Z47 Moments

What do you do when the resume is perfect but the work isn't yours yet?Utkarsh Gupta grew up in the Dainik Jagran family in Kanpur, a thirty-person joint family, a media legacy, and a grandfather who once left an entire newspaper page blank during the Emergency and went to jail for it. By thirty-two, Utkarsh had built his own answer: Comet, the Indian sneaker brand that put a mango shoe and a rubber-ducky shoe into the world before it ever touched a marketplace.In this episode, Avnish Bajaj and Utkarsh sit with the questions most founders never say out loud:Was the MBA real, or was I procrastinating? 1. How do you build your own legacy when one's already been handed to you? 2. How do you tell persistence apart from stubbornness when the first launch sells two pairs? 3. When everyone says list on Myntra, why wait two and a half years?A masterclass in brand building, told as a confession.Chapters0:00 Introduction0:50 Growing up in Kanpur's joint family1:13 How Dainik Jagran started on a cycle in 19402:09 Why he left a media dynasty to build his own thing4:47 Doon School changed everything at age 116:20 Grandfather's lesson: don't be afraid to scale11:50 How Chicago's sneaker culture sparked Comet13:31 Creating your own surface area of luck14:55 Finding co-founder Dushyant23:24 The 4-pillar brand strategy that built Comet27:09 Why they waited 2.5 years before joining Myntra28:55 The Mango shoe sold 2 units in 4 days — they persisted anyway31:40 3 metrics every founder should track41:46 Building the sole from scratch (4-5 moulds, 6 months)43:02 Creasing problem: sourced a secret material from Korea46:12 Instagram → Stores → Myntra: the distribution sequence49:43 Exclusive reveal: the Rubber Ducky drop (May)

Do you need an original idea to start a company? Do you need to be a consumer of your category? Do you need the "right" co-founders?Manish Taneja was none of those things. He grew up in Faridabad a self-described "frog of his own well." He went to IIT and "felt very small." He became a banker, then an investor, then started a beauty company with two other male engineers, with no female co-founder, and no personal stake in the category. He still built Purplle into one of India's largest beauty platforms.In this episode of Unstarted, Avnish Bajaj and Manish sit down to work through the questions that every founder without a clear edge asks themselves:1. Do you need an original idea, or is it okay to be a "copycat entrepreneur"?  When VCs tell you your team is missing something 2. Do you fix the weakness or back your strength? – How do you find a wedge in a category where everyone else has more money, more experience, and more insider knowledge? 3. What do you do when your ego won't let you leave — and is that the thing keeping you in the game? 4. How do you build responsibly without losing your edge?Manish's answer to all of it, in the end, comes down to two lines: back your strengths, and build responsibly. This conversation is about how he got there.Chapters00:00 The $100 million mistake01:55 Faridabad, the frog in the well03:03 Feeling small at IIT, and the speech that changed everything05:31 Lehman, Avendus, and the long apprenticeship08:52 "I was the original copycat entrepreneur"12:58 The feedback from Matrix: no woman co-founder14:54 Why beauty, and why now17:52 Dabau early: the rosemary water playbook22:00 How Purplle won Kerala (and met the priests)26:02 The internal compass, and saying no to Thrasios28:53 Why your ego won't let you leave30:36 Why he built in Bombay33:17 The IPO question35:49 Build responsibly

What do you do with the regret of being right too early?Aakrit Vaish started Haptik in 2013: an AI chatbot company nine years before ChatGPT. By 2016 he knew the market wasn't ready. He kept going anyway. In 2019 he sold to Reliance Jio. In November 2022, he watched the world finally catch up to the thesis he'd carried for a decade and for a few weeks, sat with the sentence: "This should have been me."Today he's co-founder of Activate, an AI-native VC firm running with two partners, one employee and seven agents, and an advisor on the India AI Mission. In this episode, Avnish Bajaj sits down with a founder who has rejected him more than once, and asks the questions most founders quietly carry:1. How do you know whether you're early, late, or correctly timed?2. Why do you keep going when the rational move is to stop?3. When the world eventually proves you right, what do you do with the grief?4. In AI today, what does it actually mean to be in the 99th percentile — globally, not locally?5. How does a high-agency founder stay ahead when the tools keep rewriting the job?6. What Aakrit lands on: market timing matters, but identity matters more. 7. Mission over everything else. And the only advice he gives, seven times a day, to anyone who'll listen: have agency. Build. Don't wait.Chapters00:00 Why Did You Let ChatGPT Happen?02:30 Welcome to Unstarted — Introducing Aakrit Vaish04:00 Growing Up in Juhu — Normal Mumbai Business Family06:30 UIUC, PayPal Mafia & Moving to Silicon Valley09:00 Why He Came Back to India at 2711:00 What Was Haptic? India's First AI Chatbot Company14:00 The Alexa Moment That Started It All (London 2012)18:00 How Founders Can Know If They Are Too Early or Too Late23:00 2016 — He Knew It Was Too Early. He Kept Going Anyway27:30 Fear of Failure vs Fear of Not Trying Hard Enough31:00 The Pull vs Push Test — The Clearest PMF Signal35:00 Why He Sold Haptic to Reliance38:30 ChatGPT Launched. His First Reaction Was Personal43:00 "Should That Have Been Me?" — The Honest Answer47:00 From Reliance to India AI Mission to Activate VC51:00 How to Know Which Problem Is Worth Solving With AI55:30 99th Percentile or Nothing — The New Bar for AI Founders59:00 Why AI in India Is the Most Ignored Opportunity1:03:00 Anthropic vs OpenAI — Two Different Strategies Explained1:07:00 Voice AI, FinTech & How GDP Will Actually Grow1:11:00  The K-Shift — GDP Growth at the Cost of InequalityFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

What happens when you spend 13 years building something, and for most of those years, the people around you think it's not going to work out?Jaydeep Barman left a gilded career at McKinsey's London office to bet on a single roll shop in Pune. What followed was a decade-plus journey through India's costliest real estate market, the invention of an entirely new category (cloud kitchens — before anyone called it that), and the slow, painful work of staying in the game while companies that started years after him became unicorns overnight.In this conversation, Avnish and Jaydeep wrestle with:1. How do you find the one insight nobody else has, and trust it when the world disagrees?2. What do you do when your investors mentally write you off?3. Why does every real innovation at Rebel come from the moments they were closest to shutting down?4. How do you build a team that stays for 13 years, through the pain, the doubt, and the long wait?5. This is a conversation about what it actually costs to stay in the arena longer than everyone expects you to, and what that buys you that nothing else can.Chapters: 00:00 The reality of startup comparison & investor pressure01:30 Why we didn’t pivot to food delivery (despite the hype)02:30 From McKinsey to starting a food business04:10 The first roll shop: how Fasos began09:00 Learning the business & why curiosity matters most11:20 Insight v/s timing: finding your “right to win”13:40 Building a cloud kitchen breakthrough17:30 Founder mentality vs CV mentality20:00 Hiring, ownership & building real culture24:50 Performance vs culture: who stays, who leaves27:20 Rock bottom moments: running out of money & pushing throughFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

