Hard Truths By Vertex

India may be late to the AI gold rush… but Piyush Kharbanda thinks we might be looking in all the wrong places.I sit down with venture investor Piyush Kharbanda to unpack how he’s thinking about AI startups, venture capital and India’s place in the global AI race. We get into why Indian AI companies are still behind the US, why the old SaaS playbook is breaking, and what he actually looks for when investing in Series A and Series B startups. Piyush also explains why boring industries like manufacturing and industrials could become India’s biggest AI opportunity, and why execution, not technology, may be the real moat. If you’re building an AI startup, investing in one, or trying to understand where India’s AI ecosystem is headed next, this conversation gets very practical, very quickly.IN THIS EPISODE00:30 | Why India Is Missing the AI Boom01:52 | Why the US Pulled Ahead03:45 | Can India Catch Up?04:46 | Why India’s AI Apps Lag05:35 | AI Is Still at Day Zero08:29 | Why the SaaS Playbook Is Breaking10:44 | The Real Moat in AI15:32 | Why Proximity to the Edge Matters17:34 | Where AI Moats Will Come From19:17 | Why the Harness Could Be the Moat20:45 | India’s Biggest AI Opportunity23:23 | Why Legal & Health Are Overcrowded25:12 | Why AI Startups Grow So Fast28:29 | What VCs Want From AI Now30:12 | Why “Boring” Industries Could WinPiyush KharbandaPiyush Kharbanda joined Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India in 2016 and focuses on opportunities in India. Piyush is a technologist at heart and has invested across consumer and enterprise focused companies that use software technology to build strong business models. Piyush works closely with Kissht, Kuku FM, Signzy, Ayu Health, Beepkart, Tortoise, Threado and Certa. Piyush has also successfully helped exit Recko and Hansel.Prior to Vertex, he spent five years doing growth investing in the Financial Services and Technology verticals with Multiples, a leading India based mid-market fund, where he was involved in investments through portfolio management and exit. Before that, Piyush worked with Alvarez and Marsal on performance improvement and strategy consulting assignments.Piyush holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, and a Bachelors in Electronics and Communications from the Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi.Rahul ThayyalamkandyDirector of Comms & Community, Vertex Ventures SEA & IndiaRahul Thayyalamkandy joined the SEA/India team as the Director of Communication & Community in 2024 and is based in Singapore.Before joining Vertex, Rahul served as a Product Manager at BLOCK71, an incubator and joint venture of NUS Enterprise and Singtel Innov8, where he developed scalable services for portfolio startups and designed mentorship programs. He also gained experience as a Summer Associate at Cocoon Capital, working with the Managing Partner on investment deals.https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulthayyalamkandy/—Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India is a pioneer in investing in tech start-ups in this region and has helped to build a number of unicorns. In this podcast, we seek to share and uncover the Hard Truth — raw, unfiltered insights and venture capital knowledge from across Southeast Asia and India. Tune in to learn from leading founders, innovators, venture capitalists, and industry experts in the region and gain industry insights from those in the know.If you like what you hear, please follow or subscribe to the show so you don’t miss out on any of our upcoming discussions.—Follow us to get notified whenever new episodes are shared.—For more information, please visit: https://www.vertexventures.sg#ArtificialIntelligence #AIStartups #IndiaAI #GenerativeAI #VentureCapital #StartupIndia #IndianStartups #EnterpriseAI #SaaS #AIInvesting #FutureOfAI #TechStartups #StartupFunding #AIBusiness #VentureCapitalIndia

I sat down with an AI founder who believes companies are spending first… and asking what it cost later.Lemuel Low is building Ren3 to help businesses understand, control and optimise the rapidly growing cost of AI. As enterprises deploy copilots, autonomous agents and increasingly complex workflows, many are discovering that traditional software budgets simply do not work when every outcome carries a different and potentially uncapped token cost.We spoke about why AI never became as cheap as promised, who should be accountable when an agent fails, whether companies can predict the cost of a workflow before running it, and why governance needs to be built into infrastructure rather than left as another policy document.Lemuel also explains model routing, open-weight alternatives, outcome-based pricing, the conflict between model providers and their customers, and what cost-efficient companies are already doing differently.This is one of the most practical conversations I’ve had about the economics behind enterprise