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Aakrit Vaish
Co-Founder & CEO of Haptik
Aakrit Vaish is the Co-Founder and CEO of Haptik, a leading conversational AI company that he established in 2013. Under his leadership, Haptik has grown significantly, processing nearly 100 million users annually and serving notable clients such as Oyo Rooms, KFC, Samsung, and Coca-Cola. The company was acquired by Reliance Industries in 2019 for approximately $100 million, subsequently rebranding as Jio Haptik.12
Vaish began his career at Flurry, a mobile analytics startup in San Francisco, where he was the 12th employee before it was acquired by Yahoo! for $280 million. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Recognized for his contributions to the tech industry, he has been featured in several prestigious lists, including Entrepreneur's 35 Under 35 and Forbes' 30 Under 30.124
In addition to his role at Haptik, Aakrit Vaish is an active angel investor, having invested in around 80 startups in India, and he is involved in mentoring emerging companies in technology and consumer sectors.23
Highlights
India was the global HQ for Services 1.0.
Now it’s time to lead Services 2.0: outcomes as a service, powered by AI agents working alongside humans.
Along with @generalcatalyst, we hosted the Bangalore founder ecosystem on this theme, as a formal pre-event to the @OfficialINDIAai summit. Privileged to have @abhish18 keynote, along with good friends @neerajarora @Raman_Roy @pratykumar @mukeshbansal06.
Groq raised a round at a $6.6b valuation just a few months back.
A meaningful chunk of that round was allocated via private banks and distributor-led SPVs. End buyers were retail investors writing cheques as small as $20k to get exposure to the US AI hype. I personally know at least 10 such friends in India and Singapore.
They’ll make almost 3x in under 6 months. Great outcome for them, no doubt.
But here’s the downside: every SPV distributor will now think they’re God’s gift to investing (right after Sequoia). More such deals will get pushed, more investors will subscribe without knowing any better, and in most cases you won’t hit the jackpot.
Please know you are playing roulette, not chess.