What does it take to fix the most broken system in America — from the outside?Ajay and Aniket, co-founders of Coral AI, had zero healthcare experience when they started. What they had was a burning problem, a one-way plane ticket to the US, and a relentless drive to understand healthcare from the ground up — visiting 17 cities in 30 days, becoming interns, and reading thousands of faxes doctors still send in 2026.In this episode of Zee47 Moments, Ashwin and Vikram sit down with the founders to unpack how Coral is using AI to eliminate the administrative chaos of patient referrals — cutting weeks of back-and-forth down to minutes — and how they're building one of the most AI-native companies in healthcare.🔍 What we cover:• Why 40% of primary care visits result in a referral — and how that process is broken• How fax machines still run US healthcare in 2026• The technology behind going from 80% to 99.1% accuracy on medical documents• Why Epic and OpenAI can't solve this problem — but Coral can• Winning head-to-head against a competitor that raised $100M+• The "forward deployed engineer" model and why it's not services• Building a lean, 10x team of future foundersCoral just raised $12.5M led by Zee47. This is their story.─────────────────────────────CHAPTERS0:00 17 days to get a scan2:22 Picking healthcare with zero healthcare background4:48 17 cities in 30 days and the Mamba mentality8:26 Inside the fax machine: how a US referral actually works14:16 Getting to 99% accuracy (and why 95% isn't enough)20:48 Beating a competitor with 10x the money24:56 $100K to $500K without a sales team28:07 The 10X-only team and the FTE model done right33:40 Failure, rapid fire, and what's nextFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

Sanket Shah started thinking about business at 17. His first idea was putting ads on Mumbai's auto-rickshaws. The government said no. He went to Mantralaya three times, met the Chief Minister, got sent to the transport commissioner, and received government letters at home for four years.He got 4 rickshaws approved.Twenty-something years later, he's the founder of Invideo — a video creation platform operating at serious scale, with under 100 people. And right now, he's stopped looking at his revenue numbers entirely. He has two people running the existing business. He is fully allocated to what comes next.In this conversation with Avnish Bajaj, Sanket talks about why you can't optimise your way through a ceiling — and what it actually costs to do something drastic. He talks about the one conversation he had in San Francisco where he and his co-founder both knew they had to change course, chose not to, and paid for it all year.Founder questions tackled in this episode: 1. What's the difference between an L1 insight and the insight that actually can't be copied? 2. When does persistence become stubbornness? How do you know which side you're on? 3. How do you talk to customers without asking leading questions — and what do you do with what you hear? 4. When everyone's going agentic, how do you actually stand out?Recorded in association with Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM), ahead of Mumbai Tech Week 2026  May 29–30 at Jio World Convention Centre. Register at mumbaitechweek.com.Follow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

Harsh Jain built Dream11 from a family business detour and a love of fantasy football into a company that sponsored every IPL team, sent athletes to the Olympics, and had 300 million users.Then the government effectively ended the business he'd spent 15 years building.This conversation isn't about the rise. It's about what happens after the nuclear bomb falls — how you grieve something you loved, how you decide whether to fight or pivot, and how you keep 1,000 people from walking out the door.The questions Avnish and Harsh wrestle with:1. Do you really need an original idea, or do you need to be obsessed with a problem?2. What's the difference between being in love with your company and just being attracted to the outcome?3. How do you keep going after 150 investor rejections — and is "keep going" always the right answer?4. What do you do when the nuclear bomb falls on everything you built?5. Can culture actually survive catastrophe, or does it only exist in the good times?In the end culture is the only thing that scales. Not the product or funding. The team and whether you built something worth staying for.YouTube Chapters00:00 The neighbour who built Dream11 05:09 Love vs. lust: the only thing that keeps you going 06:39 Q1: Do you really need an original idea? 10:27 150 rejections: the napkin, the car ride 18:37 Q2:How to know if you actually have product-market fit 22:03 Culture is the founder's DNA 27:43 The nuclear bomb falls 32:54 What happens after you grieve together 39:45 Why Harsh never left Mumbai 41:21 — What Mumbai Tech Week is actually for 44:10 — B talent. A culture. One big problem.Follow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

OpenClaw went from zero to more GitHub stars than React, a library that took a decade to build that following, in 60 days. One graph, vertical, like nothing the developer community had ever seen.When Z47’s founder, Avnish Bajaj saw that graph, something shifted.Six months earlier, the at Z47 had sat down to look at the velocity of AI deal-making, the valuations, the volume of capital flooding in, and called it a bubble. The consensus was clear: enterprise adoption would lag, the economics wouldn't close, and the correction would come.Then that graph happened. Then agentic AI happened. Then self-healing code happened. And the thing everyone assumed would lag — enterprise adoption — is now about to explode.Avnish sits down with Rajinder on Intelligent Indians to work through what changed, what it means, and what every founder and operator needs to do right now before the window closes.The conversation covers:1. Why the bubble call was wrong, and the specific moment that broke the consensus thesis2. The AI Agency vs. Mastery K-curve an what it means for your trajectoryAnswering the question “Will AI take my job?”3. How India is positioned to build AI services4. What AI-native actually means (And no, it is not using ChatGPT) 5. A live demo of Avnish's WhatsApp-based agent ZenChapters 00:00 "I Called a Bubble. I Was Wrong 06:15 The Moment That Changed Everything: OpenClaw and the Enterprise Unlock 08:16 The K-Curve: Why AI Won't Take Your Job — But Someone Else Will 14:29 India's Real Opportunity (It's Not What You Think) 22:16 What Founders Should Actually Do Right Now 27:48 Live Demo: Avi's AI Agent "Zen" 33:24 I've Been Waiting 35 Years. It's Finally HereFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

Most people know what they want. The problem is they keep waiting for certainty that never comes.Oolka founder, Utkrishta Kumar built India's first just-in-time fulfilment network at 27, helped scale Meesho through one of India's biggest social commerce pivots and then left before the IPO. Not because he had to, but because the regret of not starting felt heavier than the risk of failing.In this episode, Avnish and Utkrishta work through the questions early founders actually get stuck on:1. How do I know I'm ready to start up?2. How do you find PMF and is tracking PMF enough?3. How do I build an AI product that ChatGPT can't just replace tomorrow?4. If I've already made money, why does failure still terrify me?5. The conversation lands somewhere honest: you won't see the whole road. 6. You just need to be okay with the fogA new episode of Unstarted - every Thursday00:00  Leaving before the IPO00:56  Introduction: the one question every aspiring founder is asking 01:55  Growing up risk-averse 04:54 Q1: How do you know if starting up is the right move? 07:12 How to build a founder's operating system without an MBA 11:43 Q2: How do I know if I've reached PMF? 13:47 What Oolka does — and why every credit problem is individual 16:51 Why he left Meesho before the IPO — and the fear money doesn't fix 19:58 Q3: How do you build with AI without being replaced tomorrow? 26:49 Final advice: more than 70% never fire the bullet

What does it actually take to go from employee to founder — after 8 years inside one of India's greatest startups?In Episode 5 of Unstarted, Avnish Bajaj sits down with Anil Goteti, CEO of Scapia, to talk about the real founder journey — not the highlight reel. From leaving McKinsey after just one year, to carrying a US loan back to India, to building and shutting down his first startup before finding PMF with Scapia.This episode covers:- Why entrepreneurs are made, not born- The Monday Morning Test — knowing when to quit- What 8 years at Flipkart actually teaches you- Why competition never killed a company — customers did- How to know when your product is (and isn't) working- The failure before Scapia and what it taught himIn the end, the destination was always clear and the route was never going to be linear. Finally, the Monday morning test doesn't lie.Unstarted is a podcast by Z47 - by founders, for founders. Whether you've started or you're yet unstarted.YT Chapters0:00 - Introduction & What is Unstarted1:45 - Meet Anil Goteti — IIT, McKinsey, Flipkart & Scapia4:00 - Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made?7:30 - The Kid Who Wanted a Product in Every Indian's Hand11:00 - IIT Electrical vs Computer Science — The First Detour14:00 - Leaving McKinsey After 1 Year: "I Want to Be the King"18:30 - Joining Flipkart - Taking One Notch of Risk22:00 - 8 Years at Flipkart: The Best Projects & Lessons31:00 - The Monday Morning Test35:30 - Who Inspires Anil Goteti?39:00 - How Do You Know When Your Product Is Working?45:00 - Competition Never Killed Anyone - Customers Did49:00 - The Failed Startup Before Scapia54:00 - What's Next: Building Scapia

