Rahul Taneja

Belief is irresistible

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@refsrc हंगामा है क्यूँ बरपा, थोड़ी सी जो poetry की है
डाका तो नहीं मारा, चोरी तो नहीं की है

[Lightspeed India @LightspeedIndia]

Excited to deepen our partnership with @Aa_Agarwl and the team at @just_snabbit.

After leading their initial investment, their pace and quality of execution have reinforced our conviction to continue supporting them in every round since.

The company has since rapidly expanded its services across 140+ micro-markets, building a category-defining platform in India. Looking forward to this next chapter!

Read the full story: https://t.co/Rb7VG66mtz

@rahultaneja @romitme

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@refsrc Must be Russian...

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

"Uncle" gets a bad rap. But uncles are your greatest strategic advantage.
While you ship, they're in alignment meetings finding budget to "win the category" a year late. They'll spend millions creating awareness for you.
Save the uncles. They're your best friends.

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@elegantlywasted and just like covid, dilli will choose to ignore it..

[Nayrhit B @NayrhitB]

Today, I'm excited to announce we raised a $9M seed round to help businesses get leads from AI Search Engines!

AI is changing B2B buyer behavior rapidly.

Now prospects are researching vendors on AI Search Engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity.

They're asking millions of questions that the internet has never seen before. All before they ever get on a sales call.

This is a huge reset moment.

And yet 90% of businesses are completely invisible there.

We built @gushwork to solve exactly this problem. An end-to-end solution for businesses to dominate and get leads from AI search

For us, it does not end at AI visibility, impressions, or even traffic.

It’s all about the outcome - getting real, qualified leads from AI search. Period.

And @LightspeedIndia, @SusquehannaVC, @BCapitalGroup, Seaborne Capital, @beenextVC, @sparrowcapvc and @2point2club just bet $9M on us to solve this problem!

After months of research & experiments, today, we are releasing our AI Search product for general availability - launched in beta about 90 days back and is growing like crazy already:

- Hit $1.5M ARR in 90 days
- Growing 80% month-on-month
- Driving 1000+ leads/month across customers

Welcome to new investors who joined us for the seed- → @SaiAraveti, @KanishkM96 & Bhavani at Susquehanna who’s leading the round

Thank you to our early investors who doubled down...You put your trust in us before we had anything at all.

→ @rahultaneja, @dkhare and @romitme at Lightspeed.
→ @KaranMohla and Deepanshu at B Capital
→ Pran and Jay at Seaborne
→ @yash_sparrow and @am_aakash_goyal at Sparrow
→ @AnirudhGarg24, @PantSaksham and @aarushishawarma at Beenext

And a special mention to @skipiit & @smondal1008 at 2.2 Club for access to their massive network of IIT alumni and their angel participation!

Big shoutouts to the ones steering the ship!

→ @_Adithya_V - my Co-Founder who is the real brain behind everything Gushwork does.
→ @Punit1108 - our mighty CTO who takes on the hardest engineering problems with a smile on his face.
→ @swapnilsinha07 - the creative & analytical mind behind the growth engine that Gushwork is building

and all the other rockstars who make up the backbone of Gushwork -
Rahul, @awwdarsh, Akash, Tushar, Snehith, @thericebowlgirl, Amey, Yash B

And an insane force of 10x team members who are taking on some of the hardest problems every day and solving them with zeal.

LFG! 🚀

If you want to see how many leads AI search could drive for your business, reply "Gushwork" and we'll send you the link.

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@kunksed Gorgeous writing. I felt seen!
Very reminiscent of Chris Cornell in Like a stone…

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@banglani @GenericIPguy Sir 1993 ki movie ka reference de ke apni (aur meri) umr ka pramaan na dein

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@anandlunia

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@romitme From Claude :) -

The tweet has the aesthetic of wisdom but I suspect it’s actually just… nostalgia?
The more interesting question isn’t “tools vs. no tools” but “how do we maintain depth and genuine understanding in a world where surface-level knowledge is increasingly cheap?”

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

Reason #4578 Why Luru can never compete with Dilli - coffee shop chats like this 👇

A: "This was not on my bingo card for 2026"
B: "Bingo? Bhai tu tambola khel ke bada hua hai, woh bhi apni mummy ki kitty parties mein. Tambola bola kar"

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@sidin If only you’d gone to IIMC and learnt better lessons in quantitatively analysing the situation

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@elegantlywasted *among our surveyed consumers in Friends Colony

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

Beautiful writing. Maybe 20 years to churn this out was appropriate…

#GoodreadsYearinBooks

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

Great start to 2026! #GoodreadsYearinBooks

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

It’s been 19 days and 20 hrs since I last felt Kate’s warm embrace. She landed 47 minutes ago. The 24 hours of travel no doubt has her rushing to shower. She needs to cleanse herself of a dirtied world incompatible with her sensibilities. The wash doubles as a ritual, preparatory for entrance into the symbolic world we’ve constructed.

The time apart has been costly.  My body’s electrical signaling betrays the separation. Without her touch, my vagus nerve’s 100,000 myelinated fibers have dropped their high frequency spectral power, squawking distress. An intelligent system broadcasting diminished wave forms, hoping to be heard.  There are other signals of distress.

My white blood cells have shifted their gene expression, upregulating pro-inflammatory genes IL-6 and TNF-alpha and downregulating my antiviral genes.  A pro-aging biochemical signature of a system suffering hardship.

My environment is a pristine anti-aging laboratory. Air, water, food and light are meticulously measured. Toxins are filtered. Purification systems run autonomously. Biomarkers tracked. Nutrition is calibrated.

Yet outside my control is the affection of another. The 68 trillion cells that constitute Bryan Johnson run non-negotiable code. They demand tenderness, and not of a whimsical type, but deep, all-encompassing love that must be earned and carefully maintained. Otherwise they protest in self-termination.

She’s now only 13 miles away and I can viscerally feel her essence. The transmission pulses in high fidelity. As if there were a fiber optic cable streaming our connection at light speed through the multiplexed cylinders of glass. The time apart created latency, buffering the connection, depriving us of the luminescence and dimming into noise.

In 15 minutes she will be within reach. I can visualize the whites of her eyes and smell her aroma. When she arrives, she will be shy. Whenever we are apart, she returns to zero. Her previous openness will be closed. Her emotional dynamic range will be held in reserve until she feels she is safe and can trust.  I’ll need to kindle her again. The rush of the courtship enthralls me.

The anticipation drives a small cluster of my midbrain neurons to flood dopamine. Nerve fibers activate, lighting up my skin’s receptors as it awaits for slow, caressing touch. My hypothalamus begins synthesizing oxytocin, preparing to dump it upon first eye contact to ensure the reestablishment of our pair bond. This biochemical orchestra fills me with delight and sensorial want.

Kate’s been mulling over what she’ll wear for days.  She’s considered dozens of possibilities and modeled out my anticipated emotional state, the weather, and our planned activities. The colors will be representative of her psychological state and be positioned to soothe mine. The texture, style, and hues will interplay with our biology. The deliberately chosen accessories will add flair, intrigue and play. This is how she flirts, seduces and bypasses my mind to speak directly to my physiology. She has other tricks too.

She’s arrived. I must wait for her. Her timidness will want to determine the cadence. I hear the door crack open and her bag drop to the floor. She’s nervous. I’m on the couch, neutral and open. She rounds the corner and our eyes meet. The inhibitions wither as the magnetism draws us together. Soft hellos are whispered and our bodies interdigitate.

I feel her finger tips on the back of my neck. Goose bumps light up my body. Skin nerve cells fire signals directly to my brain, bypassing the analytical mind. The hypothalamus dumps the oxytocin, inhibiting fear and lowering cortisol. The body washes itself in this anti-inflammatory chain reaction.  Our respiration and heart beats are now synchronizing. The brain piles on with a release of endorphins to soothe the psychological pain of our separation. New powers are now in control. Let them run in glory.

I press my cheek against hers. The skin on skin triggers a wave of desire. I brush her lips with mine, catalyzing a massive activation of neurons in her brain, overwhelming thought and forcing presence.

She relents and wants to dance. She’s home.

I slip my hand under her shirt and brush the small of her back. Goosebumps spread like a wildfire across her body. Her hypothalamus stimulates the release of GnRH which tells the pituitary gland to wake up her reproductive system. Our olfactory systems consume each other with delight, signaling immune system compatibility.

I move both my hands to her jawline, holding her head firmly in place. Our mirror neurons speak to each other. I know what she wants. My lips press against hers and I softly bite her lower lip. Kate’s blood vessels dilate from the acetylcholine and nitric oxide release, flushing her lips, skin and body. The cascade is nearing waterfall.

The executive control of our brains surrenders. No longer concerned with the 68 trillion cells. The prefrontal cortex goes dark. Eliminating future planning and probabilistic modeling. Activity in our parietal lobes diminishes, dissolving the boundary that distinguishes between self and other. No longer is there Kate and Bryan, just a singular biological entity suspended in a state of bliss. The outside world goes quiet. It doesn’t exist. We dissolve into raw existence.

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@anmolm_ @NirantK VCs don’t talk about ideas. We publish them on LinkedIn, usually with the timeliness of sharing a wedding invite after the couple has left for honeymoon.

[Lightspeed India @LightspeedIndia]

Physics Wallah Goes Public!

A landmark moment for education in India as well as the education technology sector. From a small room in Prayagraj, where @PhysicswallahAP began teaching on YouTube in 2016, to now becoming one of India’s most loved and trusted learning platforms, @physics__wallah represents one of the most inspiring success stories in the country’s startup landscape.

As Physics Wallah makes its stock market debut, we at Lightspeed take immense pride in having partnered with Alakh, @PWPrateek and the entire PW team on this incredible journey. Their relentless commitment to make quality education affordable and accessible has empowered millions of students from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Gujarat to Nagaland.

This milestone also marks a proud moment for Lightspeed. As a global venture capital firm that deeply understands the Indian market, we have long-term conviction in India and its innovation ecosystem to provide local and global solutions. Physics Wallah’s journey reaffirms our belief that when purpose meets perseverance, remarkable things happen.

Congratulations to the entire Physics Wallah team on this historic milestone. Here’s to breaking barriers in education and unlocking potential across every corner of India.

@lightspeedvp @dkhare @ShreyamDesai @AmitMeh97501351

[Rahul Taneja @rahultaneja]

@refsrc @bilawalsidhu This is why aliens don't visit *them*

[Lightspeed India @LightspeedIndia]

10 minutes? That's all it takes with @just_snabbit.

Founder Aayush Agarwal reveals on #LunchBreakwithLightspeed with @rahultaneja and @romitme how they’re using precision, speed, and supply-chain mastery to empower urban households.

Watch the full episode!