Audio
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If an AI tool makes an ad, who is responsible for it?
The Advertising Standards Council of India has just released a white paper on the use of generative AI in ads, in collaboration with the well-known law firm Khaitan & Co. We invited Manisha Kapoor, CEO and secretary general of ASCI, and Tanu Banerjee, a partner at Khaitan & Co. to discuss some of the points they've highlighted in the paper, that looks at opportunities, risks and best practices. The bottom line is that the human user still needs to be accountable and responsible in the use of this new, rapidly evolving technology
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Tiger Global's Flipkart and other exits — what's next in India's startup landscape?
According to various media reports, Tiger Global Management, a hedge fund and venture business famous in India for backing Flipkart and later Freshworks, has exited both companies. Forbes India's Rajiv Singh joins us on ToThePoint today to discuss the ways of Tiger, whose investments helped to put the spotlight on opportunities for global investors in the emerging startup ecosystem in India. The scene is different today, though, amid a funding winter—how soon will Tiger Global find another Flipkart?
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Arun Vinayak at Exponent on solving the 'two-sided problem' of fast charging for India
Arun Vinayak, co-founder and CEO at Exponent Energy, talks about the challenges of fast charging—one of the critical factors preventing India's EV market from growing much faster. Arun describes an "offboard" method for keeping the battery within the right temperature range. Most damage can happen while the battery is being charged by moving the complexity involved to the charging station. As a result, the company promises its batteries can go from zero to 100 percent charge in 15 minutes and still run well for 3,000 cycles
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Inside our edtech special issue
The windfall of the Covid-19 crisis happened in the backyard of edtech companies in India. The startup ecosystem saw many edtech companies mushroom, and some even reached unicorn status. As the world adjusts to the new normal, this edtech special issue of Forbes India looks at the canvas of the sector caught in the funding winter, course correcting to a hybrid model, and searching for what's next—for students, parents, and founders. In this podcast, Rajiv Singh takes you to the depths of the stories in this issue
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Data protection bill, 2023 likely to be introduced in Parliament — expect the law soon?
India's Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 is likely to be introduced in the Parliament soon, amid protests from several opposition members, according to multiple media reports today. We asked Prateek Waghre, policy director at the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, to explain the significance of this bill becoming law. This latest bill, is the culmination of a process that started from a landmark judgement six years ago that reaffirmed privacy as a fundamental right, Prateek says
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Google and Meta did better than expected — is that just ads or is there good news for tech spending?
Alphabet, on the back Google, did better than expected, and so did Meta, with its latest earnings and where Facebook crossed 3 billion monthly active users. Harish Krishnakumar, senior market analyst with IDC India's Enterprise IT Services and Cloud team, and Suresh Ramanathan, dean and principal at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai joined us today on ToThePoint to discuss this. We asked if the stronger ad spending allows us to anticipate greater enterprise tech spending in the months to come. And were there any lessons here, for India's consumer facing Internet startups
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Manav Garg on Together's new $150 mln fund and his optimism over SaaS IPOs in India
Manav Garg, founding partner at Together, talks about the VC firm's plans for its second fund. At $150 million, the new fund's target is almost twice the size of the first one, which Together raised in 2021. The firm, founded by Garg, who is also the founder and CEO of Eka Software Solutions, Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshworks, and Shubham Gupta, a career venture investor, has achieved the "first close" of the second fund, which Together expects to invest in promising generative AI ventures, in addition to existing focus areas
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Byju's problems pile on — what's the end game, and how will this impact India's edtech startups?
In a relatively short span of time, Byju's credibility has taken a hit, from being India's most valued startup to one whose future is in question, as investors leave the company's board and raise red flags. Forbes India's Rajiv Singh joins us today to talk about some of the most recent developments and what we might infer from them. Questions include, were such marquee firms, who are some of the largest names on Byju's cap table, not aware of the extent of the problems and why were they unable to get the company to course correct sooner
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With rumours of a Rs20-lakh car, is Tesla any closer to starting in India?
Tesla has been negotiating with India for well over a year, Soumen Mandal, a senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research points out. Mandal, who tracks the automotive segment as part of his portfolio, joins us on ToThePoint today to walk us through how India might go from here to becoming an export hub for Tesla, and whether it can also be significant domestic market. And if an agreement is reached soon, here's how long it will take before a made-in-India Tesla rolls out
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Why Sravanth Aluru at Avataar is betting enterprise and consumer interactions will all go 3D
Sravanth Aluru, co-founder and CEO of Avataar.ai, talks about how the world of commerce is changing to embrace 3D and augmented reality. Avataar, a nine-year-old company, was co-founded by Gaurav Baid, who is the chief product officer, and Aluru. They have raised some $55 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management, and built a team of 180 engineers in San Francisco and Bengaluru. Avataar is helping its customers tell the story of their products the same way we see the real world with our eyes
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The blue bird is dead, Twitter becomes X: Can a 'super app' work in India?
Elon Musk reportedly said in a Twitter Spaces conversation that the blue bird logo was being cut down with blow torches, after he announced yesterday that the microblogging platform is being re-branded as X. Sanjay Swamy, co-founder and managing partner at Prime Venture Partners, joins us today to discuss what this re-branding means. Swamy, a well-known VC investor in India's fintech scene who's previously also helped design some of the payments aspects of Aadhaar, sets forth his arguments as to why he doesn't see a successful super app emerging in India any time soon