In this special episode of the Prime Venture Partners Podcast, the Partners come together to discuss how AI, new business models, and shifting global dynamics are reshaping startups and what founders should be preparing for as we head deeper into 2026 and beyond.

From pragmatic AI adoption to new opportunities in services, SaaS, climate, and governance, this is a grounded conversation on what’s actually changing and what still matters.

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction

01:30 – What Prime Is Willing to Bet On

03:20 – AI Models vs Real Value Creation

07:35 – Automation, Services and Opportunity

11:30 – Moats and Distribution in an AI-First World

20:00 – Why Fundamentals Still Matter

24:05 – SaaS, Services and India’s Global Opportunity

28:25 – How AI Will Change Venture Capital

37:40 – Predicting the Defining Startups of 2030

42:05 – Climate, Energy and Big Problems Becoming Solvable

45:40 – Boards, Governance and AI Ethics

52:10 – Closing Thoughts for Founders Building in 2026

🔥 What You’ll Discover:

1. How founders should think about AI in 2026
2. Why services + AI could unlock product-like margins and global opportunities
3. How India’s startup ecosystem is evolving as customers begin paying serious money for software
4. What venture capital, boards, and governance might look like in an AI-first future

🎧 Key Takeaways:

1. Why solving the right customer problem is still a binary outcome, regardless of the AI model you use
2. How SaaS, services, and AI are converging into new business models
3. What founders should expect as old cost advantages disappear and new ones emerge
4. Why long-term company building, discipline, and fundamentals still win
5. As the startup ecosystem enters its next phase, this episode offers founders, operators, and investors a clear-eyed view of what’s ahead and how to prepare for it.

🔔 Subscribe for more conversations on startups, venture capital, and building enduring companies.

👇 Join the conversation - What do you think founders should focus on most in 2026?

#2026Predictions #IndianStartups #VentureCapital #AI #PrimeVenturePartners #StartupEcosystem #FutureOfWork #SaaS #Services #ClimateTech #Entrepreneurship #CompanyBuilding

🚀2025 feels like a turning point for the Indian startup ecosystem.

In this special year-end episode of the Prime Venture Partners podcast, we take a step back and look at the journey from the early days of 2010 to where we are today and what lies ahead.

We talk about:

• The wild early years when founders were figuring things out as they went

• How Aadhaar, UPI and cheap data quietly changed everything

• What COVID revealed about founder resilience

• How AI is being used inside real companies today

• Why India’s startup ecosystem took longer to take off, but is now scaling bigger than expected

This is a candid, experience-led conversation from the Prime partners, shaped by nearly two decades of building and investing in Indian startups.

🎙 Episode Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

03:17 The Three Phases of the Indian Startup Ecosystem

05:16 Early Founder Reality (2010–2015)

08:09 What It Was Like to Be an Investor in Early 2010

11:36 When No One Even Talked About Exits

12:49 Early Unicorns and the First Belief Shift

15:05 Founders We Underestimated and Why It Changed Our Thinking

19:07 Backing People Over Plans

23:29 India’s “Too Operational” Companies That Scaled Big

27:46 Jio and the Moment the Internet Became Affordable

29:33 When the Internet Truly Reached Bharat

31:43 Aadhaar, India Stack, and Building at Population Scale

35:16 COVID: Revenue to Zero and Zero-Based Accounting

39:00 Crisis Decisions, Calm Leadership, and Founder Resilience

43:20 The Crypto Wave: Knowing What Not to Chase

46:34 Practical AI Use Cases Inside Real Companies

54:07 Lessons From 15 Years of Venture Investing

58:59 India’s Startup Ecosystem in One Minute

If you care about startups, founders, or the future of technology in India, this episode will resonate.

#IndianStartups #VentureCapital #FoundersJourney #StartupEcosystem #IndiaStack #UPI #StartupLessons #Entrepreneurship #TechInIndia #InvestingInsights #PrimeVenturePartners

Umesh Sachdev, cofounder and CEO of Uniphore, joins Shripati Acharya for a deeply insightful and very real conversation about what it actually takes to build and scale enterprise AI.

Whether you are a founder, a product leader or someone thinking seriously about enterprise AI, this episode will give you clarity on business AI you won’t find elsewhere.

What you’ll take away:

• A clearer understanding of what Uniphore does as an end-to-end enterprise AI and data platform

• Why so many AI pilots “fail” at first and how that failure can actually be meaningful progress

• How enterprises are achieving predictable outcomes using unitary agents, workflow orchestration, guardrails and fine-tuned SLMs

• The inside story of Uniphore’s strategic raise and why some of the world’s biggest AI and data companies chose to back them

⭐Episode Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

03:00 – What Uniphore Actually Does

05:47 – Why Enterprise AI Struggles to Scale Beyond Pilots

10:08 – The Determinism Problem: Why AI Gives Different Answers Each Time

12:32 – Unitary Agents and Workflow Orchestration for Predictable AI

14:00 – Small Language Models vs Large LLMs for Enterprise Use Cases

15:25 – Why Guardrails and Governance Matter in Real Deployments

16:39 – One Big Agent Fails but Ten Small Agents Work Better

20:40 – Why AI Pilots Fail and Why That Is a Good Thing

22:20 – Converting Experiments into Enterprise-Scale Adoption

24:26 – 35,000 Invoices a Week with Only Four Humans: ROI Case Study

26:25 – What Enterprises Really Look for in AI Systems

28:45 – Lessons from Building Across India and the US

32:51 – Why Founders Must Be Close to Their Biggest Market

34:44 – Structuring Teams Across Geographies for Global Scale

38:10 – The Journey of Building Uniphore Over Seventeen Years

42:36 – Hard Lessons Learned Along the Way

46:45 – Why NVIDIA, Snowflake, AMD and Databricks Invested

51:17 – How the Strategic Round Came Together

52:22 – Closing Note

If this conversation resonates with you, drop your biggest takeaway in the comments and subscribe for more in-depth founder and VC discussions.

#EnterpriseAI #Uniphore #ArtificialIntelligence #AIAgents #SmallLanguageModels #AIInnovation #AIinBusiness #FounderInsights #StartupLessons #TechLeadership #GlobalScale #FutureOfWork #PrimeVenturePartnersPodcast