Most people have never heard of Captain Fresh.In 2020, Utham Gowda walked into Z47's office with one belief: take a shrimp from Chennai to New York, and it's a very profitable business. Nobody believed him. He built it anyway.Five years later: ₹10,000 Cr in revenue. ₹550 Cr EBITDA (annualised Q4 FY26). Distribution across 15 of the top 20 European retailers. One-third of the white-cloth restaurant market in the US. Three oceans, six countries, ten acquisitions — zero leverage, 100% management rollover on every deal.And by Utham's own accounting, another ₹600-700 Cr of EBITDA still on the table.In this episode, Z47's Sudipto Sannigrahi and Tarun Davda sit down with Utham in Bangalore for the most detailed conversation he's had on how Captain Fresh was designed, how it survived the most volatile macro environment in years, and what comes next, ahead of what is shaping up to be one of India's most significant IPOs.The quiet empire is about to become impossible to ignore.Chapters00:00 The original bet: "Take a shrimp from Chennai to New York"03:22 Six years on: what's changed, what hasn't05:08 The problem that stayed the same: why seafood is broken everywhere08:10 Why India wasn't enough: the pivot to US and Europe09:00 What Captain Fresh actually is today: US restaurants, European retail20:33 The supply side: three oceans, six countries, 250 factories22:29 The numbers, the growth, and how acquisitions drive both23:45 The acquisition playbook: zero leverage, 100% management rollover29:24 Wallet share and the platform magic (the Coral story)35:10 The FTA windfall they never modelled36:58 Tariffs, the rupee, and why the macro actually helped42:56 "Are you just playing multiple arbitrage?" 45:00 The four pillars: multi-species, multi-geo, vertical integration, tech49:31 The next 10 years: from supply chain to innovation powerhouse

What happens when you spend your whole career chasing external validation and it still isn't enough?Romita Mazumdar is the Founder and CEO of Foxtale, one of India's fastest-growing D2C beauty brands. But this conversation isn't about the business. It's about the years before it: the banking desk that made her feel seen for the wrong reasons, the VC firm where she was suddenly invisible, and the team dinner where someone asked a question she couldn't answer the expected way.In this episode, Avnish Bajaj and Romita attempt to answer: 1. When do you actually know it's time to leave? 2. How do you find PMF when you don't trust your own lens? 3. What does it mean to build for yourself, not for validation? 4. How do you know you have what it takes?5. What they land on: you either need self-belief, passion, or obsession. One 6. of the three. A hundred percent. That's the bar.Chapters00:00 The moment I decided to build a $100M consumer brand02:10 Overachiever mindset, validation & a confusing career path05:45 Losing confidence in VC & not feeling like I belonged09:05 Where my ambition really came from12:20 The turning point that made me choose entrepreneurship15:05 Q1: When do you know it’s time to leave your job and start up?20:40 Q2: How do you know you’ve found product–market fit?26:50 Q3: How do you deal with conflict when working with family / co-founders?30:10 Company first: the rule I use to make hard decisions35:10  What ambition, duty & entrepreneurship really meanFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

Most founders look at Aman Gupta and think: “he's different. I could never build that.Avnish Bajaj has known Aman for over 20 years - since before boAt, before Shark Tank, before any of it. He knows that's not the truth. That's exactly why he invited him on Unstarted.Aman Gupta co-founded BoAt in 2016 and built it into India's largest consumer audio brand, with ₹3000+ crore in revenue and a 45% co-founder stake. What most people don't know: before boAt, there were 5 other companies. Most didn't work. Some ran simultaneously. He got fired from almost every job he held. And he only had a 2-year window to prove himself.In this episode, Avnish and Aman try to answer the questions founders actually carry:1. Follow your passion" but what if you don't know what yours is yet? Is it really the idea that separates winners from losers? 2. What does it take to build a cult brand when you're nobody? When do you know it's time to hand the keys to someone else? 3. How do you stay unapologetically yourself when the whole world is watching?The answer they keep coming back to: it's less about being born right, and more about being willing to stay in the game.Chapters00:00 Aman Gupta & Baazi backstory01:21 Podcast intro – What is Unstarted02:44 Introducing Aman Gupta (boAt founder)04:11 Shark Tank, media & public image08:15 Jobs, getting fired & entrepreneurial DNA11:12 “Hum bhi bana lenge” mindset14:45 Q1Are entrepreneurs born or made?17:52 Q2 3 outrageous qualities founders need25:55 Q3 How founders should pitch to investors27:44 Judging founders in minutes28:30 Hiring philosophy – people like you vs complementary skills29:44 Shark Tank regret question setupFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

Ahana grew up in Bharatpur, a small town in India where many believed girls shouldn’t always have the same opportunities. But her mother believed otherwise and pushed her to dream bigger.That belief eventually took her to Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and later to Harvard Business School. But this story isn’t about degrees or credentials. It’s about resilience, grit, and the relentless pursuit of building something meaningful.From taking bold bets to navigating failures, Ahana’s journey eventually led to building Open Secret - one of India’s most well-known healthy snacking brands today.This conversation dives into the real founder journey behind the brand: the risks, the setbacks, and the determination it took to keep going.But this isn’t just a success story, in this episode, Ahana openly shares about failed experiments, her mother’s contribution to her life and why she’s passionate about unjunking India. If you're building a startup, thinking about entrepreneurship, or navigating early-stage chaos - this conversation will give you clarity on what truly matters.Chapters00:00  Introduction: Growing up in Bharatpur & breaking glass ceilings06:40  IIT, Harvard and Open Secret16:12 Q1 - Leaving behind a job in US to startup18:00 Q2 - How does Ahana deal with failures23:17 Q3 - How does one maintain funding until profitable27:30 From -47% EBITDA to profitable growth39:00 Women-led manufacturing and leadership43:30 Losing her mother during COVID and finding strengthAbout Open SecretOpen Secret is a better-for-you snacking brand focused on removing maida, trans fat and artificial preservatives from everyday Indian packaged foods. With strong repeat rates and rapid quick commerce penetration, it is one of India’s fastest-scaling health-focused FMCG startups.Unstarted is built for 1 to 1 founders — people thinking about starting, or just getting started.Real questions. Real answers. Real founders. Have a question you want answered by top founders? Submit it here: https://z47.com/unstarted/askFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram -    / z47.vc  LinkedIn -   / z47-vc  

Unstarted is a new Z47 series, by founders, for founders.Most people think they need more experience before they start.More operating. More pattern recognition. More certainty.If you’re waiting to feel “ready,” this episode will force you to rethink that.In Episode 1 of Unstarted, legendary investor Avnish Bajaj sits down with Revant Bhate (Founder & CEO, Mosaic Wellness — Man Matters, Be Bodywise, Little Joys) to unpack the real shift. What actually changes when you stop backing founders… and become one?This is a founder mindset autopsy.Inside this UnStarted episode:1. The difference between scepticism (as an investor) and conviction (as a founder)2. How much experience is actually “enough” before you start3.  Profitability vs scale: when the trade-off is real, and when it’s lazy thinking4.  Why founder–market fit may matter more than the idea5. Building in an AI-first world when speed is default6. The quiet mental tax of being the one responsibleUnstarted is built for 1 to 1 founders — people thinking about starting, or just getting started.Real questions. Real answers. Real founders. Have a question you want answered by top founders?Submit it here: https://z47.com/unstarted/ask⏱ Chapters00:00 Introduction UnStarted3.04 Revant's background & early career9.23 The importance of discovering yourself13:40 How do I pivot from VC to investor?20:28 How do I stress-test my startup idea?26:30 Should I choose profitability of scale?31:13 Fundraising mythsFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