AI. If you care about AI agents, enterprise software, token costs, governance, model routing, pricing, or building sustainable AI businesses, watch this one till the end!IN THIS EPISODE00:00 | Teaser00:51 | Uber's AI Budget & Token Spend03:32 | Why Token Maximisation Suddenly Stopped Working05:33 | When Finance and Engineering Collide Over AI Costs09:42 | The Two Things Every Company Must Control10:59 | Who Takes Accountability When Agents Fail?12:40 | Accountability Beyond Governance Frameworks13:21 | Why the Best AI Model Is Often the Wrong Choice16:46 | Can You Price an AI Task Before Running It?20:40 | Inside Reentry’s AI Cost-Control Infrastructure22:26 | Can AI Companies Really Charge for Outcomes?26:09 | What Cost-Efficient Companies Look Like34:24 | Will AI Competition Actually Make Models Cheaper?35:41 | The Coming Battle Over Enterprise AI Spending Lemuel LowLemuel Low is building Ren3, an AI platform focused on helping businesses manage, attribute and optimise the cost of running AI workloads. His work explores how companies can move beyond unrestricted token consumption by introducing model routing, workload planning, traceability and governance directly into their AI infrastructure.Through Ren3, he is working to give organisations greater visibility into how tokens are being consumed, which teams and processes are responsible for that spending, and whether the outcomes being produced justify their cost. He believes that as AI adoption accelerates, companies will need to treat token economics as a core operational discipline rather than relying on model providers to control spending for them.Rahul ThayyalamkandyDirector of Comms & Community, Vertex Ventures SEA & IndiaRahul Thayyalamkandy joined the SEA/India team as the Director of Communication & Community in 2024 and is based in Singapore.Before joining Vertex, Rahul served as a Product Manager at BLOCK71, an incubator and joint venture of NUS Enterprise and Singtel Innov8, where he developed scalable services for portfolio startups and designed mentorship programs. He also gained experience as a Summer Associate at Cocoon Capital, working with the Managing Partner on investment deals.https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulthayyalamkandy/—Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India is a pioneer in investing in tech start-ups in this region and has helped to build a number of unicorns. In this podcast, we seek to share and uncover the Hard Truth — raw, unfiltered insights and venture capital knowledge from across Southeast Asia and India. Tune in to learn from leading founders, innovators, venture capitalists, and industry experts in the region and gain industry insights from those in the know.If you like what you hear, please follow or subscribe to the show so you don’t miss out on any of our upcoming discussions.For more information, please visit: https://www.vertexventures.sg

They went from three villas to 600 in just over two years — by betting that India’s next major travel brand would look less like a hotel and more like someone’s dream home.Ritwik Khare and Karan Miglani, co-founders of ELIVAAS, had worked together in travel before building a company at the intersection of hospitality and real estate. They saw a growing market of second-home owners who needed help maintaining, monitoring and monetising their properties — and travellers who wanted the privacy of a villa without sacrificing hotel-level service. ELIVAAS has since grown from three villas to around 600 properties.In this conversation with Rahul, Ritwik and Karan explain why India’s luxury villa market is larger than it appears, how group travel makes premium stays more affordable, and why customers increasingly choose the property before the destination. They also break down the technology and operational systems required to manage scattered homes consistently, the advantage of building dense micro-markets, and their ambition to make ELIVAAS the Marriott of villas and apartments.IN THIS EPISODE00:00 | Teaser00:45 | Introduction: From Airbnb Host to ELIVAAS Founder01:29 | Why Focus on Luxury Villas and Apartments?02:50 | The Genesis: A Personal Problem to Solve04:00 | Market Size and Growth Potential05:40 | Changing Travel Behavior: More Frequent Luxury Getaways07:33 | The 3M Promise: Maintain, Monitor, Monetize08:35 | Customer Personas: Homeowners and Travelers10:52 | ELIVAAS vs. Alaya Stays: Two Brand Segments11:41 | Cross-Sell Services and Enhanced Experiences13:25 | Evolving Consumer Behavior and Sustainability15:18 | Surprising Consumer Insights17:43 | Technology and Operations: The Execution Engine19:34 | The Power of Micro-Markets21:18 | Why Choose ELIVAAS Over Airbnb?22:13 | Competitive Landscape and Early-Mover Advantage22:47 | International Expansion Strategy24:40 | Vision for 2035 and Key Risks About Ritwik KhareRitwik Khare is the Founder and CEO of ELIVAAS, a technology-led luxury villa and apartment management