SeedToScale | Curated by Accel

For decades, India’s two-wheeler industry perfected manufacturing at scale, but not innovation. Then came Ather Energy. Tarun Mehta, Co-founder & CEO, shares how Ather built every layer of the EV stack, from battery architecture to charging infrastructure, entirely from scratch. From a lab at IIT Madras to India’s one of the largest electric two-wheeler brands, Ather’s story is one of conviction over conditions. Tarun and his team built what didn’t exist: suppliers, technology, and manufacturing processes, turning obstacles into opportunities. In this episode of Decoding Manufacturing, Tarun shares insights on building deep R&D culture, scaling hardware with precision, and the mindset required to design in India, not just make in India. Chapters: 0:24 - What led to the birth of Ather Energy? 2:23 - The biggest challenges in the early days 7:03 - Why did Ather decide to go full stack? 9:38 - When did it truly feel at ‘scale’? 10:53 - Balance of IP vs speed during scaling 12:15 - Defining decisions in Ather’s journey 13:23 - Views on the current ecosystem 14:57 - Flaws of early-stage hardware founders 20:12 - Hardware vs software-led future 22:11 - India’s manufacturing prowess 25:35 - Manufacturing vs global imports 26:28 - Advice to deep tech & advanced hardware founders 26:52 - Lowest point while building Ather 28:54 - The strongest belief from 5 years ago 29:36 - Doing Ather differently in 2025 Follow SeedToScale on LinkedIn for more insights: https://in.linkedin.com/company/seedt... Follow Tarun on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarunsmehta/?originalSubdomain=in About Decoding Manufacturing: This series spotlights the audacious founders positioning India to lead the next industrial revolution by transforming deep tech into scalable manufacturing breakthroughs. #manufacturing #manufacturingprocess #AtherEnergy #DecodingManufacturing #AtherEnergy #Founder #EV #MadeInIndia #Innovation #manufacturing

In this episode of PitchCraft Season 2, Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder and CEO of BlueStone and Prashanth Prakash, Partner at Accel, revisit the 33-page idea-stage deck that launched one of India’s most enduring jewelry brands. Back in 2011, BlueStone didn’t even have a website or sales to show. It only had a conviction that India’s jewelry market was ripe for disruption. Gaurav reflects on the choices that shaped the pitch: why jewelry was one of the few categories resistant to horizontal marketplaces, how consumer behavior was shifting from family jewelers to brands, and why design had to be the company’s moat. Prashanth recalls why Accel took the leap at such an early stage: the scale of the opportunity, but more importantly, Gaurav’s clarity of thought and first-principles approach. From 3D renders that changed how jewelry was visualized online to home try-on that built trust, BlueStone redefined how Indians bought jewelry long before omnichannel became the norm. Together, they unpack the original deck, the debates it sparked, and how its early insights on design, differentiation, and consumer trust, still anchor the company as it stepped into the public markets in 2025.

In the debut episode of PitchCraft's Season 2, Chandra Srikanth speaks to Sriharsha Majety, Co-Founder and CEO of Swiggy, and Accel's Anand Daniel as they deconstruct the company's first pitch deck that laid the foundation for one of India's most iconic consumer tech companies. Harsha reflects on Swiggy’s early days in 2014, when the team put together a function-first deck built on a single insight: existing platforms didn’t solve the real consumer problem—getting food from your favourite restaurant delivered quickly. From day one, Swiggy differentiated itself by building its own delivery fleet and prioritizing reliability and speed over scale or polish. Anand shares why Accel backed Swiggy in 2015, even in a crowded market: the clarity of thought, deep consumer insight, and a relentless focus on experience. The founders didn’t pitch a marketplace—they pitched a logistics company with a sharp product lens. Swiggy launched with just a few handpicked restaurants, high-velocity dishes, and an app-first approach that showed early, real traction. Together, they break down how the pitch came together, what stood out in the deck, and how Swiggy’s founding principles—customer obsession, clarity, and operational discipline—have stayed intact from the seed round to the stock market.

India today stands at the cusp of a new wave in advanced manufacturing. With global supply chains shifting, demand for cost-effective innovation rising, and deep scientific talent at home, the country has a chance to create the building blocks of tomorrow’s industries. Specialty chemicals, critical to pharmaceuticals, agro, electronics, and more, are one such frontier. Scimplify is leading this shift. The company acts as a full-stack platform for specialty chemical development and manufacturing, bringing enterprise-grade R&D into India’s underutilized factories. In this episode, Co-founder Sachin Santhosh takes us inside their model: how technology and data are being used to map facilities, why India’s scientist pool is its true edge, and how Scimplify is bridging the gap between lab-scale innovation and commercial-scale delivery. Sachin also shares the hard realities of building in this space, from hiring world-class scientists to balancing reliability with cost, and his bold vision to make Scimplify a mark of trust across global industries. This conversation is a window into how advanced manufacturing in chemicals could be India’s next big leap, powering not just growth, but global leadership.