Beautiful things shouldn’t cost the world.India exports - $13B in home decor annually, expected to cross - $21B by 2030.Factories everywhere. But almost no global consumer brands built from here.In this episode of Z47 Moments, Sudipto Sannigrahi sits down with Abhik Ghosh, Co-founder & CEO of Trampoline (ex-Amazon, Wayfair), to unpack how they’re building an India-to-world home decor brand, starting factory-first.Abhik breaks down:Why they chose B2B before B2C and how it creates predictabilityHow trust with factories and sofa changed payment terms from advances to creditHow they reduced working capital in a 90–120 day category to under 30 daysWhy “value” in Western markets means quality first, not just priceHow AI powers creative, catalog, and performance marketingAnd what it takes to build a brand across borders, from India to the UK and beyond.This is a conversation about systems, sequencing, and discipline. If you’re building in D2C, exports, supply chain, or global consumer categories, this episode offers a practical playbook.Chapters⁠00:00⁠ Why build a global brand from India⁠01:05⁠ Founders’ background Amazon, Wayfair, Europe⁠02:10⁠ India home decor opportunity $13B → $21B⁠03:30⁠ Broken supply chain 8k–10k factories⁠05:00⁠ Factory-first model explained⁠07:10⁠ Starting with 4–5 factories → 30 today⁠09:20⁠ Why cross-border must start B2B⁠11:40⁠ Wayfair & Williams-Sonoma playbook⁠13:40⁠ Selling to UK from India⁠15:10⁠ Customer value 30–80% savings promise⁠17:10⁠ Western home refresh behavior 4-year cycle⁠18:40⁠ GTM B2B acquisition strategy⁠20:00⁠ D2C strategy Why avoid marketplaces⁠21:40⁠ Unit economics & working capital under 30 days⁠24:10⁠ Pre-orders & dropshipping from India⁠26:00⁠ ROAS, LTV/CAC & marketing efficiency⁠27:30⁠ Selection & design prediction⁠29:00⁠ Unexpected demand signals⁠30:20⁠ AI-generated creatives & catalog100% AI product imagery⁠35:10⁠ 2030 Long-term global brand ambitionFollow Z47Website - ⁠https://www.z47.com/⁠Instagram - ⁠  / z47.vc  ⁠LinkedIn - ⁠  / z47-vc  ⁠⁠#ikea⁠ ⁠#howtostartastartup⁠

Enterprise AI doesn’t fail because models are weak. It fails because data pipelines break, permissions drift, costs explode, and governance is treated like an annual checkbox instead of everyday operational discipline.In this episode of Intelligent Indians!, Vikram Vaidyanathan sits down with Rohit Choudhury, Founder & CEO of Acceldata, for a deep conversation on how enterprise data systems actually behave at scale and why AI makes every weak foundation visible.Rohit’s founder journey mirrors the last 15 years of data infrastructure: from scaling InMobi in the pre-cloud era, to the Hadoop days at Hortonworks, to pioneering data observability, and now pushing into Agentic Data Management as enterprises move from AI pilots to production.The conversation goes deep into:1. Why AI POCs often work in one team but collapse at enterprise scale 2. The real cost of fixing data late, and why ingestion is the only place to fix it3. How AI agents change the stakes: real-time failures, hallucinations explainability and ai updates4. A practical playbook for CIOs and CDOs: SLAs, rapid experimentation, and leadership upskilling5. Why cost control is becoming existential, from reruns to cloud bills to private/hybrid AIThe “India edge” in building global enterprise companies, and what DPI × AI could unlock nextWatch the full episode to understand what it really takes to make AI work at enterprise scale.Chapters:00:00 Why AI POCs Fail at Scale in Enterprises02:30 Introducing Rohit Choudhury (Acceldata Founder)05:30 Early Days at InMobi & Rewriting the Stack 3 Times08:30 First Startup Failure & Learning Customer Obsession11:30 Birth of the Data Observability Category14:30 How Enterprise Data Pipelines Really Work (1000+ Apps)18:00 Why Enterprises Need End-to-End Data Visibility21:00 COVID Story & Missed Investment Moment24:00 Why hallucinations are dangerous for enterprises27:00 Governance in AI30:00 How Banks Should Prepare for AI at Scale (4 Steps)33:30 Why Leaders Must Learn AI Themselves (Cursor Story)36:30 From Tool Sprawl to One Agentic Platform39:30 Cost Explosion: Cloud vs Private AI42:30 Self-Healing Data & Preventing AI Hallucinations45:00 – Future of Enterprise AI & Closing ThoughtsFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/#podcast #podcasts #future #ai #aiindia #aicourses #aiupdates

India’s AI moment will be defined by architecture.In our new series Intelligent Indians! we sit down with the builders, policymakers, scientists, and founders shaping India’s AI decade as it unfolds. In the first episode, Avnish Bajaj and Vikram Vaidyanathan sit down with Abhishek Singh, CEO of the IndiaAI Mission, to unpack how India is designing AI as infrastructure, not experimentation.The conversation goes deep into what Abhishek describes as “DPI to the power of AI” for an ai learner in India extending India’s proven Digital Public Infrastructure (Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, Account Aggregator and more) into the AI era and India AI Mission. The discussion covers how population-scale systems, once thought impossible, are now becoming India’s execution advantage.This conversation is a must watch for anyone curious about:1. How affordable compute, open datasets, and India-native foundation models remove first-order constraints2. The seven pillars shaping of the IndiaAI mission:from compute and data to deployment, trust, and governance3. Why AI in India must work across languages, income levels, devices, and real-world conditions4. How the India AI Summit is a milestone in India's longer-term systems buildChapters 00:00 Trailer1:57 Introduction2:36 What is India AI Mission4:30 Nandan Nilekani's advice5:03 What is DPI in AI 6:22 7 pillars of Indian AI10:30 Rs. 65?12:00 Developing applications that will benefit people 14:20 Knowledge and access to AI 15:25 AI helping Indian farmers16:48 India's consent architecture18:54 Where is AI helping?21:00 DeVc AI founders22:15 Is data labs a government initiative23:50 Tools to code faster25:24 Why is AI failing at production scale26:16 What is free AI commission27:41 Should data monetisation be banned28:31 Is govt doing AI startup financing31:20 Conclusion Also watch: India's secret advantage in AI - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqvInPvPkhQ&t=1430sAI Committee Report - https://kpmg.com/in/en/insights/2025/08/rbi-free-ai-committee-report-on-framework-for-responsible-and-ethical-enablement-of-artificial-intelligence.htmlFollow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/#podcast #podcasts #future #ai #aiindia

Future Signals is Z47's view on where the next category-defining companies are likely to emerge, and the spaces we’re actively tracking alongside the founders building them. For Indian startups, 2026 promises to be an inflection year where experiments from previous years create a foundation on which the future is built.Market-defining investing rarely arrive fully formed. They are assembled, piece by piece, by founders who are willing to do the unglamorous work: shaping behaviour, stitching infrastructure, earning trust before scale shows up in a spreadsheet.  Over the last two decades, we’ve observed India’s technology story unfold in phases. First, we built capability, then scale. And finally, the confidence to build world-class businesses and public-market-ready companies. We are now moving into the next phase, where founders start redefining how value is created: by owning outcomes instead of features, and by building systems that work at population scale and travel globally.These are the Future Signals that will define 2026 and beyond.Follow Z47Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram -   / z47.vc  LinkedIn -   / z47-vc  Chapters00:00 Introduction01:49 Are founders creating markets?05:23 Evolution of AI 7:59 How is AI changing consumer companies?10:25 Disruption via Agentic AI 12:01 Fin Ops is largest SaaS opportunity 14:28 Speed takes over startups 16:46 AI in Intelligent hardware 18:42 AI in banking and finance20:48 Consumer companies making AI personal22:43 The next META/ Binance?23:59 What does India need? 28:21 Commerce is being re-built30:03 Indian companies going global32:47 SaaS products scaling globally36:11 Manufacturing goes global38:03 Co-pilots in businesses41:43 2026 is the year of deployment#podcast #podcasts #future #ai #aiindia

