Founders Unfiltered

Join us as we talk to Ravi Kumar, the Cofounder of Upstox about their story. Ravi and his younger brother Raghu were born in Madhya Pradesh, India, then moved to France before settling in Canada for 8 years. Ravi completed his high schooling there and developed a strong interest in startups. He later moved to California to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Information and Computer Science at UC Irvine, graduating in 2004. In September 2006, the brothers relocated to Chicago and co-founded RK Trading Partnership, a successful HFT firm that earned them over a million dollars in just two years. However, the 2008 crash forced them to return to India. In 2009, Ravi co-founded Upstox. 🏢 About Upstox: Upstox is an online trading app for Demat Account, Share Market, MF, IPO with 1cr+ customers. Backed by Ratan Tata and venture capitalists such as Tiger Global, Upstox offers a best-in-class technology-enabled trading platform. Headquartered in Mumbai, Upstox holds memberships with the NSE, BSE, MCX, and MCX-SX. 🌐 For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/ Playlists🎬: 🎙️Founders Unfiltered: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_1r_yCxtrkFtTqwgoKj8f66 🎥 AJVC BTS: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_2SqAGAJ0_rS1--1u82jvfL 🦄 Start-up Chronicles: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_0ujPMygWRZQcJBK250BXbC 🔎 AJVC Insights: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_00SpPyAU_zhicXdehoNuBd 🎯 Deep Dives: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_2BHzAOji1wBEKjXo-go7e6 📈 Founder Insights: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_1L3HjHLvNUQgPWGrfcoc-q

Join us as we talk to Rohit Chennamaneni, the Co-founder of Darwinbox about their story. Rohit Chennamaneni completed his Bachelor's degree in Technology from VIT Vellore and subsequently pursued his master's degree at IIM Lucknow. Following his education, he gained professional experience at renowned organisations such as Google, Procter & Gamble, and McKinsey & Company. Ultimately, in November 2015, he co-founded Darwinbox. 🏢 About Darwinbox: Darwinbox is a leading provider of cloud-based HR Management Software (HRMS). Their SaaS platform uses AI and ML to create a smarter and mobile-first HR experience. Darwinbox serves over 750 organisations and 2 million employees across 100+ countries. Their clients include notable conglomerates and technology companies like Adani, Kopi Kenangan, MatchMove, Mahindra, Bank BTPN, TVS, Shakey's, JSW, Nivea, Swiggy, Tokopedia, JG Summit Group, NutriAsia, Indorama, and more. 🌐 For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/ Playlists🎬: 🎙️Founders Unfiltered: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_1r_yCxtrkFtTqwgoKj8f66 🎥 AJVC BTS: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_2SqAGAJ0_rS1--1u82jvfL 🦄 Start-up Chronicles: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_0ujPMygWRZQcJBK250BXbC 🔎 AJVC Insights: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_00SpPyAU_zhicXdehoNuBd 🎯 Deep Dives: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_2BHzAOji1wBEKjXo-go7e6 📈 Founder Insights: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZb75L7Qi_1L3HjHLvNUQgPWGrfcoc-q

🎙️Founders Unfiltered Ep-81: Brought to you by the Founders Unfiltered podcast by A Junior VC - Unscripted conversations with Indian founders about their story and the process of building a company. Hosted by Aviral and Mazin. Join us as we talk to Madhusudan Ekambaram, the CEO and Co-Founder of KreditBee about their story. In 2004, Madhu completed his Bachelor's degree in Information Technology from NIT, Karnatka. He enrolled in the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto to pursue an MBA in 2010 but later dropped out in 2011. Throughout his career, Madhu has worked with notable companies such as TCS and Krazybee. In 2020, Madhu co-founded the Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE). Additionally, he serves as an angel investor in various companies, including Wint Wealth, OneCode, Jodo, and others. Finally, in 2018, he co-founded KreditBee. He is also a proud recipient of "Rashtrpathi Puraskar" from K.R. Narayanan, President of India, and "Rajya Puraskar" from Khurshid Alam Khan, Governor of Karnataka State, India, for his contribution towards the Scout Movement. 🏢 About KreditBee: KreditBee is a financial technology (FinTech) platform that enables professionals to obtain immediate personal loans based on their specific needs, with loan amounts of up to Rs. 4 lakh. The platform has received funding in its Series-D round and is supported by reputable investors such as Advent International, Premji Invest, Motilal Oswal Alternates, TPG-NewQuest, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, ICICI Bank, and Mirae Asset Venture Investments. Presently, the company serves a customer base of 10 million individuals throughout the country. 🌐 For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

