Abhijit Das

OpenAI declared war on Google yesterday and 82% of Indian shoppers are already on their side without knowing it. ChatGPT now has "Instant Checkout." You can search for products, compare options, and complete purchases without leaving the chat window. 700 million weekly users can now shop directly through conversations. Within hours of this announcement: 📌 Etsy's stock jumped 16%.  📌 Shopify gained 6%. The market immediately understood what this means for traditional e-commerce. When people use ChatGPT for shopping, they convert at 4× higher rates than regular websites, and that is because users spend 14 minutes per session on Ai tools like ChatGPT as compared to Google's 5 minutes. India's position in this makes it even more interesting: → 87% of Indian shoppers believe AI tools help them shop faster, with AI-powered interactions showing higher engagement rates (Walmart Retail Rewired Report India, 2025) → 62% of Indians make purchases influenced by AI recommendations vs 30% globally (EY India, Aug 2024) Traditional shopping makes you open multiple tabs, visit different websites, and compare prices manually. ChatGPT collapses this entire journey into one conversation. For small businesses, this could level the playing field. A seller in Jaipur gets the same access to global users as Amazon does. For established platforms, the threat is real. Why would customers visit your website when they can complete everything through a conversation? The companies optimizing for AI discovery today will own tomorrow's market. Is your business ready for AI-powered shopping or still relying only on traditional search?

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From Dream11 to CoinDCX to Slice — they had one thing in common: operating in the grey. Fantasy gaming was never fully legal. Outright “games of chance” like lotteries were prohibited. But sugar coated as “games of skill,” online fantasy platforms operated in a grey zone for years, attracting users, heavy VC funding, and unicorn valuations. That grey zone has just been shut 🛑 The Online Gaming Bill 2025 bans all real money online games with consequences of hefty monetary penalty and jail time. And this wasn’t a fringe experiment. Dream11: $8 Bn valuation, backed by Tiger Global, Steadview, DST Global, D1 Capital MPL: $2.5 Bn valuation, funded by Peak XV, RTP Global, Google, Times Internet, BEENEXT Tier 1 VCs bet big. With one ruling, the core of these businesses is outlawed. Though, this isn’t the first time Take crypto exchanges. In 2018, RBI barred banks from working with them. Exchanges like Zebpay shut down India ops. In 2020, the Hon'ble Supreme Court overturned the ban, a win for the industry. But the Govt. was adamant and in 2022, it struck back with a 30% tax on crypto gains and 1% TDS on every trade! The effect was the same as a ban. CoinDCX, valued at $2.15 Bn with funding from Steadview and Pantera, saw volumes collapse by ~90%. WazirX and others faced the same fate. Or look at BNPL cards. In 2022, RBI clarified that credit lines can’t be loaded onto prepaid wallets. That single circular forced Slice, backed again by Tiger Global, Blume to shut down its flagship product overnight and pivot to term loans - valuation stalled and promised funding was put on hold. A recurring trend is clear. Indian startups often mimic Western models (fantasy gaming like DraftKings, BNPL like Klarna, crypto like Coinbase) without fully grasping India’s regulatory context. Surprisingly, even marquee global investors pile in, probably out of fomo. And then, one ruling, one tax, or one circular, and it all collapses overnight. The learning is blunt: Startups that scale in the grey in India eventually face Govt. scrutiny and the odds are unlikely to be in their favour. 👉 Do you think India’s Govt. / Regulators are being unnecessarily over cautious, hurting foreign inflows, innovation and ease of doing business? #easeofdoingbusiness #startups

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Builder.ai's $450M Collapse: The AI Unicorn That Was Actually "A Guy Instead" From $1.5B valuation to bankruptcy in months. Here's what every AI founder needs to know: The Deception Chain: → 700+ human developers in India manually coded apps → "Natasha AI" was just a chatbot collecting requirements → 300% revenue inflation through fake contracts with VerSe Innovation → $60M in circular invoicing without actual services The Warning Signs Timeline: 2019: Wall Street Journal exposes AI claims 2023: CFO position vacant during critical growth 2024: Whistleblower allegations surface 2025: Viola Credit seizes $37M, bankruptcy filed across 5 countries The Brutal Math: ↳ 90% of AI startups fail within 5 years ↳ 75% engage in revenue overstatement ↳ Only 3% achieve successful exits ↳ 1,000 employees lost jobs ↳ 500+ customers lost apps and data Critical Lessons for AI Founders: → Technology Transparency: Build real AI before claiming AI-powered solutions → Financial Integrity: Hire experienced CFOs early, not during crisis → Business Model Reality: Align pricing with operational costs → Governance Strength: Experienced leadership with proper oversight The Ripple Effect: Global AI investment declined 18-45% across regions post-collapse. The hype-driven era is ending. Swipe through our Global AI Forum breakdown → Research shows the AI industry needs substance over spectacle. Builder.ai's failure wasn't market rejection it was self-inflicted through systematic deception. Key Takeaway: Hype can fuel growth, but only substance sustains it.

