Eeti Sharma

Natasha Malpani Launches ₹200 Crore Fund to Power India’s AI Startups Former Kae Capital partner Natasha Malpani has launched Boundless Ventures, an early-stage venture fund with a corpus of ₹200 crore, dedicated to supporting homegrown AI-native startups across India. The fund will focus on pre-seed and seed-stage investments in companies innovating across consumer AI, infrastructure, agent tooling, healthcare, logistics, deep tech, and make-in-India hardware. Boundless has already written its first cheques to startups including Superhealth, Armatrix, PierSight, Knot, and two stealth ventures in AI infrastructure and consumer AI. Beyond capital, the fund promises to bring narrative and network support to founders. As Malpani puts it, India today has a once-in-a-generation advantage talent density, digital rails, and ambition to build global AI leaders from day one. At Startup Veda, we’re thrilled to see local capital fueling the AI frontier. This fund signals rising maturity in India’s venture ecosystem—placing conviction behind AI-first founders well before the rest of the world catches on. Join the conversation: Which early-stage AI ventures excite you the most? How powerful is the mix of capital + storytelling for building AI startups? #Startup #AI #VentureCapital #DeepTech #StartupIndia #FounderStories

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Most poeple don’t get Boba Bhai right. But, as an investor via Titan Capital Winners Fund, I’ve had the fortune to see this story play out very closely. It is not just winning the bubble tea market in India - It is creating it. - Before their explosive entry, the category was a fragmented, niche curiosity-a handful of scattered outlets with no cohesive market identity - And Boba Bhai’s strategic execution is a live case study in transforming a fringe trend into a dominant, mainstream consumer category Their first move was to define the product for the Indian masses. By fusing Korean formats with Indian flavours, they created an accessible, craveable version of bubble tea and street food that could achieve broad appeal, moving it out of the niche corners of K-culture enthusiasts. Next, they built the physical infrastructure for the category at an unprecedented speed. Scaling to over 70 outlets, they are single-handedly putting bubble tea on the map in cities across the country, building the distribution network that is making the drink a household name. But their most visionary move in category creation is happening right now, in the digital aisle. The launch of Ready-to-Drink (RTD) canned bubble tea on quick commerce platforms like Blinkit and Zepto is another big bet. Effectively, they are not just entering a new channel - they are creating an entirely new FMCG category from scratch - packaged bubble tea. This allows them to own the "at-home" occasion, building brand salience far beyond their physical footprint. And this is very inspiring, because this is how categories are built. A single brand becomes so dominant in the consumer's mind that it becomes synonymous with the product itself. Think Xerox for photocopying or Maggi for instant noodles. With a stated goal to make K-Pop culture mainstream in India across food, drink and more, Boba Bhai, and its amazing founder, my friend Dhruv (in pic), are not shy about their ambitions. - And having read this whole thing, I am sure you would now get that they are not aiming to be a player in the bubble tea space - They are building the entire stadium and positioning themselves as the home team And that’s why I always say with pride and confidence, that Boba Bhai isn't just another QSR. What do you think? ---- I've begun to share my learnings from the world of startups more frequently to gain wider perspective. Thus, if you hold any additions or differences to the thoughts I shared above, do share in the comments. That will help widen my thinking horizons. Thanks! Best, Shiv

