Akarsh Shrivastava

Investor @GeneralCatalyst

[Maitreya Wagh @maitreya_wagh]

Wasted 30 minutes talking to the pre-recorded customer care Voice AI agent of a large travel portal.
- Repeated sentences not allowing me to move forward with the conversation
- Long dialogues incapable of handling interruptions
- Of course, barely understood Hindi and replied similar to how the Brits sound in Lagaan
- Most importantly, didn't get the task done.

Poorly built "Voice AI agents" (though calling them AI is a stretch) set back the entire industry.

If you have been caught up in the Voice AI wave, rushed into implementing a solution, and seen a drop in CSAT / conversions, drop me (or anyone in the @bolna_dev team) a dm. We'd be happy to help 😀

[neeraj arora @neerajarora]

India is one of the most important places in the world to build enduring, category-defining companies - and the next chapter will be shaped by two forces we care deeply about at @generalcatalyst: AI transformation and resilience. General Catalyst has announced a commitment to invest $5 billion in India over the next five years. Here's what that means in practice.

[Akarsh Shrivastava @AkarshS27]

Path to India's AI transformation will be unique. India AIChampions Initiative is an attempt to chart this path. GC platform helps with global learnings & our presence gives the India nuance. @neerajarora & I will be at the AI summit. DM if u r building in AI, Defense, Mfg, fin

[neeraj arora @neerajarora]

1/ We’ve been long India. Not as a side bet - but as a core market on a single global platform.

[neeraj arora @neerajarora]

1/ We’ve been long India. Not as a side bet - but as a core market on a single global platform.

[General Autonomy @GeneralAutonomy]

On popular request, here is the first confrontation of PARAM with Bengaluru street dogs 🐶

[Akarsh Shrivastava @AkarshS27]

@techNmak Llm

[General Catalyst @generalcatalyst]

A new generation of Indian founders is building the path to defense and manufacturing sovereignty. This is critical, as India still imports 30% of its supply chain in automotive, electronics, pharma, and chemicals from China. GC-backed founders @Vikashmphysics and Vivek Mishra at @Raphe_mPhibr built a 650,000 square foot facility to produce autonomous systems for India's extreme conditions—high altitude, heat, and dust. @vishalsanghavi and Venkatesh Mudragalla at @jehaero pioneered a new manufacturing model that delivers high-precision components to U.S. clients faster than incumbents.

India transformed from fiscal crisis to economic powerhouse in three decades, building 28% of the world's STEM workforce and the third-largest startup ecosystem globally. The talent, scale, and policy are there. What's been missing is an innovation ecosystem that rewards founders tackling defense modernization and next-generation manufacturing.

In their latest piece, @neerajarora, Paul Kwan, @AkarshS27, Siddhi Kasliwal, and Abishek Chopra explain why resilience is India’s defining investment opportunity today → https://t.co/GX8djcFmUw

Sources: IBEF, PIB

[Hemant Taneja @htaneja]

.@GeneralCatalyst has raised ~$8Bn of new capital, across core VC, Creation strategy, and SMAs, to invest in the most ambitious entrepreneurs driving transformation and resilience in AI, Defense, Climate & Energy, Industrials, Healthcare, and FinTech: https://t.co/0paqpvF6Jo

[Siva Rajamani @siva_rajamani]

thanks for having me @ShrutiMishra_ @CNBCTV18News

[Vivek Suriyamoorthy @vivek__s]

Big announcement! 🎉

We’ve raised $30M in Series B funding, led by Eight Roads, Elevation Capital and 3one4 Capital!

Since our inception, Siva and I have believed that innovation drives product value. We’ve worked on building an enterprise-level product that could integrate easily with our customers’ tech stack, handle complex compensation data and automate workflows intuitively.

We have come a long way. We are now a 200+ employee company, but it truly feels like we are just getting started 🚀

Looking ahead, we are set to launch our AI Agent Creation Studio, a feature that will empower RevOps professionals to build and customize their own AI assistants. These AI agents will be capable of performing tasks such as sales performance analysis, plan building, and modeling recommendations, further streamlining the sales operations process.