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OpenAI just launched chatgpt go in india at ₹399/month 🙇🏻‍♂️ you get 10x higher message limits, 10x more image generations, 10x more file uploads, and double the memory compared to the free plan. plus, payments via UPI, no more USD conversion headaches. india’s the first country to get this tier, aimed at students, freelancers, and anyone who found the free limits too restrictive but didn’t want to pay for plus. the go plan bridges that gap, making advanced AI features way more accessible. feels like a smart move: affordable, local payments, and more power for everyday users. curious to see how this shapes ai adoption here 🙌

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Groq 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗜 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁: 𝟴𝟬% 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝟭𝟬% 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝟵𝟵% 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲. 562 tokens/second at $0.20/million. Jonathan Ross from Groq showed us why this matters for #India at yesterday's YourStory Media's breakfast. Indian builders are already moving differently: • MakeMyTrip launched 𝗠𝘆𝗿𝗮 - books multi-city trips + hotels in one shot • Madhusudhan from Swiggy on storing embeddings for entire customer journeys beats just tracking purchases • NoBroker.com and Jithendra from Observe.AI have moved to pure task-completion agents Jonathan dropped two model insights from their weekly benchmarks: • 𝗞𝗶𝗺𝗶 𝗞𝟮's coder is seriously underrated - especially for UI dev and complex refactoring • 𝗤𝘄𝗲𝗻-𝟮.𝟱 matches Claude Opus on math at 1/10th cost His bet: voice-first will define India's AI adoption. Watching Sudarshan and Akshat from smallest.ai execute on this vision - lucky to be their advisor and first check. The Valley builds for perfection. We build for scale. Groq makes both possible. Thanks Shubham for the invite, YourStory Media and Sangeeta for organizing.

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𝐆𝐓𝐌 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐅𝐒𝐈 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 And if you’re building in India, you quickly realize: it’s less about speed and more about understanding how things actually move. 1. There’s no single buyer. Product might love you, but Ops is risk-averse. Compliance wants a legal opinion. Tech wants infra docs. Everyone has veto power, and timelines don’t move till all green lights align. 2. Bottom-up sounds democratic, but is painfully slow. You find a champion, you do a free POC, you show result, and still nothing moves. Because decision-making sits way higher. And often, the folks you start with aren’t even in the room when final calls are made. 3. Top-down works better - if you can get in. Senior leaders care about org-wide impact and risk savings. If your pitch solves a board-level problem, you skip 6 layers of internal selling. Otherwise, you’re just another tool in the pile. 4. Security, infra, and compliance are not “later” conversations. If you’re not enterprise-ready from Day 1, most BFSI players won’t even let you inside the building. 5. Everyone’s overloaded. The risk lead is doing 3 roles. The Ops lead is managing 10 vendors. If your solution isn’t dead simple to understand - and implement - they’ll thank you and never call back. This is a market that tests your GTM clarity more than your tech Get it right, and you build deep moats. Get it wrong, and you waste a year chasing the wrong door. #AI #Founderslife

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It’s a startup era, every college today seems to have at least a couple of ventures. I’ve always loved following startup stories, connecting with young entrepreneurs, and understanding the fire and vision that drive them. But let’s be real: too many startups are built with short-term goals, chasing valuations, quick investments, and early exits. As Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal rightly said, much of the Indian startup ecosystem is revolving around quick commerce and similar areas, where true innovation often takes a backseat. That’s why Genrobotics stands out. Born out of a college project in Kerala, this team of young minds chose to solve real, ground-level Indian problems. Their Bandicoot robot, adopted across multiple states, has transformed sewage cleaning, eliminating manual scavenging and restoring dignity through safe, tech-driven solutions. And today, watching this video gave me a great feel of how technology and young minds are reshaping common people’s lives. Genrobotics’ latest Robotic Gait Training System (RAGT) is set to be made available at the Noolpuzha Family Health Center in Wayanad, helping paralyzed and semi-paralyzed patients perform cardio and rehab exercises with minimal human support. This isn’t just robotics; it’s empathy delivered through technology. Watching their journey has been truly inspiring. From a campus startup to one of India’s most respected robotics firms, Genrobotics has shown that deep-tech innovation can bring relief, dignity, and smiles to countless lives. Kudos to Vimal Govind MK and the entire Genrobotics team, this is only the beginning. I’m sure your journey will continue to accelerate, solving more Indian problems and setting global benchmarks for innovation. Vipin Govind M K | Agil Ajith #MakeInIndia #StartupIndia #Genrobotics

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