Between overprotective term sheets and oversimplified ones lies the real market. On this episode of #ZeroToInfinity, Avnish Bajaj and Tarun Davda, are joined by Archana Rajaram to weigh in on one of the most misunderstood parts of startup building: the term sheet. As the founder of River Law (formerly Rajaram Legal), Archana’s work has quietly shaped the “market standards” that nearly every Indian SHA now follows.In this episode, they break down the real-world changes in Indian term sheets post-2021:from liquidation preferences and reverse vesting to governance, exits, board control, and how AI is already reshaping negotiations. The way a founder negotiates a term sheet often foreshadows how they’ll build their company, handle conflict, and navigate hard decisions later.Tune in for a rare inside look at venture’s most misunderstood document01:23 Introduction to the Z47 podcast 02:52 Handshake deals to hyper-detailed clauses: how India’s term sheets have evolved05:55 Why written guardrails matter, even in trust-based relationships?08:48 Between one-pagers and legal novels lies the real market standard10:38 Founders lose leverage the moment they sign without counsel12:42 What founders miss at incorporation, they pay for at IPO16:20 You can’t switch from founder-led to board-led overnight28:02 In India, governance runs through SHAs, not boards34:07 Every founder’s dilemma: what terms really matter in your term sheet?37:39 Event of Default: India’s most controversial term and why it exists49:49 How you negotiate your first term sheet predicts how you’ll scale59:57 AI may change diligence, but judgment still writes the rulesFor more insights, revisit the related Z47 episode:   • The Terms of Term Sheets    • Hard clauses in a term sheet    • From (Z)omato to (A)ther: India’s Tech IPO...  Article:   / calculating-liquidation-preference  Follow us on: Website: https://www.z47.com/LinkedIn:   / z47-vc  X: https://x.com/z47_vcInstagram:   / z47.vc  

In this episode of Zero to Infinity, Rajat Agarwal and Chandrasekhar Venugopal sit down with Vivek Sinha, second-time founder and CEO of Emversity, to unpack one of India’s most urgent and least-discussed problems:👉 Why are millions of young Indians still unemployable after 16 years of education?👉 What will it take to build a truly job-ready workforce?👉 And why might the biggest opportunity in education lie in the “grey-collar” economy, not tech or test prep?Vivek takes us deep into the realities of India’s higher education system, the failure of legacy institutes to prepare students for real-world roles, and the massive talent gaps in healthcare, hospitality, construction, and manufacturing.He also breaks down Emversity’s groundbreaking model:On-the-job learning (not online, not offline)Industry-backwards curriculum co-designed with employersEarn-while-you-learn degrees that effectively cost students ₹0VR simulation labs and real-world skill training50%+ organic student acquisition driven purely by outcomesIf you care about India’s future workforce, social mobility, or building meaningful businesses at scale, this conversation is a must-watch.01:47 - Introduction to the Z47 Podcast02:52 - What really happened to India’s EdTech boom?03:25 - The three faces of EdTech: daycare, test prep & higher education06:24 - Intent and Outcomes:  the two pillars of real education10:51 - From disruption to discipline: building an education business that lasts15:47 - Emversity’s goal: make every student employable, not just enrolled18:59 - Bridging academia and industry through tech + training22:43 - Why Emversity bets on India’s grey-collar workforce27:55 - Earn while you learn: the zero-cost degree model31:24 - Tech-enabled, execution-driven: how Emversity scales smart37:27 - The long road ahead: can Emversity educate a million students40:30 - Changing lives, one job at a time42:00 - Building India’s next-gen education infrastructureFollow us on:Website www.z47.com/LinkedIn www.linkdin.com/company/z47-vc/Twitter: https://x.com/z47_cvInstagram: www.instagram.com/z47.vc/

70% of enterprise AI projects never reach production. The solution: Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs).In this episode, Vikram Vaidyanathan and Rocketlane CEO, Srikrishnan Ganesan unpack the rise of the FDE model, from Palantir’s origins to how AI companies use it today to bridge the gap between prototypes and production.They discuss why traditional SaaS orgs break in AI, the governance needed to scale FDE teams, and why India is emerging as the global engine room for AI deployment.A crisp breakdown of the role shaping the future of enterprise AI.Chapters 00:01:29 -  Introduction to the Z47 podcast 00:04:16 - The 70% problem: Why enterprise AI fails to scale00:05:25 - The origin story: Inside Palantir, where it all began00:12:43 - Evolving from deployment to GTM engine00:14:23 - The Vision Selling era: from POCs to production ROI00:17:09 - What does a great FDE motion look like?00:18:59 - Building with FDE DNA: How Rocketlane practices what it preaches00:24:06 - Product, success, or stand-alone: Where should FDEs sit?00:26:22 - Scaling the FDE model: from speed to structured governance00:33:38 - Pairing on-site FDEs with India’s 24×7 talent engine00:34:21 - AI adoption as India’s next big export00:37:49 - FDEs: The human bridge between AI promise and delivery  

From a small apartment in Bengaluru to powering over 2 billion users across 60+ countries, MoEngage is one of India’s most quietly global success stories. This is more than a startup story — it’s a story about India’s rise as a product nation, and the founders who are reimagining how the world engages with technology.Raviteja Dodda, Narasimha Reddy and Yashwanth Kumar built a world-class customer engagement platform out of India — long before “SaaS for the world” became a buzzword.We trace MoEngage’s journey through its toughest pivots, its cultural DNA, and the product decisions that made it indispensable to brands like Airtel, Ola, Nestlé, and Samsung.In this episode of #ZeroToInfinity, MoEngage co-founders Raviteja Dodda & Narasimha Reddy join Tarun Davda & Pranay Desai of Z47. In a wide-ranging chat, they discuss the MoEngage journey - from initial failures to serving over 2Bn users. 

756 of 1,009 rows displayed Submarine parts. Metro casings. Agricultural harvesters. Even bombshell casings for the defence sector. In this episode of the #ZeroToInfinity podcast, Ximkart founder explore how solving the “thinking loop” first makes it possible to deliver parts for any industry, anywhere. Once the right inputs hit the execution loop, size, sector, and material become irrelevant, it’s all just precision manufacturing at scale.

The US innovates. China industrializes. Can India deploy at scale and claim its right to win in AI?India’s edge has always been its people: engineers, data, and scale. But as LLMs automate language and logic, can that advantage still hold?In this episode of #ZeroToInfinity, Chandrashekhar Venugopal speaks with Avnish Bajaj and Vikram Vaidyanathan about India’s crossroads in the AI race and what will define the country’s next decade.The trio unpacks:The rise of Forward-Deployed Engineers (FDEs): India’s secret weapon in AI deploymentHow data, assurance, and governance could become India’s strongest moatWhy AI might finally flip India from back office to frontlineHow voice and vernacular interfaces could erase the digital divideAnd what government, investors, and founders must do to spark India’s inference leapWith Aadhaar, UPI, and consent layers powering population-scale systems, India has the infrastructure and now the opportunity to lead the world by deploying intelligence at scale.