To the B-ginning of more! 🥂

Read the full article here: https://t.co/8BmQ3f7SLl

PS: We are hiring a high-performing engineering manager to lead the high-performing team at Everstage and drive innovation. DM me or Sriram if you are interested.

#Everstage #SeriesB #Funding #Innovation #Growth #Startup

[NP @nadalprop_]

The greatest moments of Rafael Nadal's career.

🧵 A thread

[Elevation Capital @ElevCap]

We are proud to share that @mukularora (Co-Managing Partner, @ElevCap) has been awarded the esteemed Midas Touch Award by The @EconomicTimes Startup Awards 2024. Mukul is a shining example of Elevation’s core values in action in their truest sense - being a partner to audacious founders from Day One and going All In with unwavering conviction.

That his portfolio consists of multiple category-defining companies like @Swiggy, @firstcryindia, @Meesho_Official, @myspinny, @unacademy and @XpressBees_IN is a testament to this dedication to supporting founders through every stage of their journey.

This recognition is a celebration of the true heroes of the Indian startup ecosystem: our founders. And we’re privileged to partner with them on their journeys. Mukul's decade-and-a-half-long journey at Elevation has been indelibly shaped by these audacious founders.

Congratulations, Mukul! This is a proud moment for the entire Elevation family. Here’s to many more years of supporting even greater innovation, partnership, and success.

Read more here: https://t.co/qaQB2zRKzp (@ETtech)

[Elevation Capital @ElevCap]

✨Unveiling ‘The State of GenAI in Consumer Applications’ report

Two years into the GenAI revolution, using AI apps for various use cases has become as reflexive as checking their email for many knowledge workers. It's now their go-to work buddy, personal tutor, and maybe even a confidant. It's wild if you think about it.

What started with assistants like ChatGPT has exploded into a myriad of consumer applications, reshaping user behaviors and transforming our digital experiences in ways both profound and unexpected.

In a new two-part series, we aim to provide a comprehensive snapshot of this evolving consumer applications landscape and our areas of excitement in GenAI consumer tech.

Today, we are releasing the first report, ‘The State of GenAI in Consumer Applications’.

It takes stock of the current state of consumer-facing GenAI applications across mobile and web platforms, uncovering trends and insights on their adoption and emerging use cases.

Our analysis revealed interesting trends and learnings that we believe would serve as a critical benchmark for founders building GenAI applications from India to form an opinion on how GenAI capabilities are advancing and the market at large.

View and download the complete deck here: https://t.co/oGUo2G6Wv4

@mukularora, @KhandujaM, @akaggrwl, @manishadvani12, @AryaAnoush48542, Harshit Jain

[Amit Aggarwal @akaggrwl]

It’s a GenAI world; we’re just living in it :)

Read part 1 of our deep dive into the world of possibilities and shifts that are already underway!! @manishadvani12 @mukularora @KhandujaM

[Akarsh Shrivastava @AkarshS27]

...he enumerated several concepts and tactics which early stage founders and GTM leaders can use as they set up their outbound and enterprise sales motions. 2/2

@ElevCap @mukularora @PoorviVijay

[Akarsh Shrivastava @AkarshS27]

@neejPARIKH , our SaaS Compass Captain is among the rare breed of sales leaders who has led enterprise motions from 0 to 1, 1 to 10, 10 to 100 and 100 to IPO in different contexts. He is a big proponent of outbound and in this chat.. (1/2)

[Elevation Capital @ElevCap]

📣 New SaaS Compass Field Guide

If you're looking to move upmarket and build a high-impact outbound GTM engine, this Field Guide with insights from our SaaS Compass Captain Neej Parikh will be a great starting point.

You've got a solid product and some inbound traction. Now it's time to shift gears and proactively pursue those enterprise and mid-market customers. But where do you start? How do you build an outbound machine that’s efficient?

Neej has been in your shoes and knows exactly how to scale from zero to hero. He has built and scaled successful outbound GTM engines at high-growth startups like Zuora, Productiv, and Applied Intuition.