🎙️Founders Unfiltered Ep-80: Brought to you by the Founders Unfiltered podcast by A Junior VC - Unscripted conversations with Indian founders about their story and the process of building a company. Hosted by Aviral and Mazin. Join us as we talk to Manish Rathi, the Co-founder & CEO of Rail Yatri and IntrCity about their story. In 1992, Manish successfully earned his Bachelor's degree in Technology from the University of Mumbai. He continued his academic journey and obtained his Master's degree from Western Michigan University in 1997. Following his graduation, Manish began his career as a research scientist at Telcordia Technologies. Subsequently, he gained valuable experience working in various roles with different companies, including Leapstone Systems, July Systems, and ultimately GlobalLogic. In July 2011, Manish took on a new venture and co-founded Intrcity. 🏢 About Rail Yatri and IntrCity: Intrcity RailYatri began its journey in 2011, and Intrcity SmartBus was introduced in early 2019. Intrcity SmartBus consists of a group of buses with special branding, aiming to offer passengers a consistent, safe, secure, and comfortable bus travel experience. In early 2019, Intrcity SmartBus started operating in two cities, and now it connects over 100 cities across India. The objective of RailYatri is to offer current and accurate information to the 25 million passengers who travel by train daily. Within its first year of launch, RailYatri's Android app has crossed 1 million downloads. 🌐 For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Join us as we talk to Ashish Jhina, the Co-founder  Jumbotail  about their story. In 2005, Ashish earned a dual degree in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology from IIT Delhi. He later pursued an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and an MS in Environment and Resources—Freshwater from Stanford University in 2011. During his time at IIT Delhi, Ashish gained valuable experience interning at the Technical University of Denmark and the French National Institute of Agricultural Research. Subsequently, he worked with prominent companies such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Moutain Hazelnuts. In 2009, he co-founded a company named NextDrop before co-founding Jumbotail in 2015. Ashish's dedication to excellence and his commitment to empowering retailers have resulted in Jumbotail being recognized as a transformative force within the industry. Apart from his contributions to Jumbotail, Ashish is highly regarded as a leading figure in the entrepreneurial community. For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Srinath Ravichandran, Co-Founder & CEO of AgniKul Cosmos, shares his remarkable journey from engineering to aerospace. He discusses the challenges of pitching a rocket company in India and the storytelling techniques he learned in film school. Srinath highlights the critical trade-offs in rocket science, revealing the complexities behind design decisions. He also explores the future of space transportation, emphasizing the rise of small satellite launches and the industry's evolving dynamics. Expect insights into the less glamorous side of space ventures!

