Building A Global AI Startup From India

Building A Global AI Startup From India

From Y Combinator Startup Podcast by Y Combinator

March 16, 2026 · 40 min

About this episode

The episode features Mukund and Madhav Jha discussing their AI platform Emergent and its rapid growth in app creation.

In this episode of The Lightcone, we talk with Mukund and Madhav Jha, the founders of Emergent - an AI platform that lets anyone build and ship production-ready software. In just eight months, users have created more than 7 million apps on Emergent, with the number doubling in just the last 45 days. We discuss how they built one of the most powerful AI coding agents, why they focused on non-technical users and what it's like building in India for a global audience. Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 01:06 - What Is Emergent? 01:18 - Founder Backstory 02:09 - From AI Testing to General Coding Agents 02:52 - Getting Ahead of the Market 04:18 - The Pivot to Non-Technical Users 05:22 - Why Second Movers Can Win in AI 09:04 - Building for Production, Not Just Prototypes 18:21 - Live Demo: Building Apps with Emergent 24:40 - How Emergent Hires and Runs a Lean Team 29:04 - Is SaaS Dead? The Rise of Personalized Software 34:04 - The Future: Niche Apps, Solo Builders and AI Agency

People in this episode

Guests: Mukund Jha, Madhav Jha

Topics covered

  • AI startup
  • software development
  • non-technical users
  • global audience
  • coding agents

Keywords

  • AI
  • Emergent
  • software
  • production-ready
  • non-technical users
  • coding agents
  • India
  • global startup

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Emergent, Y Combinator

Places: India

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