Assertion Not checkable as stated
Siddharth Ahluwalia claims developers ignore enterprise-purchased Copilot, Codex, and Cursor
“Cursor Codex by OpenAI and Copilot by Microsoft, they have all sold to the enterprises. But developers are not using them.”
Opinion
Ahluwalia: Reliance and Adani build semiconductors internally instead of backing startups
“If you see today, if you talk about semiconductor defense Reliance and Adani's of India, They want to do it all themselves and capture the market share rather than investing in new entrepreneurs”
Opinion
Ahluwalia: A $50M ARR founder is revered in India, a nobody in SF
“If you are a 50 mil ARR founder here,
As Pallas said, you will get invited to podcasts, speakers, everywhere.
You'll be a god in this ecosystem.
For example, right?
If you go to Bay Area, at a 50 mil error, you are nobody. A second time founder who sold hi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ahluwalia: Required software developers per company are shrinking by magnitudes
“The role of a single software developer is increasing, whereas the number of software developers required in a single company is shrinking by magnitudes.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ahluwalia: Apparel firm cut support staff from 16 to 3 using SagePilot
“One of the customers of Sage Pilot, like the 50 crore revenue company based in Jaipur they do clothes clothing, right?
Women's clothing.
And they mentioned that
They have reduced their team of 16 people in customer support and customer lifecycle to three pe…”
Disclosure
Ahluwalia: Second-time founders fail at the same rate as first-time founders
“In our portfolio we see equal number of second-time founder companies not working out, and these are like super second-time founders built fifty million ARR companies. Right. Right. Their company's not working out as equal to first.”
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2033
Ahluwalia: Whatfix might become bigger than Freshworks within 10 years
“India, I would say it would be Wattfix, since I get to know Khadem very closely, and I think Khadem is building the next Freshworks, or Wattfix might become bigger than Freshworks in the next 10 years.”
Insight
Ahluwalia: Domain institutional knowledge will surpass frontier AI models
“In, in my view, where a startup can at least have a path to a hundred million in revenue, and this is still theoretical here to get played out in practice, just from observations from our portfolio company executing, is institutional knowledge in your domain w…”
Opinion
Ahluwalia: First-time founders hold a larger advantage in AI waves
“I think first time founders have a bigger advantage in AI waves. The reason is you're not carrying any bags from the SaaS era, and you are born into a AI native world.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2028
Ahluwalia: Zomato could become a $100B company in the near future
“I can think Zomato could become a hundred billion dollar company, not very far away.”
Opinion
Ahluwalia: India-US SaaS Companies Can Easily IPO in India at $30M ARR
“The probability of listing in India at 30, forty million ARR is very high.”
Assertion Supported
Ahluwalia: India's house-price-to-income ratio is 11, double the global benchmark
“House price to income ratio is at 11 nationally, far above the global benchmark of five.”
Assertion Supported
Ahluwalia: India is 12 generations behind in chip tech, up from two
“In 1987, India was just two years behind the latest chip manufacturing technology. Today we are 12 generations behind”
Opinion
Ahluwalia: Cross-border Indian founders execute better than American peers
“Our founders here who are building both cross-border teams are, their execution is better than some of the parallel American companies that we have seen. It's a matter of time that we'll see the results happening, but the courage is huge.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ahluwalia: Batti is the only Indian SaaS CEO who stayed in India
“As we discussed, you are the only CEO who has stayed back and still managed to create a very large company in enterprise software.”
Assertion Partly supported
Ahluwalia: India spends $5B annually on cloud across AWS, Azure, GCP
“AWS revenue is two billion dollars in India. Microsoft Azure is a billion and I think GCP is somewhere close to a billion. So total overall India spends roughly including the small players, five billion dollars a year on cloud”
Assertion Partly supported
Ahluwalia: Sam Altman told Indian founders not to attempt competing with OpenAI
“Two years ago, Sam Altman came to India. Rajan and then asked him question, can a startup from India compete with open AI? He said, it's not possible. Don't even attempt it.”
Opinion
Ahluwalia: India is the hardest country in the world to build banks
“If I have to build a, let's say a new bank, I think it's, India is the hardest country to build a new bank.”
Assertion Partly supported
Ahluwalia: Postman recent secondary traded at $2.5B-$3B valuation vs $5B primary
“Postman last primary valuation was five billion. Recently secondary happened between 2.5 to three billion, whoever wanted to exit, right?”
Assertion Partly supported
Ahluwalia: Icertis secondary traded at $2B-$2.5B after $5B primary valuation
“Similarly in ICERTIS.
So it is in your space.
The last primary was at five billion. Today, secondary happened at two, 2.5 billion.”
Assertion Contradicted
Ahluwalia: Majority of Indian MBBS Doctors Over 50 Years Emigrated Abroad
“The start is between three million to five million doctors, MBBS, but majority of them in the last 50 years have left India for better opportunities in US, UK, Australia, and now even Middle East.”
Assertion Contradicted
Ahluwalia: No Indian company is a top-three player in any international market
“There's no case study of an Indian company till now, which has made its mark yet on international markets, being a top three player in any other market.”
Assertion Partly supported
Ahluwalia: Karnataka state government spends 62,000 crores on welfare freebies
“Right now, for example, the current Karnataka government is spending 62,000 crores on freebies.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ahluwalia: Freshworks created hundreds of $10M fortunes now funding startups
“Fresh works created Hundreds of people with ten million dollars of wealth. And now they're pumping money back, right? They're all my limited partners in the fund.”
