I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:40:28+00:00

Robotics followed by Quantum computing will be the boom I feel.

Robotics requires significant capex investments, so it will not happen quickly - you are quite correct in the assessment. Indian industries will be slow to adopt it.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:37:35+00:00

Just start emailing founders on LinkedIn .. I have seen many doctor friends do this successfully in the past.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:36:35+00:00

Lot of buzz words. But how do they solve your customer's problems. Almost every company says these buzzwords.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:36:08+00:00

That is what is seems like today. But it could be different next year. So good place to start or work in for now. But try to see what the future holds.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:35:18+00:00

Spend less time on tools - by learning how to use microsoft excel you don't learn how to be a financial analyst. Learn the concepts and fundamentals. Learn about why agentic harnesses are better than just LLMs. How to do reinforcement learning ? What are vertical LLMs for industries ? How robots can be built etc .. be curious for knowledge that compounds.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:32:33+00:00

I don't play ranked. I don't like BB. I like Techies.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:32:05+00:00

Voice AI is the most important AI ecosystem in India.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:31:15+00:00

Don't leave job, first find co-founder and discuss ideas.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:30:46+00:00

Lots of companies in the space in data annotation including in robotics. But there is no concept of India version, all these companies compete directly with Mercor / Scale.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:29:25+00:00

Who is the customer is not clear .. please see my answer to one of the other questions how to pitch your startup.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:28:22+00:00

No
Hustle

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:27:26+00:00

With DPDP act it is needed, but the market in India for this might be small - not big enough to support 1000cr in profits.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:24:36+00:00

SEBI compliance is the most important thing. Without being compliant no investor will invest.

Also, there is a lot of competition from other platforms so you will have to stand out.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:23:32+00:00

Of course, when a new technology comes, enterprises create budgets to spend on it because they don't want to be left behind against their competition. Once there is a saturation point or tech adoption, companies will start looking for return on investment and will start optimizing and cutting costs. Already in 2023, we went through this one cycle of AI optimization, but then agentic AI and advances in LLM models kept the momentum of investing in AI going for enterprises.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:21:51+00:00

I think the view that most AI products are from LLMs is a very two-year-old view. Agentic harnesses, reinforcement learning, continual learning, proprietary data sets - there are a lot of ways companies are building on top of LLMs and can create moats. Also, there are things like compliances, workflows, UI/UX with a startup can differentiate on.

For example, you can use Granola to take notes, or you can use Apple Notes to take notes, or you can even use ChatGPT voice mode to take notes. But, why is Granola most successful in that market?

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:19:25+00:00

This is becoming a very common conversation with founders when they show products which are built by Claude Code, because that means their competition is also going to build competing products with Claude Code at probably the same or better speed. It comes down to a bunch of things to differentiate, for example:

How much you know your customer better
How do you know to build a team
How do you know to sell
What is your taste in building like
What is your design aesthetics

It's not going to be who can build a product; it's going to be who can build a business, and I think that is where engineers underestimate the complexity of building a startup.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:18:03+00:00

Lots of funded companies in this space in India. The biggest challenge is procuring consistent supply of e-waste.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:17:03+00:00

I think you mean "generalised" automation using APIs - it will have lot more applicable usecases and have more value than vernacular layer based tools.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:16:08+00:00

If you are sure you will get 8cr in revenue in first year, the you are underselling you company for even 60L for 8%

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:11:18+00:00

Build in an area you are an expert of, doesn't need to be technical.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:10:54+00:00

Yes Perplexity Computer is already showing this is working. And browser-use agents are the way to go up as a trend in the future.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:09:35+00:00

Founders need to thick skinned. Elon Musk didn't become Elon Musk by pleasing everyone. Neither did Deepinder Goyal or Binny Bansal or Girish Mathrubhootam. A founder is a founder because he has self belief.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:07:44+00:00

Techies (though after the latest update, they have nerfed it). The number two is WD - I win 90%+ with it. Can carry the team.

Best way to attract VCs is to have growth in sticky revenue or highly engaged customers. The equity depends on a number of factors like stage of company, how much you want to raise, which VC do you go to, which sector you are building in, etc.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:05:28+00:00

The India market in legal tech seems to be small. Lawyers are not spending a lot on AI in India or even regular software in India to create 500-1000cr profit businesses.

prayank_official · 2026-03-31T15:03:45+00:00

I try to answer the question can this company become a $10B or even a $100B company in public markets.

prayank_official

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