Akshay Cherian

'Startup India' must be followed by 'Impact India' Tarun Khanna and I write about the population-size impact of non-profit unicorns and the need for government to act like a market-maker to catalyze the ecosystem. We draw a simple learning from how startups are built - they thrive on experimentation and iteration to find scale pathways. This needs unrestricted innovation capital which government must help unlock.The article makes 3 simple suggestions. We strongly believe, that we are at a disruptive moment, where India is positioned to be a vishwaguru on scaling impact to billion+ people, through public-private partnerships crafting sound policy, and using technology and community to execute. We should make most of the moment by treating non-profits as the creative entrepreneurial efforts they can be, just as are commercial startups. https://lnkd.in/g3tSh57M

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#SEBI just clipped Angel Wings. And Founders should be thankful. SEBI’s recent New Rule to restrict #angelfund participation to Accredited Investors* has sparked concern across the startup ecosystem. Many believe it will reduce the flow of early stage capital. Others feel it goes against the idea of broadening participation in angel investing. But take a closer look, especially from a founder’s point of view, and the picture starts to shift. This change may not reduce capital. It may simply improve its quality. Earlier, the eligibility to invest through an angel fund was based on a self-declared ₹2 crore net worth, excluding the primary home. That bar was relatively low. And as a result, a lot of individuals started showing up, not because they had experience or real conviction, but because they did not want to miss out. FOMO brought them in. Startups ended up paying the price. SEBI’s shift to Accredited Investors changes that. It raises the threshold. Investors will now need to meet stricter income or net worth criteria and go through a formal accreditation process. Yes, this will reduce the number of angels in the ecosystem. But the ones who remain will be serious about investing. They will bring context, experience, and capital that actually moves the needle. Ask any founder who has raised from 15 or 20 angels to fill a ₹1 crore round: You spend weeks pitching. You convince dozens of people. And what you get is a bunch of ₹50K cheques that come with expectations, but not impact. Requests for board seats. Weekly update demands. Advisory equity asks without real involvement. Same pitch. Same effort. Very little return on time. This is where SEBI’s move helps. It does not block capital. It filters it. Founders will now deal with fewer angels, but ones who bring more conviction, more clarity, and write cheques that actually matter. Fewer names on the cap table. More value in the room. #Founders: How has your experience been raising from #angels? Have smaller cheques added more value or more overhead? And do you see SEBI’s move helping or hurting your next raise? #EarlyStageCapital ##AngelNetwork #StartupEcosystem #StartupFunding

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After a fabulous two years at Kae Capital, I knew it was time to build the fund I wished had existed when I was a founder. Today, I’m launching Boundless Ventures, an early-stage, AI-native venture firm backing India-rooted founders who are building globally defensible companies at the intersection of science, systems, and culture. Boundless starts with a simple belief: the next decade’s breakout companies won’t “add AI” as a feature. They’ll be AI-native from day one, rethinking consumer products, enterprise workflows, and infrastructure with new primitives. We’ll write the first cheque ($200–400K), and then double down. We’ve proud to have already partnered with six category-shaping founding teams: • Superhealth: rethinking healthcare from the ground up • Armatrix: autonomous snake-arm robots for engine inspection • PierSight: real-time ocean intelligence • KNOT: AI-native fashion discovery and logistics • Two stealth companies in infra and consumer AI Our thesis spans four arenas: • The AI-native stack: infra, agents, and memory protocols • Make-in-India hardware: autonomous systems, design-led manufacturing • New-India consumer: culture × code • Science × story: where deep tech meets narrative leverage India is not catching up. It’s compounding. Boundless exists to back originals, with speed, belief and storytelling firepower. Link to our website & thesis below.

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Based on the BharatNext Accelerator Investor Survey Analysis, here is a bullet point summary highlighting key investor preferences and event details: The data stems from the Investor Survey Analysis conducted by the #BharatNextAccelerator, India’s First District Startup Venture Studio Initiative, powered by Amrit Mehsana Startup & Innovation Mission. The analysis gathered 19 responses across various metrics. Investment Focus Areas: Sectors of Interest: The most preferred sector for investment is AI/ML & DeepTech (26.3%). The second most preferred sector is D2C / Consumer Products (21.1%). HealthTech & MedTech is also a significant area of interest (15.8%). Funding Preferences: Preferred Stage: Investors overwhelmingly favor startups in the Early Revenue stage, representing 78.9% of responses. The next preferred stage is Growth Stage (15.8%). Investment Ticket Size: There is a near-equal preference for two distinct ticket sizes: ₹50 Lakhs – ₹1 Crore (26.3%) and ₹3 Crores – ₹5 Crores (26.3%). Investment tickets of ₹1 Crore – ₹3 Crores are also highly sought after (21.1%). Interaction & Participation: Participation Format: A majority of investors prefer Physical Meeting / Demo Day (57.9%) over Online (One-to-one Startup Interaction) (42.1%). Investment Commitments on Demo Day: While a minority say 'No' (26.3%) to signing commitments on Demo Day, the vast majority (68.4%) are "Open to discussion" regarding signing investment commitments. Meeting Logistics: Preferred Time Slot: The most preferred time slot for interactions is the Afternoon (12 PM – 4 PM), accounting for 47.4% of responses. Preferred Duration: Most investors prefer a brief meeting duration of 30 Minutes (73.7%). Invitation to Upcoming Event: Join the #BharatNext Investment Pitching Festival on 09 Oct 2025. The event will be held at the Vibrant Gujarat Regional Conference, Mehsana, North Gujarat. Amrit Mehsana Startup & Innovation Mission #StartupMehsana #startupindia Sumeet Jarangal Abhishek Singh|Shradha Sharma|Milapsinh Jadeja|Sushil Sharma|Mihir Joshi|Jimish Kapadia|Mayuresh Raut|Amit Singal|Pranay Mathur|CA Swati Panchal|Amal P S|Jeffrey A. Stephens|Janne Rauramo|Chirag Patel|Sanni patel|Yamal Vyas|Dr.Panneerselvam ( PS ) Madanagopal|Jeet V.|Dr. Preet Deep Singh

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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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