company. His experience as a second-home owner helped shape ELIVAAS’ core promise: to maintain, monitor and monetise properties while delivering a consistent luxury experience for travellers.Ritwik on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritwikk/About Karan MiglaniKaran Miglani is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of ELIVAAS. He leads the company’s technology and product systems across homeowners, travellers and on-ground hospitality teams, helping ELIVAAS manage distributed luxury properties at scale.Karan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karanmiglani/Rahul ThayyalamkandyDirector of Comms & Community, Vertex Ventures SEA & IndiaRahul Thayyalamkandy joined the SEA/India team as the Director of Communication & Community in 2024 and is based in Singapore.Before joining Vertex, Rahul served as a Product Manager at BLOCK71, an incubator and joint venture of NUS Enterprise and Singtel Innov8, where he developed scalable services for portfolio startups and designed mentorship programs. He also gained experience as a Summer Associate at Cocoon Capital, working with the Managing Partner on investment deals.https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulthayyalamkandy/—-Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India is a pioneer in investing in tech start-ups in this region and has helped to build a number of unicorns. In this podcast, we seek to share and uncover the Hard Truth - raw, unfiltered insights and venture capital knowledge from across Southeast Asia and India. Tune in to learn from leading founders, innovators, venture capitalists, and industry experts in the region and gain industry insights from those in the know.If you like what you hear, please follow or subscribe to the show so you don’t miss out on any of our upcoming discussions.—Follow us to get notified whenever new episodes are shared.—For more information, please visit: https://www.vertexventures.sg 

He wants to build the “herbal Pfizer”... and he’s betting Kapiva’s future on proof, not blind faith.I sat down with Ameve Sharma, founder of Kapiva, to understand how his personal connection to Ayurveda became a mission to bring 5,000 years of Indian medicine into modern healthcare. We unpacked his journey of scaling Kapiva, investing heavily in clinical trials, challenging traditional thinking, and convincing manufacturers to meet standards nobody else was asking for.Ameve explains why Ayurveda must work alongside modern medicine, how Kapiva uses R&D, doctors, technology and AI-powered healthcare journeys, and why building trust matters more than selling another wellness product.We also spoke about taking Indian herbal medicine global, competing with pharmaceutical companies, and his ambition to make Kapiva a respected global healthcare brand built on measurable results.Timestamps00:00 | Why Kapiva Is Rebuilding Ayurveda02:17 | What Makes Ayurvedic Products Safe?02:41 | Why Ayurveda Treats More Than Symptoms03:36 | How Ayurvedic Medicines Actually Work05:27 | Can Clinical Trials Prove Ayurveda Works?07:51 | How Kapiva Personalises Your Treatment09:51 | Why Big Ayurveda Brands Missed Healthcare10:47 | How Kapiva Tests Products Like Pharma13:15 | Why Kapiva Bet Big on Research15:22 | What Doctors Need to Trust Ayurveda16:26 | How Kapiva Tests Every Product Batch17:15 | Are Heavy Metals in Ayurveda Dangerous?18:04 | How Kapiva Builds Customer Trust21:49 | What Ayurvedic Customers Really Want23:43 | Can Ayurveda Work With Modern Medicine?25:22 | The Hardest Parts of Scaling Kapiva28:03 | Can Indian Ayurveda Become Global?30:48 | What India Can Learn From China33:49 | What Could Unlock Ayurveda’s Growth?35:04 | Why Prevention Isn’t the Biggest Market Yet37:18 | Kapiva’s Goal: Become the Herbal PfizerAbout Ameve SharmaAmeve Sharma is the founder of Kapiva, an evidence-based Ayurveda brand based in India. He started his entrepreneurial career with a cold-pressed juice company before pivoting to Ayurveda, where he saw an opportunity to apply scientific rigor to one of the world's oldest wellness traditions. Under his leadership, Kapiva has conducted 28 clinical studies, raised over $60M, and grown from a D2C-first startup into an omnichannel brand with 250 field sales staff across Tier 2 and Tier 3 India. Kapiva is an official health partner of the IPL.Ameve on LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/amevesharma Kapiva website: https://kapiva.in/ Rahul ThayyalamkandyDirector of Comms & Community, Vertex Ventures SEA & IndiaRahul Thayyalamkandy joined the SEA/India team as the Director of Communication & Community in 2024 and is based in Singapore.Before joining Vertex, Rahul served as a Product Manager at BLOCK71, an incubator and joint venture of NUS Enterprise and Singtel Innov8, where he developed scalable services for portfolio startups and designed mentorship programs. He also gained experience as a Summer Associate at Cocoon