In this Field Guide, Neej provides a comprehensive playbook on:
➤ Determining if outbound is right for your company
➤ Building your initial outbound team
➤ Making outbound a company-wide effort
➤ Establishing KPIs and accountability
➤ Sustaining success using the LASER framework

Read here: https://t.co/Ue7iHdcGkY

@mukularora, @AkarshS27, @PoorviVijay, @Aadith__Ramesh, Satya Bharadwaja, Shambhav Tewari, @AsthaJakher

[Elevation Capital @ElevCap]

📣 New SaaS Compass Field Guide

If you're looking to move upmarket and build a high-impact outbound GTM engine, this Field Guide with insights from our SaaS Compass Captain Neej Parikh will be a great starting point.

You've got a solid product and some inbound traction. Now it's time to shift gears and proactively pursue those enterprise and mid-market customers. But where do you start? How do you build an outbound machine that’s efficient?

Neej has been in your shoes and knows exactly how to scale from zero to hero. He has built and scaled successful outbound GTM engines at high-growth startups like Zuora, Productiv, and Applied Intuition.

In this Field Guide, Neej provides a comprehensive playbook on:
➤ Determining if outbound is right for your company
➤ Building your initial outbound team
➤ Making outbound a company-wide effort
➤ Establishing KPIs and accountability
➤ Sustaining success using the LASER framework

Read here: https://t.co/Ue7iHdcGkY

@mukularora, @AkarshS27, @PoorviVijay, @Aadith__Ramesh, Satya Bharadwaja, Shambhav Tewari, @AsthaJakher

[Elevation Capital @ElevCap]

📣 New SaaS Compass Field Guide

If you're a SaaS founder looking to build a scalable outbound motion for the US enterprise market, SaaS Compass Captain @siva_rajamani has you covered.

Once you've built a product that solves complex problems, it's crucial to develop an effective outbound sales strategy to land large deals. This doesn't mean you have to immediately jump into complex sales cycles or assemble a large sales team. You can gradually build your outbound motion as you refine your product and create social proof.

Siva is the perfect person to guide you through this journey, having successfully scaled @everstageinc's enterprise sales motion from the ground up.

In this Field Guide, Siva provides a comprehensive roadmap on how to assess your product readiness, create social proof, set up your outbound motion and build the right sales team in the enterprise market.

Read here: https://t.co/fy7y7KxI6q

[Elevation Capital @ElevCap]

We’re delighted to announce the addition of 3 new SaaS Compass Captains who will help founders navigate the choppy waters of early-stage company building.

@mdebdoot currently heads the AI and Demand Engineering teams at Meesho. He has 16+ years of experience leading a variety of data science teams across companies such as Hike, Myntra and Sharechat. He advises companies on effectively leveraging AI – from building an impactful Gen-AI stack, building efficiently with LLMs, defining critical use cases that can be solved with LLMs, predictive analytics and more.

@KadySrinivasan is an expert marketing strategist and is currently the CMO at Lightspeed Commerce, a publicly listed e-commerce company. She has been recognized over several years as one of the world’s top 20 Chief Marketing Officers. Kady is an expert in GTM, having executed and scaled multiple GTM motions including PLG and SLG across sales, marketing and BD. Her 2 decade long career includes stints at marquee SaaS firms such as Klaviyo and Dropbox.

@rajan_sheth was the marketing leader at Cohere and was instrumental in leading the complete growth charter and unique positioning for the company in the AI world. Currently, as the founder and General Partner for the Gen AI advisory Fund at Hypergrowth, he advises companies across the Gen AI stack, fueling their growth from inception to scale. Previously, he also helped grow Heroku and Box to multi-million dollar companies.

The new captains will help early stage founders understand how to build, operationalize and distribute world class SaaS products, especially in the AI space. Stay tuned for events and content that we will co-host and curate with them.

Welcome, Debdoot, Kady and Rajan! We look forward to having you on board.

Visit https://t.co/ilO5HuOWb0 to get to know all of our captains

@mukularora @AkarshS27 @PoorviVijay @Aadith__Ramesh Satya Bharadwaja Shambhav Tewari

[Mukul Arora @mukularora]

Since we are still in early innings of SaaS from India for the world, we very rarely come across founders like Pavitar who live and breathe enterprise SaaS. He was instrumental in growing Sprinklr to a multi-100mn dollar revenue company (1/2)