Chennai
other on 14 shows · 10 statements across 9 episodes · said 262 times in 108 episodes since 2015
the Neon Show 141 
WTF is with Nikhil Kamath 44 
Top Founders 22 
Innovators & Investors 18 
American Optimist 8 
the Official SaaStr Podcast 8 
20VC 7 
How I Built This 6 
the MAD Podcast 3 
the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 1 
the Knowledge Project 1 
Latent Space 1 
Capital Allocators 1 
the Green Blueprint 1
Mentions by year, every show
tap a year for its mentions
the Neon Show 141WTF is with Nikhil Kamath 44Top Founders 22Innovators & Investors 18American Optimist 8the Official SaaStr Podcast 820VC 7How I Built This 66 more shows
2026 27 mentions in 9 episodes 3 per episode
- S2E7: Tech, Trade & Trust: India–Netherlands and the Long Game ft. Ewout De Wit
- The "Kiss of Death" That Kills 90% of Startups | Nikhil Gupta, ArmorCode
- What Went Wrong Before iD Fresh Worked | For the First Time Co-Founders Tell Their Story
- Wall Street Rejected This CEO & Then He Did a $200M IPO | Kanwal Rekhi
- Why A 25-Year-Old Should Build A Hotel, Not An App | MakeMyTrip x Taj | WTF is Travel?
- Why AI Labs With Unlimited GPUs Still Fail — Anjney Midha, AMP
- Why Coding is the Fastest Path to AGI | Turing CEO Jonathan Siddharth
- S2Ep12: Decoding New Age Aviation in India with Akasa ft. Belson Coutinho
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2026 →
2025 67 mentions in 22 episodes 3 per episode
- A.R. Rahman: The Genius Who Took Indian Music Global | Nikhil Kamath | People by WTF | Ep 15 · Nikhil Kamath
- Nikhil Kamath ft. Perplexity CEO, Aravind Srinivas | WTF Online Ep 1. · Nikhil Kamath
- Ep #22 | WTF are Craft Beverages? Nikhil ft. the Founders of Blue Tokai, Subko, Svami, and Mossant · Nikhil Kamath
- How AI Will Disrupt India’s IT Services Industry And Its 1.5M Engineers/Year | Bhaskar Ghosh, 8VC
- EP1: The GCC Revolution of India ft. Lalit Ahuja
- What Startups Can Learn from a $1.7B Co. Chief Information Officer | Karthik Chakkarapani
- Best of 3500 Minutes from Top Founders & Investors in 2025
- What 20 Years of Investing taught Somesh Dash of IVP after backing Perplexity, Figma, Dropbox
- 14 more episodes that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 38 mentions in 16 episodes 2 per episode
- Ep 84: Sri Ganesan on Freshworks' Big Win, Building Rocketlane & India's Tech Boom · Joe Lonsdale
- MUST WATCH for Indians Abroad - Remote Work, House Help & More | Kovai.co Founder | Neon Show
- Girish Mathrubootham (HINDI): Biggest Product and Pricing Lessons from Scaling to $597M in ARR · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Girish Mathrubootham: Biggest Product and Pricing Lessons from Scaling to $597M in ARR | E1142 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- SANJEEV SANYAL On India's East Vs West Divide, Kolkata's Decline, Goa, C-PACE And UPSC | Neon Show
- Former CEA: "INDIA WILL BECOME A $55 Trillion Economy By 2047" | KV Subramanian Proves On Neon Show
- Ep. #20 | WTF are Indian Real Estate Giants Up To? Nikhil ft. Irfan, Nirupa, & Karan · Nikhil Kamath
- Employment Researcher - “India Needs 20 Million Jobs Yearly For Demographic Advantage!” Sridhar K
- 8 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 64 mentions in 24 episodes 3 per episode
- Building CaratLane to a 17000 Crore company and selling it to TATA with Founder Mithun Sacheti
- Acquisition By Freshworks and Building SaaS in Chennai with Srikrishnan Ganesan, Founder, Rocketlane
- Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
- American Venture Capitalist Explains India’s BRIGHT FUTURE by 2030 | Bhaskar Ghosh | Neon Show
- Building a ₹3,000 Crore Business, PC Musthafa, Founder, iD Fresh
- Ep #11 | WTF Goes into Building a Fashion, Beauty, or Home Brand? Nikhil w/ Kishore, Raj, and Ananth · Nikhil Kamath
- Ep #3| WTF is E-commerce: Kishore Biyani, Udaan & Meesho Founders Reveal What Sells and What Doesn’t · Nikhil Kamath
- Heartbreaking Truth: The REAL REASON Indian Farmers Struggle - Akshayakalpa Founder on The Neon Show
- 16 more episodes that year, every mention in 2023 →
2022 28 mentions in 16 episodes 2 per episode
- India's Favorite WhatsApp Solution Provider Ft. Karthik Jagannathan, Founder of Gallabox
- HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya
- The Story Behind Building 100x Entrepreneur Ft. Siddhartha Ahluwalia & Nansi Mishra
- His software does $15k/mo helping you rent empty tennis courts (and 22 other sports)
- HIBT Lab! Google: Sundar Pichai
- Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