In the near future, less than 10% of access will come from humans, the rest will be agents?What happens when your next user isn’t human?In this episode of the #ZeroToInfinity podcast, Pranay Desai sits down with Satya Devarakonda and Ravi Madabhushi, founders of ScaleKit, to decode a fundamental shift in software: the rise of agents as first-class users.Humans log in and out with predictable patterns. Agents are transient, transactional, and unpredictable, hitting systems hundreds of times a minute. ScaleKit’s modular approach is built for this new reality, where AI agents, not humans, dominate usage.Satya and Ravi bring rare scar tissue and foresight. From PipeMog in 2013, to FreshID at Freshworks, to now ScaleKit, they’ve spent a decade solving identity and access at scale, and are rethinking it for an agent-first world.The duo also shares what it means to build again as second-time founders: why distribution matters more than product, what they’ve unlearned from Freshworks, and how agents are evolving from assistants into colleagues who accelerate productivity.

Dive deep into the transformative power of AI in India’s consumer app landscape. In this episode of Zero to Infinity, Avnish Bajaj, Chandrasekhar Venugopal aka CV, and Kishan Kashyap break down: ✅ Why ChatGPT is AI’s MS‑DOS moment and what comes after ✅ How token costs dropped 1000x in a year (and why Sam Altman calls it the “new Moore’s Law”) ✅ The Disruptor–Digitizer–Enabler framework for founders building in consumer tech ✅ Why QuickCommerce for “X” (fashion, pharma, events & more) is the next frontier ✅ And why India’s rails: UPI, Aadhaar, WhatsApp—mean everything is aligned for foundersAfter tracing India’s growing consumer instinct in Part 1, this segment explores what happens when that intuition meets AI and what gets reimagined when UX, infra, and distribution evolve together, not sequentially.Whether you’re an early‑stage founder, an operator, or just AI‑curious, this conversation will spark ideas on what to build next.

Most startup journeys are told in hindsight, GreyLabs AI’s told in the middle of figuring things out.In this episode of the #ZeroToInfinity podcast, the founding team of GreyLabs AI reflect on what building actually looked like in year one: navigating a cofounder exit, cash running out, COVID hitting collections, and a work culture being built reactively. This conversation with co-founder Aman Goel is about what startup life feels like before structure, where ESOPs are misunderstood, leave policies don’t exist, and the only way to build trust with enterprise clients is to keep showing up.What started as a speech analytics platform for BFSI quickly turned into something more: a layer that could coach agents, surface cross-sell opportunities, and turn raw call data into revenue. But the real build wasn’t technical, it was emotional. GreyLabs was built without funding, a co-founder or a roadmap. Just presence, product sense, and a willingness to stay in the room longer than expected.Inside the team, hiring moved fast and policy came later. Hiring was led by instinct, and culture was shaped by how the team responded to mistakes, not how they talked about values. Who gets ESOPs? When do you make a leave policy? How do you scale trust without layers of management? When COVID hit: collections slowed down and revenue dried up, but even without clarity on survival, the team promised zero layoffs, and that appraisals happen. Because sometimes, the strongest signal a startup can send isn’t product, it’s how it shows up for its people.Why sustainable startups start with sustainable founders, only on the #ZeroToInfinity podcast.

We’re not seeing enough entrepreneurship in India, not for lack of talent, but because most founders haven’t yet internalized how quickly India’s consumption story is shifting. As GDP curves bend upward and new behavior patterns emerge across services, spending, and aspirations, in this episode of the #ZeroToInfinity podcast, Kishan Kashyap, joined by Avnish Bajaj & Chandrasekhar Venugopal, maps out the biggest trendlines shaping consumer India through the next decade. From rising discretionary income to evolving expectations around access, quality, and convenience, the Z47 team makes a case for how premiumization is no longer about luxury but about discernment, service, and experience. How full-stack brands are winning not by controlling supply, but by owning end-to-end experience and why India’s microtransaction economy is quietly creating massive consumer surplus in places few are watching. Tune-in

India’s largest creditworthy segment remains invisible to the lending ecosystem, not because of a credit problem, but because of a design problem.When every lender chased the top tier or flooded the informal market, Finnable saw an opportunity to build for the 60–70% in between: salaried, PF-backed Indians earning ₹15–40K a month.Join co-founders Amit Arora and Nitin Gupta on the Z47 podcast as they trace their vision behind building a full-stack, risk-first, and collections-led lending engine—designed to scale, but built customer-backward.The duo, in conversation with the Z47 team, reflect on the decisions that shaped the company: from making collections the third hire, to designing 200+ fraud algorithms rooted in field intelligence.Understand why their model went against the industry wave, offering longer-tenure, higher-ticket loans designed for credit discipline and repeatability.When COVID hit, their customers didn’t default. They returned. That resilience validated the model across cycles, powering a ₹3,000 crore book & pointing to a lending business quietly built for public markets.Listen to the latest #ZeroToInfinity podcast on building lending systems that stay with the customer.

India will see 100 tech IPOs by 2030. While Silicon Valley still waits for $5B+ exits, Indian founders are going public earlier - at $600 million.Why? Because market receptivity has fundamentally shifted. The buyers want this asset class.On the #ZeroToInfinity podcast, Avnish Bajaj and Rajinder Balaraman define what it actually takes to go public in India today. Through the lens of four distinct IPO waves, the duo traces how market expectations have evolved — from the early public-market pioneers, to the pricing missteps of 2021, and into a new phase where predictability and return on capital lead the way.The team argues that IPOs are no longer about valuation peaks but about narrative control, access to permanent capital, and owning the category early. For founders, that means shifting how companies are built, instead of chasing scale at any cost to designing for profitability, pricing discipline, and long-term market trust from the outset.This conversation unpacks the why, when, where, how of IPOs and the thresholds that separate companies that list from those that last. The team reframes the “To IPO or not to IPO” debate into a first-principles question for founders: Are you building with the intent to go public?India may be heading toward its own Nasdaq moment -  the first 100 tech companies that go public will reshape how founders raise, grow, and exit. See why India's IPO math has permanently changed and what it means to be IPO-ready in India only on the latest episode of the Z47 podcast.

The next 30 global SpaceTech giants will be built and 10 could come from India.But DeepTech is clunky, Series A is brutal & government still writes 70% of the cheques. So what makes a SpaceTech startup VC-backable and what makes one global? That's where the duo of Anurag Srivastava & Sudipto Sannigrahi from the Z47 team map out the government to private inflection point, opportunity, the reality, and the path forward for India’s SpaceTech ecosystem. This episode of the #ZeroToInfinity podcast isn’t about rockets but what comes after launch. ISRO gives us the talent & India gives us the cost advantage but enduring companies will be built by founders who design customer-backward, know how to navigate Series A, and solve with insight — not just technology.The conversation reframes spacetech as a build-now opportunity, backed by sovereign demand, frugal innovation DNA from ISRO, and a rare cost advantage in the global supply chain.Their top-down analysis covers application-specific payloads, downstream applications like earth observation as a go-to-market wedge to building full-stack solutions for vertical use cases, asking what it really means to build full-stack, export-ready, insight-led space businesses.Learn how India’s frugal edge is powering global SpaceTech, only on the #ZeroToInfinity podcast.

