What does it take to build India’s “power grid” for the AI era? In this weekend episode of Season 4: Destiny Avenged, Karthik sits down with E2E Networks’ (Fund I vintage) co-founders (and married duo) Tarun Dua & Srishti Baweja to learn how they went from a cloud hosting company to becoming India's AI infrastructure pioneers. From racking servers by hand and winning a ₹30,000 first check, to an SME IPO oversubscribed 70×, to a bold 2018 pivot into NVIDIA GPUs—this is the rarely told, India-first cloud story that kept compounding when no one was watching. You'll hear:

• How E2E “invented cloud before ‘cloud’ was a word”—uniform infra, contractless compute, and brutal cost discipline

• Why they went public early (2018 SME IPO) and what really changes post-IPO
• The inside story of their 2018 GPU bet (V100s) and the tailwinds from COVID to GenAI
• Sovereign AI, software built in India, and keeping scrappy DNA while scaling
• Candid founder talk: debt vs equity, losing a 30–35% revenue client overnight, and husband-wife co-founder dynamics

00:00 - Intro04:40 - The ₹30,000 first cheque and why contractless compute mattered08:30 - Word-of-mouth growth: CarDekho → Flipkart and 100% YoY without salespeople16:20 - Building as a married founding team — lanes, trust, and obsession23:45 - Surviving without VC: ₹3 Cr equity + debt discipline33:00 - 2018 SME IPO — why they went public early and what changed after44:15 - The GPU pivot: betting on NVIDIA V100s before the AI wave56:20 - Sovereign AI: building data, hardware, and software stacks in India

🔔 Don’t miss more stories of grit and destiny in Season 4: Destiny Avenged. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2U3H...Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast...Sponsors: IDFC FIRST Bank and Ultrahuman (Blume Portco)Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this content are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, nor an offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities. References to companies, transactions, or market events are illustrative only and should not be construed as endorsements or statements of value. Any views expressed by individuals are solely their own and do not represent those of Blume Ventures, its affiliates, partners, or employees. Past performance is not indicative of future results.