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NEON SHOW Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2030
Ganesan: AI will eliminate 80% of contact center seats in 3-5 years
“So broadly, I think the total number of contact center seats will come down. My estimation is that it will come down by about 80% over the course of three to five years. By the way, timeframes are actually anybody's guess. As you know, in AI, things are changi…”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 26:16 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ganesan: Contact centers will never reach 100% AI automation
“But some of these older processes, I don't ever think they will become hundred percent replaced by AI. You will have people who will be needed for complicated questions, for overseeing the bots, for teaching the bots, for compliance purposes sometimes to take …”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 28:43 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ganesan: US AI firms will ignore cost reduction and chase AGI instead
“Even at the current inference costs I think that the savings in the west is so high that there will be, there is actually no motivation for American companies to further reduce inference costs going forward. So I think they're going to just forget about this c…”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 32:02 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Prediction Not checkable as stated
Exotel Is Exploring an IPO in India, Says Founder Shivku
“We are actually talking about the possibility of taking the company public in India, and I'm afraid that actually that might come true”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 16:23 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Exotel Initially Earned More Per Ola Ride Than Ola Itself
“So I jokingly tell people that there was a period of about a year when we were actually making more money out of an Ola ride than Ola itself. So roughly they were doing about 2.2 phone calls per ride because nobody knew how to use this app, some new flashy, sh…”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 21:01 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Supported
Ganesan: Ameyo brought ~₹100 Cr revenue when Exotel was at ~₹120 Cr
“So I think they would have probably brought about a hundred crores of revenue. And we were at about one 20 ish crores of revenue at that point in time.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 14:39 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ganesan: AI voice bot collected ₹3 crore for NBFC with zero humans
“One of our voiceboard agents collections agent about two, three months ago, I got to know that has actually collected almost three crores of rupees in a month for one of the NBFCs completely automated.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 25:31 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ganesan: Offering voice AI at two rupees per minute yields zero margin
“While it is practically possible to offer a two rupees a minute even today, actually there is no zero margin left for the vendors at this rate.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 31:49 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shivku: Top 500 Companies Hold 80% of Market Value in India
“First of all, in almost all markets, more so in India 80% of the value of that market lies in the top 500 companies.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 47:22 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ganesan: India stops being price-sensitive in 20 years at $15k GDP
“So I believe that that will happen when the India per capita GDP crosses 15,000 dollars right now. I think we are one generation away. So India is a price sensitive market. You have to do cost innovation. This is the, I'm connecting this back to the AI part. S…”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 59:33 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Early VCs Rejected Exotel Claiming India's SMB Market Was Too Shallow
“One of the difficult moments for me was that we went to the market trying to raise at that point in time, and most of the investors actually turned it down saying that the SMB market in India is quite shallow.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 19:43 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Exotel Masked Up to 100 Million Phone Numbers Across India
“So it becomes a given now, but we actually literally safeguarded. 10 to 15% of the country's phone numbers. At that point, then about 80 to a hundred million for unique phone numbers we had. From going into the hands of people whom you never really intended to…”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 22:37 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Exotel Signed an Aborted $30 Million Acquisition Deal at ₹60 Crore Revenue
“No, it was a thirty million dollar, sorry it was a thirty million dollar acquisition deal, and I think we must have been maybe in a 60 crores range, so it was something like a four x five vector of a sort of range.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 37:08 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Partly supported
Exotel Raised Funding Sequential Quarters and Acquired Two Companies in 2021
“So we actually raised around every quarter. Of the last calendar year. So we went B one, B two, C and D. And then we also ended up doing two acquisitions. One's in June, one in June the merger with Amio was in June and the acquisition of Cogmo in in November.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 48:36 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shivku: Exotel processes nearly 2B calls monthly as India's largest non-telco server
“We are also the largest call server in India, other than the telcos, and most likely in the top 10 in the world, we process almost about two billion calls a month.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 1:42 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Contradicted
