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 EPISODE

00:30 | Why India Is Missing the AI Boom

01:52 | Why the US Pulled Ahead

03:45 | Can India Catch Up?

04:46 | Why India’s AI Apps Lag

05:35 | AI Is Still at Day Zero

08:29 | Why the SaaS Playbook Is Breaking

10:44 | The Real Moat in AI

15:32 | Why Proximity to the Edge Matters

17:34 | Where AI Moats Will Come From

19:17 | Why the Harness Could Be the Moat

20:45 | India’s Biggest AI Opportunity

23:23 | Why Legal & Health Are Overcrowded

25:12 | Why AI Startups Grow So Fast

28:29 | What VCs Want From AI Now

30:12 | Why “Boring” Industries Could Win

Piyush Kharbanda

Piyush 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 Thayyalamkandy

Director of Comms & Community, Vertex Ventures SEA & India

Rahul 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/

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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.

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Follow us to get notified whenever new episodes are shared.

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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 EPISODE

00:00 | Teaser

00:51 | Uber's AI Budget & Token Spend

03:32 | Why Token Maximisation Suddenly Stopped Working

05:33 | When Finance and Engineering Collide Over AI Costs

09:42 | The Two Things Every Company Must Control

10:59 | Who Takes Accountability When Agents Fail?

12:40 | Accountability Beyond Governance Frameworks

13:21 | Why the Best AI Model Is Often the Wrong Choice

16:46 | Can You Price an AI Task Before Running It?

20:40 | Inside Reentry’s AI Cost-Control Infrastructure

22:26 | Can AI Companies Really Charge for Outcomes?

26:09 | What Cost-Efficient Companies Look Like

34:24 | Will AI Competition Actually Make Models Cheaper?

35:41 | The Coming Battle Over Enterprise AI Spending

Lemuel Low

Lemuel 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 & India

Rahul 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/

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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 EPISODE

00:00 | Teaser

00:45 | Introduction: From Airbnb Host to ELIVAAS Founder

01:29 | Why Focus on Luxury Villas and Apartments?

02:50 | The Genesis: A Personal Problem to Solve

04:00 | Market Size and Growth Potential

05:40 | Changing Travel Behavior: More Frequent Luxury Getaways

07:33 | The 3M Promise: Maintain, Monitor, Monetize

08:35 | Customer Personas: Homeowners and Travelers

10:52 | ELIVAAS vs. Alaya Stays: Two Brand Segments

11:41 | Cross-Sell Services and Enhanced Experiences

13:25 | Evolving Consumer Behavior and Sustainability

15:18 | Surprising Consumer Insights

17:43 | Technology and Operations: The Execution Engine

19:34 | The Power of Micro-Markets

21:18 | Why Choose ELIVAAS Over Airbnb?

22:13 | Competitive Landscape and Early-Mover Advantage

22:47 | International Expansion Strategy

24:40 | Vision for 2035 and Key Risks

About Ritwik Khare

Ritwik 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 Miglani

Karan 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 Thayyalamkandy

Director of Comms & Community, Vertex Ventures SEA & India

Rahul 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/

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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