How do India’s top founders actually think through a P&L? This special episode of #ZeroToInfinity podcast takes you inside Z47’s experimental panel event with India’s leading consumer founders, including voices from Mamaearth, Urban Company, and Mosaic Wellness. From CAC to contribution margin, & retention to revenue models, Kishan Kashyap, Avnish Bajaj & Chandrasekhar Venugopal, share insights on what it really takes to build a durable consumer business in India today.Listen for a break down of the P&L as a series of strategic choices: It starts with revenue, where TAM is reframed as a lens on market creation vs. market share, and demand signals emerge from how India vs. Bharat actually spends. Gross margin becomes a moat, shaped by what you build vs. buy. Contribution margin reveals the true cost of platforms, and why owning your channel matters. And finally at the bottomline, it’s about cash, control, and building a business that lasts beyond funding cycles.Explore the full P&L rethink from an operator founder lens only on the #ZeroToInfinity podcast.00:25 Introduction02:32 Breaking Down the P&L of Building Consumer Brands04:37 Reframing the P&L as Strategic Choices for Founders04:58 The Revenue Rethink - What & Who are We Really Biulding for?08:58 Market Creation or Market Share?12:27 Revenue = Clear Articulation of the Opportunity You're Going After12:39 Gross Margin Isn't Fixed - It's a Function of the Choices you make 18:43 Don't Just Hope COGS Will Fail - Design Margin from Day Zero21:39 Contribution Margin: The True Cost of your Channels25:13 Q-comm's Biggest Mistake: Chasing Scale, Not Sustainibility28:44 Find the GTM Unlock: PLG, Word of Mouth & Retention32:52 Bottom Line: Where your P&L becomes your Reality34:14 RoCE Matters more than EBITDA35:27 The ZIRP Era Skewed Founder Behaviour41:20 Limit your Highs. Ground your Lows. Build with Zen Mode onFollow us on: Website www.z47.com/LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/Twitter https://x.com/z47_vcInstagram www.instagram.com/z47.vc/

What if the next great Indian startup isn’t another consumer app — but a B2B company quietly owning a supply chain, exporting to 40 countries, and compounding capital without ever chasing a billion-dollar valuation?This #ZeroToInfinity podcast episode walks us through a decade-long arc of insight — from Z47’s first B2B bets to the inflection points that changed everything: GST, UPI, COVID, and the rise of trust-based distribution models.Avnish Bajaj and Sudipto Sannigrahi lay out the real arc of India’s B2B evolution - from ignored category to unstoppable force. From how horizontal and vertical marketplaces came to dominate post-2015, to why cheap capital created artificial winners in the ZERP era, the conversation is all about rewiring how you think about margins, moats, and manufacturing.This #ZeroToInfinity conversation isn’t about B2B vs B2C — it’s about what it really takes to build for India’s core economy.

Z47 invested in WizCommerce in 2022. Since then, Divyaanshu Makkar and team have scaled to $1mn in revenue from the B2B Commerce SaaS mid-market. In this episode of #ZeroToInfinity, Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-founder & CEO of B2B Commerce SaaS startup WizCommerce -, joins Sudipto Sannigrahi and Ashwin Pandian to unpack:🚀 WizCommerce's pivot from SourceWiz📈 Scaling to $1M ARR in 5 Quarters💥 India-made SaaS is eating the worldFrom selling to enterprises to winning trust in slow-moving industries — this episode is a crash course in building category-defining SaaS.Tune-in

The real revolution is not just AI building products - it’s AI rewriting how we build them.In this episode of #ZeroToInfinity, Avnish Bajaj and Aakash Kumar cut through the noise to reveal why AI is far more than just another tech wave - it’s a paradigm shift.This conversation offers a comprehensive, unfiltered exploration of AI’s evolution, its current impact on industries and knowledge workers, and how it’s reshaping the future of work.From drawing parallels with past tech bubbles like dot-com and crypto to decoding AI’s leap from correlation to causation and the emergence of “Servitization of Software,” they break down why founders who wait will be left behind.Discover why the future isn’t about AI replacing humans - but enhancing human capability. Only on the #ZeroToInfinity podcast. 

What if India transformed from outsourcing hub to global engineering powerhouse?In this episode of #ZeroToInfinity, Sudipto Sannigrahi, Z47's investor in B2B Commerce and Manufacturing, sits down with the visionaries making it happen—Karan Anand and Himanshu Uniyal, founders of Wootz.work.Their conversation unlocks the ambitious blueprint behind India's largest advanced engineering export company.Witness how they're breaking the "build to print" ceiling, catapulting Indian manufacturing into the elite "build to spec" territory—where cutting-edge solutions aren't just manufactured but conceptualized, engineered, and perfected on Indian soil.The founders reveal how they're harnessing India's untapped engineering brilliance to create precision systems that global industry giants now depend on.With candid insights and surprising revelations, Sudipto explores their unconventional journey and the high-stakes gamble that's quietly positioning India as the next engineering superpower.Can the ancient legacy of Wootz steel—once the most sought-after metal in the world—inspire a modern manufacturing renaissance? Find out for yourself in this episode of the #ZeroToInfinity podcast. 

Consumer brands are being built differently and the next wave of unicorns won’t just be about speed or scale - they’ll be built on AI, hyper-personalization, and a global-first mindset. In this episode of #ZeroToInfinity, Rajinder Balaraman, Tarun Davda, and Rajat Agarwal demystify the rise of real-time commerce and how AI is no longer an add-on - it’s the foundation for intelligent shopping. Indian founders? The winners will be those who break past borders & build for the world. The next consumer unicorns won’t play by old rules - will you?

FinTech is transforming the economy at every level.India’s financial ecosystem is at an inflection point, where technology isn’t just enabling transactions but engineering entirely new economic structures.In this episode of the #ZeroToInfinity podcast, Avnish Bajaj, Pranay Desai, and Vikram Vaidyanathan bring the sharpest insights to the table, revealing the forces shaping FinTech’s next decade.The businesses that will define the next decade are not where everyone is looking right now. This conversation reveals the contrarian bets, the high-stakes risks, and the market forces shaping the biggest opportunities ahead.If FinTech is the future, who’s building it right?00:00: Coming up01:50: The Compounding of Value in Financial Services02:42: The Opportunity Sets in FinTech04:55: Vital Viewing: How to go Phygital for Growth05:45: Is FinTech Phygital or Digital08:30: What are the New Opportunities in FinTech for the 1%?09:38: The Tight Credit at the right time can have a Multiplier Effect on the Economy11:27: Opportunities for the Next 10% in FinTech12:00: Will How India Saves Money Change with Tech?13:20: The Future of FinTech is Infinite ROE Businesses13:47: Untapped potential across Credit, Insurance, and Wealth ProductsFollow us on: Website: www.z47.com/LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/Twitter: https://x.com/z47_vcInstagram: z47.vc

In this episode of Zero to Infinity, Avnish, Vikram and Pranay dive into the latest trends shaping the future of AI and enterprise software. From the evolution of enterprise solutions to India’s growing influence in the global AI landscape, this discussion unpacks the future of technology and its impact on businesses.🔹 How is AI revolutionizing enterprise workflows?🔹 What role does India play in the global AI boom?🔹 Where are the biggest opportunities in the Indian startup ecosystem?Whether you're a tech enthusiast, an entrepreneur, or just AI curious, this discussion offers crucial insights into where technology is heading and how it's reshaping the global business landscape.

Welcome to 'Zero to Infinity,' the new face of the Z47 Podcast. In this series premiere, tech veterans Avnish, Rajinder, Vikram, Tarun and Rajat chart the remarkable evolution of India's 25 year internet revolution. From the early dot-com pioneers to today’s AI-innovators today, travel back in time to the moments that shaped India’s digital transformation.Learn about Z47's mission: Developed Nation Building, as we work towards India’s emergence as a global digital superpower by 2047. This is one of those rare, unfiltered chats about the future of Indian startups that you wouldn't want to miss. Subscribe startup insights, founder stories and sector deep dives.