Ganesan: Exotel laid off 30% to 35% of staff during COVID
“So we had to almost let go of 30 to 35% of our employees at that point in time.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 6:42 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Supported
Ganesan: Exotel closed four funding rounds in 18 months
“So we did round one, round two, actually we did four rounds. In a period of about 18 months. Just in the year of 2021 I did two acquisitions and three rounds.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 9:34 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Partly supported
Ganesan: Ameyo had twice the headcount of Exotel at acquisition
“In fact, to tell you the truth, Amio actually had double the number of people compared to Exotel.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 15:50 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Partly supported
Ganesan: Exotel achieved ~20% gross margin CAGR and returned to profitability
“And so we may not have actually grown that rapidly when you stock in revenue terms, but actually we are, we've been giving almost 20% type CAGR growth in the last two years. On the gross margins. And so consequently we are now again profitable.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 22:01 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ganesan: 20% to 25% of Exotel's code is written by AI
“Almost if I'm not wrong, about 20 to 25% of our code is now, even today is actually being written by AI.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 22:34 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2028
Ganesan: Exotel Deserves to Be Public and Will IPO
“I don't think of it as much as what it means to me to go public as much as I just feel like Exotel is one of those assets that needs to, deserves to be public. So we will take it public.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 40:16 8 Years Without Funding to $100M Raise & Now A Category Leader | Shivku Ganesan ,Exotel
NEON SHOW Assertion Supported
Twilio Took 11 Years to Officially Launch Operations in India
“So for a long time, when you searched for Twilio in India, you would actually see that the question that I had posted in their consumer forums would turn up as the first link. So I would argue that I was perhaps the first person to ping Twilio and ask them, He…”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 10:42 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Partly supported
Blume Ventures Invested ₹2.5 Crore at a ₹10 Crore Exotel Valuation
“I raised about two and a half crores, little less than two and a half crores at a 10 crore post money valuation. So they got a chunk they walked away with Almost 25% of the company”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 16:51 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Venture-Backed B2C Unicorns Drove 80% of Exotel's Early Revenue
“70%, 80% of our revenues were still coming from. On the back of a venture capital enabled companies in the B to C space. So we were really supporting Flipkart and Ola, Uber and Swiggy and Zomato and all of these guys.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 26:10 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Contradicted
Exotel Reached ₹40 to ₹50 Crore in Annual Revenue by 2016
“Must be in the 40 crores to 50 crores sort of a range.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 30:26 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Exotel Co-Founder Vijay Sharma Left in 2014 Over Regulatory Licensing Troubles
“The first one to leave was Vijay Sharma. So he actually left because back in 2014, we also get into, got into a little bit of a trouble with our licensing.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 30:54 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Exotel Faced a Major 2014 Regulatory Crisis Over a ₹25,000 License
“And it turns out that there is a license that we were supposed to take for the business that we are currently doing, which was, believe it, about 25,000 rupees, which we hadn't taken, about which we didn't know”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 31:11 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
Exotel's Revenue Crashed 55% Overnight During the 2020 COVID-19 Lockdowns
“So our revenue is actually crashed by about 55% overnight.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 39:33 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Partly supported
Exotel Hit $60 Million ARR in 2022, Growing From $40 Million
“We've gone from about, I don't know, 35, forty million dollars last year to about sixty million this year.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 51:23 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Prediction Didn’t hold up
Shivku Predicts Exotel Will Grow Top-Line Revenue by Another 70%
“And we anticipate the growth to continue. We'll likely hopefully grow at another 70% this year as well.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 51:29 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Not checkable as stated
India Accounts for 70% of Exotel's Total Annual Revenue
“So I think about maybe 70% of our revenues is from India and the remaining 30%, 10%, maybe from the Middle East, 10% from Southeast Asia and the remaining from the rest of the world.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 52:33 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
NEON SHOW Assertion Partly supported
Exotel Reached ₹1 Crore in Revenue Around Its Seed Funding Round
“Few tens of lakhs. I think it was I think in that year we would have done about a crore of revenues.”
Shivakumar Ganesan Apr 25, 2022 ▶ 17:53 Exotel’s Shivku on Failed Funding Round to Building $60 Mn ARR Saas Startup
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