- The Next Redfin? Real Estate Broker SaaS hits $2.4m Revenue, $50m Valuation
- He got 17 customers to pay $80k/yr up from $40k/yr 1 year ago for Employee Onboarding SaaS
- 8 more episodes that year, every mention in 2022 →
2021 10 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- Starting angel investing, understanding spaces & sourcing deals with Arun Venkatachalam
- Marico Limited founder on Sustainability, Growth and Hiring ft. Harsh Mariwala
- Prediction: Freshbworks IPO Coming Next Month? Founders Thinking in 2018
- Secret Dev Shop Top SaaS Founders Use Breaks $10m in Revenue
- Dr. Geetha Manjunath on building Niramai, the most affordable product for breast cancer detection
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 21 mentions in 9 episodes 2 per episode
- Priya Mohan, Venture Highway on breaking the glass ceiling- being a woman leader in Venture Capital
- Understanding Exits and Investing in High Growth Startups with Dhruv Kapoor, Sistema Asia Capital
- Inside the mind of Ashwini Asokan, Founder & CEO, Mad Street Den
- Inside the mind of Shripriya Mahesh, Founding Partner, Spero Ventures
- What made Elon Musk approach former Tesla CIO Jay Vijayan twice in 12 months?
- Kovai $8.5m Revenue, India Bootstrapped, 3 Core SaaS Products
- Nikhil Kapur, STRIVE Ventures on different SaaS models in Asia
- Omnivore Ventures: Understanding Agritech From Mark Kahn’s Lens
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2020 →
2019 4 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- 100x Entrepreneur | Episode 10 |Anjalli Ravikumar, Social Mission Director UNILEVER
- 50 Unicorns and 19 IPOs, Rajan Anandan from Peak XV on investing in CRED, Meesho, Groww & Mamaearth
- 1456 Hyper Secure CRM Tool Passes $10M in ARR
- 1409 $1.5B Freshworks To IPO: Growing 40% YoY, Passes $100M in ARR, $250M Raised, 150,000 Companies Using
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2015 1 mention in 1 episode
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
10 statements about Chennai, every show
Ahluwalia: Freshworks created roughly 1,000 millionaires in Chennai
“Freshworks created like thousand millionaires sitting out of Chennai. And it completely changed in ecosystem how founders give back.”
Ahuja: Six metropolitan hubs account for over 95 percent of Indian GCCs
“There are obviously the established locations, the six locations that we all know, Bangalore, Pune, NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad. And these are the locations that account for majority, you know, more than 95% of the GCCs.”
Zuora CIO: 80% of AI startups engineer in Bengaluru or Chennai
“I think most of the AI startups is eight out of 10 off from here or Chennai, right? Even though they may have a base in US, headquartered in US, I would say, 80% of the mindset is over here.”
Manickam: Bangalore produces more engineering graduates annually than all of Taiwan
“Bangalore will have more than, right? You know, the entire Taiwan put together, right? Or Chennai, for example, right? You know, they have so many engineering colleges and all that.”
Ghosh: 8VC Portfolio Companies Are Moving Engineering Teams to India
“The other part is our portfolio companies are majorly moving their engineering teams to India, as I mentioned. Large number in Bangalore, increasingly large number in Hyderabad, Chennai, and we see Pune as a hub that's growing very rapidly, and maybe someday G…”
Ahluwalia claims Chennai has the highest SaaS talent density in India
“The SaaS talent is the densest in the Chennai region in India”
Many Chennai SaaS startups are founded by Zoho and Freshworks alumni
“In fact, a lot of, I would say, Chennai-based SaaS startups have Founders who may be ex-Zoho, ex-Freshworks, etc.”
Jagannathan: Chennai's SaaS community is defined by founder humility and helpfulness
“I think there's also cultural aspect to the Chennai community, Founders where, you know, there's a lot of humility, and I think that that doesn't go unnoticed at all, right? There's a lot of, you know, they're very helpful, and I think in general, nice folks t…”
Balaji Srinivasan: Chennai is cleaner than San Francisco
“Chennai is cleaner than San Francisco. It's not close. Okay. Like I, there's no question.”
Anjali Ravi Kumar Quit Whirlpool After Selling Washing Machines in Water-Scarce Chennai
“I was placed in Whirlpool, where I was actually trying to sell washing machines in parts of Chennai that didn't have water. So that was the most sort of eye-opening as well as ironical experience that Led me to the biggest decision I've taken to date, which is…”