Unicorn Founders Go AI Native

“Not using AI is like being left behind,” Apple CEO Tim Cook’s remark captures the urgency around artificial intelligence today — though the tinge of irony in these words coming from Apple is not lost on us.

For a growing number of India’s startup founders, however, things are moving beyond this starting point. Using AI is passé, they now want to build AI-native startups.

The latest name to join that list is Zeta founder Bhavin Turakhia. Earlier this week, he launched Neo, an AI-native workplace platform backed by a $30 Mn personal investment. Instead of adding AI assistants to existing workplace software, Neo wants AI agents to work alongside employees, complete tasks and access an organisation’s knowledge base. 

Turakhia’s announcement is part of a larger shift playing out across India’s startup landscape. Entrepreneurs who built category defining companies over the past decade are returning with fresh ventures centred on AI. The names are familiar, the businesses are not. 

Ten years ago, these founders helped India embrace smartphones, digital payments and ecommerce. Today, they are building software that writes codes, automates business processes and performs tasks that once required human intervention. 

The Second Act Written By AI

The country’s first startup boom was driven by companies solving problems around internet access, online commerce, and digital adoption. AI has opened up a different opportunity altogether. 

Mukesh Bansal was among the first to make the jump. After building Myntra and later confounding Cult.fit, he launched Nurix AI to develop enterprise AI agents for customer support, sales and internal operations. The startup recently strengthened its offering by acquiring conversational AI startup Verloop, signalling its plans to build a broader enterprise platform.

Former Dunzo cofounder Mukund Jha has taken a different route. His startup, Emergent, is building AI powered coding tools that can generate software instead of simply helping developers write it. As companies look to automate larger parts of software development, coding has become one of AI’s fastest growing use cases.

Enterprise software is also where Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal has placed his next wager. Through Optra, he is applying AI to ecommerce operations and supply chains, where retailers are under constant pressure to improve efficiency while keeping costs under control. 

Healthcare founder Shahank ND has picked healthcare as an industry. After spending more than a decade building Practo, he is now building Cent, a venture that intends to bring advanced diagnostic technology to elevate preventive healthcare measures. 

Recently, Zetwerk’s cofounder Rahul Sharma transitioned into a non-executive role to launch an AI robotics startup.

These companies solve different problems, but they are making the same bet. AI is no longer an additional feature, but is at the heart of the product.

The space is so huge that not only serial founders but also a lot of executives have stepped down from their high paying jobs to start a new venture in this space. The recent examples are Dream11’s CTO Amit Sharma stepping down from his role after 11 years to start a new venture or OYO’s former CPO and COO who started Nava and has raised $22 Mn.

The Pattern Extends Beyond India

Enterprise AI has emerged as the biggest draw for repeat founders, but it’s far from the only opportunity. 

Take former Dunzo founder Kabeer Biswas for example. After existing from Flipkart, he announced emerging from stealth with M. 

The startup wants to automate household chores, beginning with the kitchen. Instead of launching another consumer app, Biswas is betting that AI assistants will eventually handle everyday tasks inside homes, taking automation beyond voice commands and smart speakers.

Bhavish Aggarwal, who was launching India’s own large language models, has now made a hard pivot towards AI cloud infrastructure and enterprise services.

The pattern is almost identical to what is unravelling in Silicon Valley. 

For instance, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman launched Inflection AI to build personal AI assistants and former Google researchers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas started Character.AI to bet on conversational AI. The list goes on. 

The similarities are difficult to ignore. Founders who built businesses during the internet and mobile era are treating AI as the next platform shift. Rather than bolting AI onto existing products, they are starting over. 

 

Experience Alone Won’t Be Enough

The timing of these launches is no coincidence. 

Unlike first time founders, these entrepreneurs have already scaled, hired leadership teams and sold to enterprises. Many also enjoy something every early stage founder wants: credibility. Raising seed money or a Series A round is often easier when investors have already backed them once. 

But AI changes the equation. 

Building frontier AI products demands far more capital than launching a consumer internet startup did a decade ago. Training models, buying GPUs, securing cloud infrastructure and hiring top AI researchers can push costs well beyond what many startups traditionally raised in their early years. 

That creates a challenge even for experienced founders. 

While serial entrepreneurs may find it easier to attract investors, they are still competing against global companies that have access to billions of dollars. OpenAI has raised more than $192 Bn, Anthropic has secured over $130 Bn, while xAI, Google and Meta continue to spend aggressively on models, compute and talent. Even if Indian founders are not building foundation models, many enterprise AI companies still need access to expensive infrastructure and computers to scale their products. 

The market, meanwhile, is moving quickly. Businesses have moved beyond experimenting with chatbots and are now looking for AI products that can automate work and deliver measurable returns. As per Inc42 estimates, India’s AI market could cross $126 Bn by 2030, with enterprise software expected to account for a significant share of that opportunity. 

That leaves India’s second-time founders with a familiar advantage and a new challenge. 

They understand how to build companies, raise money and find customers better than most first time entrepreneurs. But unlike the consumer internet boom, they are entering a market where global players already dominate mindshare, talent and capital. Winning will require more than experience. It will depend on building products that solve problems global incumbents have overlooked. 

Edited By Nikhil Subramaniam
Creatives: Abhyam Gusai

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