Every single founder I grabbed coffee with would drop the same name: Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures. Every amazing SaaS or consumer startup seemed to orbit around Blume’s star. I knew at the time, I needed to meet Karthik.

“You know what, you should speak to Suren?” she said. I hadn’t yet met Surendran Balchandran (or Suren, as everyone knows him). But when Prukalpa vouches for someone, you don’t question it. Almost the same day, I pinged her asking for an introduction. What followed was one of the most surprising experiences of my life. He was quiet in early meetings—attending, taking notes, nodding along. But then came event day, and it was like watching a submarine surface. Suren was on top of everything, executing flawlessly, spotting failure points, and quietly putting processes in place to avoid them.

“I am in,” said Shashank Kumar, co-founder of Razorpay, leaning back on his chair. I hadn’t completed my pitch, but Shashank’s mind was made up. There wasn’t much to say, so I pocketed my iPhone, stood up, thanked him, and left. He had just agreed to sign a not-insignificant cheque for our efforts. 

Penned by Z47 & SaaSBoomi. In this edition, Arvind Parthiban, co-founder & CEO of SuperOps, takes us inside their playbook for shaking up a decades-old, slow-moving Managed Service Provider (MSP) category and why building a bold brand and an active community was as critical as the product itself.

BoomiAI’s AI Radar is an open directory of 200+ Indian AI-first startups, connecting founders, investors, and partners. More than a list, it’s discovery infrastructure to fuel India’s AI movement.

Her Twitter persona was fierce, fearless, and formidable. She pulled no punches. I had found a line to connect with her. But I wasn’t convinced. I wanted to know more. So, I reached further into the ecosystem.

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An Indian engineering team just raised $25 million to deploy AI agents across America’s healthcare system. SPRY Health, founded by former Ola CTO Brij Bhuptani and Riyaz Rehman, has built autonomous billing agents that achieve 90% first-submission claim acceptance – outperforming human processors stuck at 70-75% industry standard.

I’ve been bumping into Vivek since 2016 at conferences and social gatherings. Our conversations were trivial and superficial. Until it all changed in 2018, Vivek, ever the gentleman, would smile politely most of the time, but he seemed visibly upset.