co-inventor of Julia programming language and co-founder of Julia Hub, an enterprise software startup, talks about this opensource language's journey that will touch 15 years in the new year. Julia Hub, founded in 2015, today has customers including some of the world's biggest companies in pharmaceuticals, aerospace, semiconductors, and industrial engineering. With some $43 million in funding, Shah and his co-founders are helping scientists and engineers innovate faster by tackling what he calls the "two language problem"
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Startup Fridays S4 Ep21: Amit Gupta on sticking to his by-the-pincode approach to scaling Yulu
In this episode, Amit Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Yulu Bikes, gives us an update on how the electric moped venture will continue its pincode-by-pincode approach to growth. Earlier this year, Yulu added a battery-as-a-service business, called Yuma. Yulu has also entered the OEM business, with Bajaj Auto making the Yulu Wynn, a more stylish version of the Yulu Miracle, that consumers can buy for about ₹55,000 upfront, and then subscribe to a battery and mobility plan. Amit expects to expects Yulu to hit breakeven this year.
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Startup Fridays S4 Ep20: Kiran Mysore on his journey from Bhadravati to UTEC's deep tech evangelist
In this episode, we chat with Kiran Mysore, a principal at the University of Tokyo Edge Capital, one of Asia's biggest deep tech VC funds, on the ninth anniversary of his move to Japan, where he found his calling as a deep tech VC investor, leading global investments including into India and Southeast Asia. We spoke mostly about his experience with the deep tech ecosystem in India thus far and his plans. But Kiran also opened up a bit about his love of learning and how he stays on track
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Startup Fridays S4 Ep19: Kunal Khattar on how the best is yet to come in India's EV sector
In this episode, Kunal Khattar, founding partner at AdvantEdge Founders, an early-stage VC firm in Delhi focused on India's mobility sector, talks about the future of this industry in India and the role that companies ranging from Ather to Tesla could play in it. He also talks about business innovations that could soon make electric vehicles more affordable to the Indian buyer and perhaps even cheaper than the fossil-fuel-guzzling ones. Kunal also spoke a little bit about his entrepreneurial journey leading up to the setting up of his VC firm
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Startup Fridays S4 Ep18: Arun Raghavan on journey from accidental investor to $40 mln fund at Arali
Arun Raghavan, founding partner at Arali Ventures in Bengaluru, talks about how he and his friend Rajiv Raghunandan became VC investors with an operator's flavour, and the experience that's helped them invest very early in entrepreneurs across sectors, from fintech and SaaS to deep tech startups. Arun also talks about how India is ready for the next level of sophistication in sectors such as SaaS, where we need to go from application-level plays to infrastructure layers. Such companies would then be truly relevant to global customers
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Startup Fridays S4 Ep 17: TN Hari's counterintuitive ideas on purpose and other notes on Indian startups
In this episode, TN Hari, co-founder of Artha School of Entrepreneurship, who's also a prolific author on building for India, and an angel investor, talks about his learnings from across his career — from being a corporate executive at Tata Steel to diving into startups like TaxiForSure and BigBasket. He talks about problems in India that aren't necessarily amenable to the hyper-growth model of VC funded startups. And he talks about the value of some highly effective leaders, who're almost invisible to the public eye, he says.
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Startup Fridays S4 Ep16: How Shivnath Babu wears two hats lightly, an entrepreneur and a scientist
In this episode, Shivnath Babu, co-founder and CTO of Unravel Data, talks about the growing importance of data observability and the contributions being made by his venture. Shivnath started his career as a computer science engineer from IIT Madras and then earned his PhD in the area of data platforms at Stanford University. He spent 12 years as an adjunct professor at Duke University before teaming up with Kunal Agarwal to start Unravel Data. The venture today is a Series D-funded company with investors including Third Point Ventures, Menlo Ventures and GGV Capital