Capital, working with the Managing Partner on investment deals.https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulthayyalamkandy/—Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India is a pioneer in investing in tech start-ups in this region and has helped to build a number of unicorns. In this podcast, we seek to share and uncover the Hard Truth - raw, unfiltered insights and venture capital knowledge from across Southeast Asia and India. Tune in to learn from leading founders, innovators, venture capitalists, and industry experts in the region and gain industry insights from those in the know.If you like what you hear, please follow or subscribe to the show so you don’t miss out on any of our upcoming discussions._Follow us to get notified whenever new episodes are shared._For more information, please visit: https://www.vertexventures.sg #Kapiva, #Ayurveda, #D2C #IPLsponsor, #FiresideVentures, #FMCG, #foundermistakes, #quickcommerce, #Blinkit, #Zepto, #startupculture

I sat down with a founder who almost lost his company twice… and still built one of Indonesia’s biggest e-commerce enablers.Brian Marshal took SIRCLO from a Shopify-style startup to powering major brands across TikTok Shop, marketplaces, live commerce and fulfillment… all while surviving the startup crash, failed fundraising rounds and the tech winter.We spoke about profitability, AI agents, startup governance, IPO readiness, scaling outside Jakarta, and why most Southeast Asian startups got growth completely wrong.IN THIS EPISODE00:00 | Why SIRCLO Almost Died Twice01:38 | The Shopify Idea That Failed in Indonesia02:25 | Why Brands Need More Than Just a Storefront04:06 | The Brutal Reality of Startup Fundraising06:30 | How SIRCLO Finally Became Profitable07:53 | Preparing SIRCLO for a Possible IPO11:37 | The Governance Mistakes Startups Keep Making15:24 | Why Good Tech Infrastructure Pays Off17:10 | How SIRCLO Is Using AI Agents Internally19:38 | Scaling E-Commerce Without Owning Warehouses22:05 | How TikTok Changed E-Commerce in Indonesia23:31 | Why Catalog Commerce Is Dying24:00 | Building for TikTok, Live Selling & Creators25:07 | Why Sales and Marketing Are Merging26:05 | The Future of Live Commerce in Southeast Asia26:19 | Will Indonesia Become Like China’s E-Commerce Market?27:23 | Balancing Profitability and Innovation28:22 | Why Innovation Failed at SIRCLO Earlier32:30 | Why Southeast Asian Tech IPOs Struggle35:10 | Is Indonesia Still a Great Startup Market?36:36 | Brian’s Vision for SIRCLO’s Next ChapterBrian MarshalBrian Marshal is the Founder and CEO of SIRCLO, a leading Southeast Asian e-commerce enabler that helps brands sell online across their own web stores and platforms like TikTok and Shopee. What began as a simple website-builder idea in 2013 has grown under his leadership into an integrated solution powering millions of monthly orders. Over the past decade, Brian has guided the company through organic and inorganic growth, shifting market conditions, and a steady push toward profitability, rooted in a commitment to resilience and integrity.His personal journey bridges Indonesia and Singapore, built on a background in computer science and data analytics alongside a firm belief in technology's power to unlock new opportunities. Beyond SIRCLO, Brian is deeply committed to nurturing Indonesia’s future leaders through his active involvement in the Informatics and AI Olympiad communities, as well as the McKinsey Young Leaders for Indonesia program. Rahul ThayyalamkandyDirector of Comms & Community, Vertex Ventures SEA & IndiaRahul Thayyalamkandy joined the SEA/India team as the Director of Communication & Community in 2024 and is based in Singapore.Before joining Vertex, Rahul served as a Product Manager at BLOCK71, an incubator and joint venture of NUS Enterprise and Singtel Innov8, where he developed scalable services for portfolio startups and designed mentorship programs. He also gained experience as a Summer Associate at Cocoon Capital, working with the Managing Partner on investment deals.https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulthayyalamkandy/—-Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India is a pioneer in investing in tech start-ups in this region and has helped to build a number of unicorns. In this podcast, we seek to share and uncover the Hard Truth - raw, unfiltered insights and venture capital knowledge from across Southeast Asia and India. Tune in to learn from leading founders, innovators, venture capitalists, and industry experts in the region and gain industry insights from those in the know.If you like what you hear, please follow or subscribe to the show so you don’t miss out on any of our upcoming discussions.—Follow us to get notified whenever new episodes are shared.—For more information, please visit: https://www.vertexventures.sg #hardtruthsbyvertexventures  #vertexventures #entrepreneurship #startups #venturecapital #vc #podcast #businessleaders