Every economic superpower has been built on the backbone of manufacturing. Today, with global supply chains being rewritten and the world moving from cost to precision, resilience, and IP, India stands at a rare window of opportunity. Advanced manufacturing is no longer our quiet revolution. Decoding Manufacturing brings you the voices of India’s boldest builders, decoding what it takes to reimagine manufacturing on the global stage and shape the country’s future. #founders #startup #startupindia #indianstartup #manufacturing #advancedmanufacturing #precisionengineering #precisionmanufacturing #sarlaaviation #airtaxis #flyingtaxi #haber #fabheads #scimplify #entrepreneurship #atherenergy #agnikul #sattelite

It’s almost a consensus view that India can’t build its AI future on borrowed code. It needs infrastructure rooted in Indian languages, accents, and real-world use cases. At the heart of this mission is AI4Bharat, an open-source initiative building cutting-edge AI models for all 22 official Indian languages. In this episode of Decoding AI, Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel, sits down with Professor Mitesh Khapra, one of the key architects of India’s Indic and open-source AI movement and co-lead of the AI4Bharat initiative at IIT Madras. A former researcher at IBM and now a faculty member at the Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI, IIT Madras, Mitesh has been instrumental in laying the groundwork for India’s AI stack. The conversation traces the journey of AI4Bharat, from early experiments mapping real-world problems to a focused effort on building foundational language technologies that power applications across sectors. Mitesh shares how the team is bridging data gaps, enabling synthetic data generation, and competing with global benchmarks, all while staying open-source. This episode unpacks why India needs its own AI infrastructure, what makes AI for Bharat technically and culturally distinct, and how startups and developers can plug into this growing ecosystem to build truly inclusive AI solutions.

Integrations are the hidden bottleneck in modern engineering slowing teams down, draining time, and killing creativity. What if AI could automate that completely? Soham Ganatra, Co-founder & CEO, Composio, shares how his team built one of the largest hosted MCP platforms, where AI coding agents autonomously build and manage integrations end-to-end. From early experiments with LLMs to tackling agent reliability, tool design, and scaling through community-led GTM, the conversation dives deep into how Composio is transforming developer productivity. Chapters: 0:24 - Intro 0:35 - The problem statement Composio aims to solve 3:20 - The differentiator between Composio and others 5:34 - The secret behind high SWE-benchmark 7:29 - How is Composio powering rapid development & prototyping 8:45 - Identifying the initial customer base 13:23 - Were there any specific use cases that were surprising? 15:06 - Mental model around team building 19:37 - Outro Follow SeedToScale on LinkedIn for more insights: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seedtoscale Follow Soham on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soham-ganatra/ #AI #AWS #InsideTheEngineRoom #Developers #Tools #Automation #ArtificialIntelligence For more insights on building AI-native startups and scaling developer ecosystems, watch the full episode of AWS Inside the Engine Room. #AI #AWS #InsideTheEngineRoom #Developers #Tools #Automation #ArtificialIntelligence

The fastest solution is not always the smartest one. Even the world’s fastest inference engine can’t win on speed alone. That’s why Amritanshu Jain, Co-Founder & CEO of Simplismart, emphasizes adaptability as the true goal. For enterprises, it’s not just about running models at lightning pace, but balancing cost efficiency, speed of execution, and scalability across dynamic environments. In a world where conditions evolve rapidly, adaptability is the edge that keeps businesses ahead. Chapters: 0:25 Intro 0:39 Core innovations in the engine’s architecture 4:07 Mental model around building modular blocks 6:26 Solving the gaps in MLOps 17:41 Approach with hiring 23:17 What kind of technology & research excites you? 28:42 Outro Follow SeedToScale on LinkedIn for more insights: https://in.linkedin.com/company/seedt... Follow Amritanshu on LinkedIn: / jainamritanshu About the series: The builders of India’s AI revolution are opening up their playbooks. From evolving stacks to scaling breakdowns and tough infra trade-offs, Inside The Engine Room, in collaboration with ‪@amazonwebservices‬, dives deep into the lessons every founder wishes they had on Day 1. #AI #AWS #MLOps #InferenceEngine #AIstartups #Amazon #AIInfrastructure #Founders #InsideTheEngineRoom #Accel #Simplismart #SeedToScale