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The Great GCC Paradox: We’re Hiring, but Losing India’s GCCs are expected to cross $100B by 2030. But here’s what no one’s openly talking about: We’re leaking talent at the top, and hiring at the bottom. 1. A new study by Mercer shows mid-career attrition in tech has doubled since 2022. 2. CXO-level hiring cycles in GCCs have stretched beyond 6 months (Zinnov, 2024). 3. Returnee talent with global exposure is still asked: Q) “Why do you want to come back?” Q) “Are you too senior for this role?” We’ve mastered delivery. But we’re stuck in a talent loop: - Entry-level upskilling is celebrated - Strategic leadership hiring is feared - Internal mobility is sluggish - Culture fit outweighs culture transformation The result? India’s most capable talent is being interviewed by Singapore, Berlin, and Dubai, while local GCCs are still refining JD drafts. What if the real growth limiter isn’t infrastructure or policy… …but our inability to bet on catalytic leadership? You can’t build a $100B ecosystem with a $1M mindset. Let’s talk: What one mindset shift would unlock India’s next-gen GCC play? #GCC #LeadershipHiring #IndiaTalentCrisis #DigitalTransformation #ReturneeTalent #LeadershipGap #CXOHiring #Mercer #Zinnov #StrategicIndia #FutureOfWork #TalentFlight #HyderabadTech #GCCReset Zinnov Achyut Menon "AK" LinkedIn News India Reshab Shaw Vishwanadh Raju Viswanathan K S GCC Pulse™ Korn Ferry KPMG India

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We just crossed ₹2 Crore in annualised revenue! 🚀 What began as a simple idea — to make healthcare more transparent, convenient, and affordable — is now a serving new customers and patients everyday. India’s healthcare retail market is massive, fragmented, and underserved. The incumbents have barely scratched the surface. We see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape how healthcare is delivered — city by city, store by store, across 1000+ cities in India. #LokamHealth #HealthcareForBharat #ChronicCare #AffordableHealthcare

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The August Edition of AIM Print is Out! From India’s AI agent gamble to a 91-year-old vibe coder, this issue is packed with stories that redefine how we think about technology, talent, and transformation. 👉 India’s AI Agent Gamble Startups like RevRag.AI (Ashutosh Singh), Gupshup (Beerud Sheth), gnani.ai (Ganesh Gopalan, Ananth Nagaraj), Floworks (Sudipta Biswas), Sarvam, Zoho (Ramprakash Ramamoorthy), AIonOS (CP Gurnani, Arjun Nagulapally), RagaAI Inc (Gaurav Agarwal), and Krutrim (Bhavish Aggarwal, Chandra Khatri, Navendu A, Sunit S.) are betting big on agentic AI—shaping everything from banking apps to conversational platforms. 👉 Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur: India’s Next Unicorn Hub With SIIC and FIRST, IIT-K is incubating product-led deep tech startups across AI, defence, and healthcare, powering India’s next wave of unicorns. 👉 Madhya Pradesh’s GCC Playbook Unlike Bengaluru or Hyderabad, MP is taking a unique approach to building GCCs—backed by a bold state policy. 👉 Game On, AI Style From Khelo India spotting young athletes to startups building video tracking and scouting tools, AI is revolutionising Indian sports. 👉 Locked Up, Logged In Meet Preston Thorpe, a software engineer at Turso, who codes in Rust and Python—contributing to databases and open-source projects from prison. 👉 MongoDB vs Databricks vs Snowflake As the battle moves into PostgreSQL, the rivalry intensifies—reshaping enterprise data strategies. 👉 Red Hat’s AI Feathers With open-source at its core, Red Hat is showing how global collaboration drives AI innovation. 👉 smallest.ai’s Global Play Sudarshan Kamath is building for the world first—before channeling gains back into India. 👉 91-Year-Old Vibe Coder John Blackman challenges age stereotypes by using Claude and Replit to build tools for his community. 👉 Indian IT’s New Reality From TCS’s bench policy change to soaring CEO salaries at HCLTech and mid-tier firms, the gap between boardroom and cubicle is widening. 👉 EkStep Foundation & BHASHINI - (Digital India BHASHINI Division) Shankar Maruwada shares why tech must serve those who need it most, while Bhashini builds a digital language backbone for India. This edition is a reminder: AI is not just about models—it’s about ambition, culture, resilience, and the people who push limits. Grab your copy of AIM Print August 2025 and see why this is our most talked-about edition yet: https://lnkd.in/gWrRb364

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