What does it take to lead a 17-year-old legacy brand like redBus into international markets? In this episode of the #Z47podcast, CEO Prakash Sangam shares an unmissable journey—from his transition to the world of startups to selling 87 million tickets globally. Discover how a passion for innovation, cultural alignment, and a relentless focus on customer-centricity propelled redBus to break records, such as selling 400,000 bus seats in a single day!What's in for you? Actionable insights, leadership hacks that built high-performing teams, the power of cultural alignment, and why embracing ambiguity is key to success in today’s startup ecosystem.

Going deeper into their discussion on first-time and experienced founders, Avnish Bajaj and Chandrasekhar Venugopal dissect everything from failure zones founders should watch out for, to increasing one’s chances of success and finding purpose. But the question remains: How first-time founders truly leverage this evolved ecosystem to outpace seasoned counterparts? Can there be just one winner?Watch the second and final part of the #Z47Podcast on Founder Archetypes and find out! And, if you haven't already, catch episode 1 here:   • Founder Archetypes: The First Time Fo...  ▶️Some more of our podcasts that came up in the conversation: Burn Rates: https://www.z47.com/podcast/whats-the...PMF: https://www.z47.com/podcast/finding-s...Org 3.0: https://www.z47.com/podcast/finding-s...Single VC Multiple VCs: https://www.z47.com/podcast/single-ve...

60% of Indian unicorns are helmed by first-time founders, 29% by second-time founders, and 6% by those on their third attempt. Why is that?First-time founders bring audacity, fearlessness, and unencumbered first-principles thinking. Experienced founders solve deep problems with domain expertise and strong customer networks.But here’s the big question: Are founders born or made?Join Avnish Bajaj and Chandrasekhar Venugopal as they dive into this age-old debate on the #z47podcast. Gain valuable insights into entrepreneurship, startup journeys, and what it takes to build a unicorn.💡 Discover the secrets to success in the #FounderPlaybook!

The aerospace, space, and defence sector is pivotal to India's journey toward self-reliance and global leadership. Over the years, this industry has seen a growing startup ecosystem addressing challenges in supply chains, autonomous systems, indigenous manufacturing, and space technology.In this exclusive panel discussion, featuring industry stalwarts like Air Chief Marshal (Retd.) Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria, Lt Gen PJS Pannu, and Ashish Saraf, CEO, Thales India, we delve into:1️⃣ Strategic Entry Points for Startups2️⃣ Why Customer-Focused Innovation Matters3️⃣ Leveraging Policies and Support SystemsFrom understanding market dynamics to leveraging opportunities like iDEX, Aditi, and the Space Tech Fund, learn how startups can create a lasting impact in this high-stakes sector.

The DMII: Seed to Silicon edition in Bangalore brought together builders in India’s semiconductor story. Z47’s Sudipto Sannigrahi hosted d-Matrix CEO Sid Sheth on the panel about India’s rising semiconductor potential and d-Matrix’s growth. d-Matrix’s commitment to lowering adoption barriers and hyper-interactive video solutions promises to reshape the industry.The riveting chat was a goldmine: Sid’s insights about a vital space for India’s tech-ade are a blueprint for how Indian founders can chart a path to success in semiconductors.5 Key Takeaways:Breakthroughs Take Time: d-Matrix Took a YearEven though Sid’s background at Intel and Aeluros gave him deep domain expertise, he took a year to explore ideas before launching d-Matrix. This reflects the importance of taking time for reflection and eliminating weak opportunities before venturing forward.Focusing on What’s Overlooked in Chip Design to Disrupt IncumbentsBy developing a unique chip architecture that integrates compute and memory, d-Matrix carved out a niche in the semiconductor market where larger players couldn’t compete.Energy & Cost Efficiency Drive d-Matrix’s Semiconductor Successd-Matrix’s focus on building energy-efficient, cost-effective chips addresses key pain points for customers, positioning them as a more practical solution for data centers.Betting on India as the Tech Hub is a Competitive AdvantageRecognizing the immense talent pool and market potential, d-Matrix set up its largest tech hub in India, positioning the country as a critical player in the future of semiconductors.Building Trust with Proof-of-Concept Chips is the Way to Growd-Matrix invested heavily in developing proof-of-concept chips in the first few years. This demonstrated real progress and minimized risk for investors and customers, enabling efficient innovation in their chip design.

"If you are an AI founder, buy a .com domain and not .ai domain" says Pranay Desai (MD, Z47) as CIOs often restrict access to most .ai domains within their organisational networks. In conversation with Ashwin Pandian, Pranay addresses the facets of AI in SaaS, talking about various dimensions of the trade and shares insightful nuggets on the subject:He engages with key topics, including:▶️ The shift in role of CIOs - from enabling businesses and creativity to protecting them.▶️ The future being consolidated stacks instead of point solutions, as clients are sceptical about giving away their data.▶️ The founder’s conundrum: to ship fast, or take time and build a full stack.▶️ Focus on distribution innovation to win in a mature product market.▶️ A good AI business could be measured on the basis of product usage, repeat usage, revenue, and talkability. ▶️ Founders building in large markets need not build their own models, unlike players in smaller marketsGlobally, we are on the verge of a complete overhaul of the software stack, and India is positioned to capture a significant share of this emerging landscape due to its strong capabilities in data curation and labelling. Tune into the full podcast if you are a founder interested in AI in SaaS and want to know about the markets to consider.

How do you monetise your app business from 600 million connected smartphone users in India? This is the only question founders in India’s App Economy 3.0 need to ask themselves.Vivek Ramachandran, Chandrasekhar Venugopal and Aakash Kumar from Z47’s consumer team talk about the shifts in India’s app economy over the years and how engagement, retention and monetisation became the key pillars for app-based businesses.They answer questions useful to any and every founder trying to succeed in India’s app economy 3.0:▶️ What is the core nature of the value exchange in the app economy?▶️ What effect will AI have on production?▶️ What are the exciting trendlines?▶️ Where do founders make mistakes when measuring success?▶️ What key vectors do founders need to focus on building in 2024?If you’re someone looking to build in or understand India’s app economy, this episode will give you years of insights in less than an hour.

Romita Mazumdar is channelling her love for skincare into a Rs. 1000 Cr Brand.She started with almost 1000 interviews over a course of six months to find a market gap. And now, inspired by the likes of P&G, she has her eyes set on the Rs. 1000 Cr mark for Foxtale.As a former VC, she closely observed consumer brands before shifting her focus to building in skincare, a category where she is a power user.In conversation with Z47’s Rajat Agarwal, Romita recounts her journey from investment banking to founding Foxtale and answers gripping questions that all D2C founders can learn from :▶ How consumer needs have changed in skincare▶ How she thinks about channels for her business▶ Where the 1000 Cr goal comes from▶ Her thoughts on new ventures and diversificationIf you’re passionate about entrepreneurship, building in skincare or branding, this episode will provide insights to help you get started on your journey.

If you’re a founder working to solve for an underserved market in unsecured lending, this episode is required listening! Vikram Vaidyanathan and Anish Patil trade trendlines in unsecured credit landscape, and highlight four key insights that underpin the Z47 thesis for this sector.👥Solving for Under-served Market PotentialBorrowers with low, but stable incomes and good credit culture have been under-served by traditional lenders, presenting an opportunity for new lenders.  🗂️Forecasting with Robust Payments DataThe evolution of UPI, account aggregators, and GST has streamlined underwriting, enabling precise borrower profiling, and accurate cash flow estimation, all of which allows lenders to tailor financial products.🤳🏽Why A Phy-gital Approach Is OptimalDigital tools enable fraud prevention, enhanced risk assessment and monitoring, while physical presence helps build trust and strengthen operations.🌏Financial Inclusion & Strong Credit Demand Improved infrastructure, steady GDP growth, and better law & order, especially in northern states, have opened new credit markets. Strong credit demand and smoother operations have made previously underserved areas more appealing to lenders.