In 1996, Shub Bhowmick completed his B.Tech. in chemical engineering from IIT-BHU and later pursued his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Throughout his career, he worked with a number of companies, including Infosys, Motif, Mu Sigma, inVentic Health, American Express, and Liberty Advisor Group, before co-founding Tredence in February 2013. Shub Bhowmick's journey is a testament to his commitment to excellence, innovation, and the pursuit of growth. His passion for data analytics and business intelligence has played a key role in Tredence's success, and his contributions continue to shape the company's future. After earning his Bachelor's degree in Technology from IIT Madras, Shashank Dubey pursued an MBA from ISB. He then gained work experience with DRDO and Mu Sigma before co-founding Tredence. His passion for data analytics and business intelligence, combined with his entrepreneurial spirit and leadership skills, have helped Tredence establish itself as a leader in the industry. About Tredence: Tredence is a global data science solutions provider focused on solving the last mile problem in AI. The ‘last mile’ is the gap between insight creation and value realization.  Headquartered in San Jose, the company embraces a vertical-first approach and an outcome-driven mindset to help clients win and accelerate value realization from their analytics investments. Tredence is a Great Place to Work-Certified and a ‘Leader’ in the Forrester Wave: Customer Analytics Services. Tredence is 1,500-plus employees strong with offices in San Jose, Foster City, Chicago, London, Toronto, and Bangalore, with the largest companies in retail, CPG, hi-tech, telecom, healthcare, travel, and industrials as clients. For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Join us as we talk to Avnish Anand, the Co Founder and COO and Mithun Sacheti, the Co Founder and CEO of CaratLane, a Tanishq Partnership, about their stories. Mithun completed his B.com from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics. Later on, he completed his Master's from IIM Bangalore in 2010. He served as a Director of Jaipur Gems for 10 years and founded CaratLane in 2008.  Avnish completed his Bachelor's degree in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute in 1998 and later obtained an MBA from IIM Lucknow in 2001. He has worked with several companies such as ONIDA, Standard Chartered Bank, and DuPont India before joining the founding team of CaratLane in 2007. About CaratLane: CaratLane, India’s first omni-channel jewellery brand, was founded in 2008 by Mithun Sacheti and Srinivasa Gopalan with a simple but courageous objective: to make beautiful jewellery accessible, affordable, and forever wearable. With a strategic investment from Titan Company Limited, CaratLane is now a partner with India’s largest retail jeweller, Tanishq. The partnership aims to work towards a common mission: to offer customers beautiful jewellery and a distinctive shopping experience that fits today’s values and lifestyles, enabling CaratLane to grow as India’s 21st century jewellery brand.

Arnav Kumar is the Founder of Leap Finance, a digital platform that helps Indian students access loans for studying abroad. He completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Applied Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in 2010. After graduation, he worked at Deutsche Bank as an Analyst and then joined UrbanTouch.com as a Vice President. In 2013, he founded Sokratik, but unfortunately, he could not find product-market fit and had a suboptimal GTM strategy. Later on, he founded Zoomo in 2014. He then joined Elevation Capital (previously known as SAIF Partners) as an Associate Vice President. Finally, in 2019, he founded Leap Finance. About Leap Finance: From Sundar Pichai to Indira Nooyi and Satya Nadella to Laxman Narasimhan, Indians today lead the world’s most influential companies. Increasingly, young Indians are going beyond geographical boundaries - to study at the best global schools and pursue global careers. Leap Finance supports future leaders from India in their quest for global impact. They create modern financial products and services that help Indian students pursue a global career. From choosing the right university and the best financing option to lining up job interviews and introductions, Leap Finance invests heavily in your success. Leap Finance (www.leapscholar.com) offers counselling and related services for study abroad aspirants.

Rohan is an accomplished entrepreneur and computer scientist who is best known for founding the technology company Soroco. Born in 1983, Rohan Murty is the son of N.R. Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of the Indian multinational corporation Infosys. Rohan Murty graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Cornell University. He later went on to obtain a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard University, where he specialised in "Opportunistic Wireless Network Architectures". He also worked as a research intern with Caltech and Microsoft. In 2010, Rohan Murty founded Soroco, a company that develops and implements automation solutions for various industries. Apart from his work at Soroco, Rohan Murty is also an author and philanthropist. He has authored several books, including a translation of the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata. He has also established the Murty Classical Library of India, a project that aims to translate and publish classical Indian literature. Rohan Murty's entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to innovation have made him a leading figure in the technology industry. His contributions to the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning have helped shape the way businesses operate and have set the stage for future advancements in the field.   About Soroco: Soroco's mission is to enable organizations to enhance how teams experience work and drive higher productivity by scaling empathy through Scout work graph. Today, teams spend over 60% of the workday on unstructured interactions across emails, documents, and custom applications – outside of ERP, CRM, and other systems of records. This massive enterprise data is untapped and undocumented. Our flagship product Scout, powered by the work graph, provides near real-time, structured insights into this last mile of manual digital work and helps enterprises accelerate their transformation journey. Unlike traditional solutions, the "work graph" provides a single source of truth. We are a deep tech company with ~40 patents. We have operations across the USA, Europe, UK, Singapore & India, with a roster of Fortune 500 customers across 30 countries. Visit www.soroco.com to learn how we help teams discover their work graph.