Lessons From India's First Unicorn Founder on Building Large Businesses | Naveen Tewari

Most founders build one unicorn. Naveen Tewari built two.InMobi started with a simple bet: mobile would become the world's most important computing platform, and advertising could make it free for everyone. Every Indian VC said no. Naveen flew to San Francisco on a maxed-out credit card and returned with a $7 million round from Kleiner Perkins and Ram Shriram. Later came a $200 million investment from Masayoshi Son. Overnight, InMobi became India's first unicorn. Then he did it again.Glance, built quietly inside InMobi over three years, is now one of the fastest-growing consumer apps in the US, with more than 10 million monthly active users in the US.The thesis behind both companies is the same. The world's most powerful technologies, first mobile and now AI, only reach masses when someone figures out how to pay for them. Naveen believes advertising is that mechanism, and that InMobi is uniquely positioned to subsidise AI access at population scale, just as it helped subsidise mobile a decade ago.If you want to understand how one founder from India has quietly helped shape two technology eras, this episode is for you.00:00 - Trailer00:57 - Why Naveen became a founder03:26 - How co-founders met and came together11:33 - The pivot from mKhoj to InMobi15:02 - Can AI be subsidised for mass consumption?16:12 - Expanding globally before the US18:29 - Which industries can delay entry to US market?20:53 - What is Glance?23:55 - Incubated within InMobi for 2 years25:17 - What changes when you face failure in public?29:10 - How the SoftBank round changed InMobi32:53 - Maxing out credit cards to pay bills38:18 - $7Million Kleiner Perkins & Ram Shriram round43:07 - Hypergrowth journey: Series A to Series C45:41 - $200 million funding from Masa53:31 - Change of VC ecosystem in India54:34 - How building for B2B differs from B2C58:50 - How AI is changing InMobi and Glance-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail