Yash Mahendra

India has abundant expertise across every domain - logistics operators, subject matter experts, local service providers, etc. What's scarce isn't capability. It's the systems that coordinate this capability at scale. Most companies see this fragmentation and default to vertical integration: build everything in-house, own all capabilities, control every aspect of delivery. This works if you have unlimited capital and time. Most companies have neither. But there's an alternative approach that we've noticed two of our portcos execute remarkably well, in completely different industries - 1. When Meesho looked at India's logistics, and they saw thousands of fragmented local operators. Instead of building warehouses and delivery fleets, they built Valmo - an orchestration platform coordinating existing partners. Individual pilots with smartphones earn sustainable incomes, small hub operators build viable businesses, and Meesho gets coverage across 15,000+ pin codes at 12% lower cost than traditional third-party-logistics. 2. Entri saw similar fragmentation in education. India has abundant teaching expertise already running offline/online programs. Entri partners with them for content while owning demand generation, platform infra, quality monitoring, and placements. This allows them to launch new categories in weeks and scale across languages without the capital intensity of building in-house teams for every vertical. If I had to pull a common thread, it's that in fragmented markets like India, the orchestration layer often matters more than asset ownership. Coordinate what exists rather than rebuilding from scratch.

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Whenever a new industry takes shape and scale, ancillary/supporting companies also get set up. We call such companies as ‘Enablers’, the ‘Picks and Shovels’, to the large and growing industries. For eg: Contract manufacturers for FMCG/Pharma/Electronics/Mobiles, auto-ancillaries for OEMs, bottling plants for Coke. These are supply side businesses. There are demand side businesses also. For eg. Franchisees of QSR/retail brands, Cloud kitchen business on Food Delivery apps, Fleet operators on Ride hailing apps. When E-Commerce started scaling in India, we saw players like Delhivery, Shadowfax and Shiprocket emerge. So, we asked this question to ourselves, "Which enabling business will emerge when Quick Commerce starts seeing unprecedented scale?" We found our answer in Inamo. Do chk them out. C Sumit Anand and Rupesh Thakare are building a fundamentally solid company and we at Gemba Capital are happy to be a part of the journey.

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Agilitas x Virat Kohli partnership is one of the masterstroke deals I have seen in recent times. Virat invests 40 CR in Agilitas for a 1.94% stake, putting Agilitas’s valuation around 2000 CR. 📈 In turn, Agilitas acquires one8world, making Virat a co-founder and shareholder. They now get two very important growth levers: ⬇️ 1. A powerful manufacturing (via Mochiko Shoes - a 600 CR+ footwear brand that Agilitas acquired in 2008 ), 2. India’s biggest athlete — exclusively aligned. Easily becomes a 4000 CR revenue brand in the next 5 years. Footwear + retail scale requires capital — but this partnership compresses customer acquisition, product cycles, and brand-building like few others. Even Virat said in his podcast with Abhishek Ganguly, the co-founder of Agilitas that, “I didn’t want a brand deal… I wanted to build something that outlives me.” And Abhishek said something even beautiful - “An ambition to build from India but be globally relevant.” This isn’t marketing. This is legacy building with shared skin in the game. And that is how startups work - shared ambition with one goal (to make the company big) and food (read stake) in the table for everyone! A company that can be built in the long term with culture, capital, and conviction aligned. This might be the first time in India, where an athlete joins hands with a sport company to re-imagine and build the sport ecosystem of India - truly revolutionalising the game with a clear vision. 🙌

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How does an enterprise decide whether to buy from a startup or not? AI has forced enterprises to rethink the old SaaS procurement cycle. Karthik Chakkarapani, CIO at Zuora joined me to discuss the buying process of startups. 1. Experimentation has replaced long POC. Enterprises look at how well the startup understands their needs, how quickly it can iterate, how soon value appears, and how effectively both teams collaborate. 2. Enterprise buying is now a cross-functional process from Day 1. IT and business teams join the first vendor meeting together. Internal alignment begins immediately, not after the evaluation is complete. 3. Referrals remain the strongest way to break into enterprises. Warm introductions from trusted CIOs or customer references carry more weight than any outbound outreach. 4. Time-to-value matters more than time-to-implementation. What matters most is how quickly a tool can create measurable business impact. Tools like Atomicwork and Trupeer stood out because they showed immediate value: Atomicwork handled 55% of incidents with AI, and Trupeer reduced multi-hour video creation to minutes. 5. The future of enterprise work will be agent-led, not app-led. Employees will use fewer UIs and rely more on autonomous agents connected across systems. This shift will reduce the number of standalone SaaS apps while increasing the complexity of managing and governing agents at scale. 6. Founders who stay close to the innovation ecosystem gain an advantage. Being closer to places where AI innovation happens like the Bay Area signals speed, awareness, and momentum. Meeting with founders in person more often builds trust and confidence, as opposed to occasional visits. 7. A startup’s stability is evaluated as seriously as its technology. Enterprises review funding, runway, customer traction, and risk profile before committing. Strong backing and financial visibility reduce the probability of disruption after adoption. Full Episode is Out on youtube.com/@TheNeonShoww

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Sreedhar Peddineni (Co-Founder, Gainsight & GTM Buddy) and Kiran Darisi (Co-Founder, Atomicwork & Ex Freshworks) joins me on Neon show. Two founders from Hyderabad who build global SaaS companies, taking one to IPO, another to a billion-dollar exit, and then choosing to begin again (and again). In this episode, we discuss: 1. Sreedhar’s journey: Host Analytics → Gainsight → GTM Buddy 2. Kiran’s path: Zoho → Freshworks → Atomicwork 3. How to find the “Goldilocks zone” for startups 4. Building companies that last for decades 5. Common mistakes founders make scaling SMB → Enterprise 6. How Atomicwork co-founders connected & chose their problem 7. Why smaller, high-quality teams are winning 8. Is AI expanding the pie while eating it? 9. How businesses can leverage custom GPTs 10. If big AI goes everywhere, what’s left for B2B SaaS? This conversation is about the two decades of building India’s most iconic SaaS companies and what the future holds for SaaS founders from India. Episode is out on youtube.com/@TheNeonShoww

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Engineers India Q3 FY26 Results: PAT Surges 219%, Stock Jumps 12% https://lnkd.in/gdv23K6d 📊 Key Financial Highlights (Consolidated) Metric Q3 FY26 Q3 FY25 Change Net Profit (PAT) ₹347.2 Cr ₹108.7 Cr ▲ +219% Revenue from Ops ₹1,210 Cr ₹764.5 Cr ▲ +58.3% EBITDA ₹352.2 Cr ₹97.9 Cr ▲ +260% EBITDA Margin 29.1% 12.8% ▲ +1630 bps EPS ₹6.18 — — Stock Price (NSE) ₹231.00 — ▲ +12.37% (1D 📈 Standalone Performance (Company Reported) Metric Q3 FY26 Q3 FY25 Change Revenue ₹1,194 Cr ₹750 Cr ▲ +59% PBT ₹395 Cr ₹118 Cr ▲ +235% PAT ₹302 Cr ₹88.1 Cr ▲ +242 🏭 Segment-Wise Performance Segment Revenue (Q3 FY26) YoY Change Contribution Consultancy ₹490.1 Cr ▲ +16.4% ~38% Turnkey Projects ₹720.1 Cr ▲ +109.7% ~58% 📦 Order Book – All-Time High Metric Value Order Book (Dec 2025) ₹12,538 Cr Current Order Book ~₹15,670 Cr (All-time high) Order Book Composition 60% Consultancy / 40% Turnkey Revenue Visibility Strong for upcoming quarters 🌍 Major Wins – Dangote Refinery Project Detail Information Client Dangote Group (Nigeria) Value $350–360 Million (~₹3,150 Cr) Nature Mega refinery expansion project Significance Largest overseas order ever 🌐 International Business Momentum · Overseas markets now constitute 65% of fresh order inflows (as of Jan 2026) · Domestic orders: 35% · Active in Middle East, Africa, South America --- 📉 Stock Performance Metric Value Current Price (NSE) ₹231.00 1D Change ▲ +12.37% 2-Day Gain ▲ +22% 52-Week High ₹255.45 52-Week Low ₹142.20 Market Cap ~₹11,344 Cr Volume Surge 13.9% equity traded in 2 days --- 🏦 Brokerage Views & Target Prices Brokerage Rating Target Price Key View Prabhudas Lilladher BUY ₹261 Consultancy core growth engine; strong prospects in domestic & international ICICI Securities — ₹215 achieved Expect 20% CAGR in consultancy revenue (FY26–29E); order book 4x TTM Historical Avg PE — 25x Currently trading at 34x FY27E core EPS --- 📌 Key Takeaways ✅ Stellar earnings growth – PAT up 219% YoY (consolidated), 242% (standalone) ✅ Margin explosion – EBITDA margin expanded 1630 bps to 29.1% ✅ Order book at all-time high – ₹15,670 Cr, providing strong revenue visibility ✅ Dangote win – $360M order from Nigeria, largest overseas contract ✅ International momentum – 65% of fresh orders from overseas ✅ Stock rally – up 22% in 2 days, 12% today, hitting 7-month high ✅ Brokerage bullish – Prabhudas Lilladher sets ₹261 target --- 📲 Follow Aditya Financial Insights Across Platforms 💼 LinkedIn Group: Aditya's Financial Insights Group 📱 WhatsApp Channel: Join Market Updates 📲 Telegram: @TelegramAdityaFinancialInsights 🤖 AI Analysis: aratt.ai/profile/aditya 📊 Trading Platform: Lemann Platform 🐦 Twitter/X: @adityafinsights 📸 Instagram: @adityafinancialinsights 🌐 Website: https://lnkd.in/gbHXFfW6 --- 🤝 Crypto Partners 🌐 Ubex: Sign Up (umxahxky) 💰 Bybit: Join with Benefits --- #EngineersIndia #EIL #Q3Results #PSU #Dangote #OrderBook #EngineeringStock #StockMarket #AdityaInsights

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On the latest episode of Embracing Erosion I sat down with Suyog Deshpande, Co-Founder & CEO of Webless (a Fluvio Ventures portfolio company). Before starting Webless, Suyog spent years at Amplitude, Salesforce, and Samsara - shaping products and GTM strategy at scale as a product marketing leader. That perspective is now fueling one of the boldest bets in tech: 🏗️ rebuilding the web for LLMs. Instead of optimizing for clicks and SEO, Webless imagines an agentic web -where sites are designed to interact directly with AI models and agents. We dug into: - What an LLM-native web could actually look like - How companies can prepare to be LLM-ready - What metrics will matter beyond pageviews and clicks - Why safety and trust are core to agent-driven experiences - Lessons Suyog brings from “big tech” into this transformation If you’re curious about how discovery, trust, and value exchange will evolve online, this one’s worth your time. Link to the full episode in the comments 👇

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On February 18, during India's AI Impact Summit, a company called Sarvam shipped a 105-billion-parameter model trained from scratch in India on government-subsidized GPUs, designed for 22 Indian languages. It outperforms DeepSeek-R1 on certain benchmarks at one-sixth the size. The same summit produced $200 billion in investment pledges from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Reliance. The headlines were about the money. The real story was Sarvam. This post examines in detail why it took this long, what changed, and whether Sarvam is the first crack in an old equilibrium or a lonely exception. "Indians Rule Big Tech. Why Can’t India Build?": Link in comments.

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$4M+ Raised | Terex Ventures Demo Day – Dubai At Terex Ventures, we back growth-stage founders who are ready to scale—not just raise. Our recent Demo Day in Dubai was a major milestone: $4 million+ in funding commitments secured for high-growth startups in our portfolio. We work closely with founders beyond the deck—refining their story, tightening their numbers, and connecting them with strategic capital from our global network of VCs, family offices, and PE funds. This event was more than a pitch day—it was a launchpad for the next phase of growth. Huge thanks to the incredible founders who trusted us with their fundraising journey, and to the investors who backed them with conviction. 📣 Proud to be featured in Entrepreneur: Read the story https://lnkd.in/gBY_pqt3 If you’re a growth-stage startup looking for capital + real partnership, let’s connect. #GrowthStage #VentureCapital #DemoDay #Fundraising #TerexVentures #Dubai #InvestorReady #ScaleWithConfidence

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Backing a manufacturing startup at seed isn't the obvious VC move. But Vivek, Rahul and Aditya, the co-founders of Bidso had lived the problem across Flipkart, Udaan, and ITC, and had a very clear idea of how to fix it. Two and a half years later, the thesis has played out stronger than we imagined. Excited to share that Bidso has raised Rs 63 cr in Series A round and happy to welcome Blume Ventures and Alteria Capital onto the cap table. Thrilled to have Sadev Ventures (Formerly Eternal Capital) continue to back the team at Bidso. Sajith - genuinely looking forward to partnering with you and the Blume team. You think about long-term company building the way we do, and Bidso is exactly the kind of company that benefits from that alignment. We remain excited to continue backing Bidso as it progresses on its way to being a truly generational force that defines what "Make in India" actually means. Onwards!!!!! PeerCapital Karthik Prabhakar Rohit M A

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Eggoz Raises $20 Mn Series C Led By Gaja Capital; Claims to hit its EBITDA Breakeven In Q4 FY25, Revenue Up 76% YoY To INR 130 Cr FY25 https://lnkd.in/gd9j68rp Abhishek Negi Aditya Singh #Eggoz #funding #D2Cbrands #Agritech #EBITDAbreakeven #Revenuegrowth #Indianstartups #consumerbrands #GajaCapital

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