Latest / The Neon Show / This Startup Can End China’s Grip on Global EV Supply Chain | Bhaktha, Chara Tech

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This Startup Can End China’s Grip on Global EV Supply Chain | Bhaktha, Chara Tech · The Neon Show

• 0:00
  China produces nearly 60% of the world's rare earth and processes almost 90% of the world's rare earth.
• 0:08
  April 2025 they restricted export of their rare earth.
• 0:14
  China has a tangle hold on the supply chain of rare earth.
• 0:18
  What is of interest to us at Chara is the rare earth-based magnets.
• 0:21
  Neodymium for us boron magnets.
• 0:23
  They need four rare earths to make them magnetic.
• 0:25
  Today the only way to build an efficient motor is using the rare earth-based magnets or PMS and motor.
• 0:31
  There's no other technology that is deployed.
• 0:34
  You started Chara in 2019.
• 0:36
  So building in deep tech wasn't cool.
• 0:38
  How did you get the conviction?
• 0:40
  Climate change is the biggest threat to mankind.
• 0:42
  We started Chara.
• 0:43
  The larger opportunity was the energy transition.
• 0:46
  We are moving from hydrocarbons to electrons.
• 0:48
  So we all got together.
• 0:49
  We literally started building the motors by hand.
• 0:52
  The technology we developed has become a reality and we're shipping against revenue.
• 0:56
  A lot of deep tech startups raised seed, seed or series A rounds.
• 1:00
  But we still don't have investors who can come in series B, Series C.
• 1:05
  The owner sees on people like us saying that look, this is a business now.
• 1:13
  Hi Bhakta, welcome to the Nuan Show.
• 1:15
  Thanks.
• 1:16
  Thanks, Nancy.
• 1:17
  I'm really excited for this conversation.
• 1:19
  I feel I'm going to learn a lot about deep tech.
• 1:21
  This is the first podcast I'm doing in deep tech.
• 1:23
  Oh, is it?
• 1:24
  Okay, good.
• 1:25
  So Magda, let's start the conversation with China.
• 1:29
  China produces uh nearly 60% of the rare earth, world's rare earth, and you know, processes almost 90% of the world's rare earth, right?
• 1:40
  So they clearly have a monopoly in rare earth.
• 1:44
  But in April 2025, they restricted export of their uh rare earth.
• 1:51
  So what impact did it create on the world?
• 1:54
  What happened in April 2025?
• 1:56
  Yeah.
• 1:56
  So just to take a step back, you're absolutely right.
• 1:59
  China has a strong uh stranglehold on the supply chain of rare earth, rare earth-based products to be specific, like magnets and a bunch of other things.
• 2:08
  Uh, they did an embargo on the export of rare earth-based magnets and a few other components uh in April of 25.
• 2:16
  So that led to shutting down several companies all around the world.
• 2:22
  Uh, in in our case, what is of interest to us at Chera is the rare earth-based magnets, neodymium ferris boron magnets.
• 2:30
  They need four rare to make them magnetic.
• 2:33
  China just uh stopped the export of that.
• 2:36
  This led to the closure of companies in the US, uh in Europe, and some of them really get to near to closure.
• 2:46
  Um, and I think at least one large automotive company in India shipped far less products, uh, two-wheelers and three-wheelers, that particular quarter.
• 2:57
  So it was a massive disruption.
• 2:59
  Um, and um the unfortunate thing or the reality is that today the only way to build an efficient motor is using the rare earth-based magnets.
• 3:11
  Uh, it's called PMSM motor.
• 3:13
  There's no other technology that is deployed, and that's why it is super critical and that led to a lot of hardburn um all over the world.
• 3:20
  And what kind of these what kind of companies uh shut down?
• 3:25
  Uh uh primarily automotive companies, uh, because they all uh EV automotive.
• 3:29
  ET EV.
• 3:30
  Be precise.
• 3:31
  Um that is primary, but even the regular cars, I mean the internal combustion, the petrol diesel cars, they have a lot of motors which use the NDFEP magnets.
• 3:41
  So they were also in trouble.
• 3:43
  The last one I know of uh is the uh the speakers and earphones manufacturers.
• 3:50
  Though you might not know speakers and earphones have magnets in them.
• 3:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:54
  Okay.
• 3:54
  So they are also NDFEP magnets.
• 3:56
  So all of them were in trouble.
• 3:58
  The Apple iPhone production, which happens somewhere here, right?
• 4:03
  Um they were in trouble.
• 4:05
  Uh so all of them were in trouble.
• 4:07
  So China has a big uh uh control over the supply chains.
• 4:12
  Um this is somewhat similar to the oil embargo that happened in I think in the 70s.
• 4:18
  Uh, you know, they can can you talk about that?
• 4:21
  Like what happened?
• 4:22
  So the uh uh just like rare earths, uh the Gulf has the um bulk of the petroleum.
• 4:30
  It's become less now, but in the 70s and 80s, they were the only producers because they got cheap oil, good quality oil, and uh because of some political problems again, uh Gulf announced the shutdown of their supply, and everybody in the world felt it.
• 4:46
  And there are pictures of uh miles-long queue in the US in front of petrol banks.
• 4:53
  Same thing.
• 4:54
  Um for a long time, thousands of years, civilizations have depended on some material.
• 5:01
  I think it was steel, copper, bronze.
• 5:06
  I think uh in the recent memory, it became coal, the industrialization phase.
• 5:11
  Um, then it became oil.
• 5:14
  Uh and I strongly believe that the the next civilization uh will be built on rare earths.
• 5:20
  Whoever controls the rare earths will have an upper hand.
• 5:23
  Not that all the others will die, but they will have control.
• 5:25
  And that's why this is so critical.
• 5:27
  Apart from China, what which one is the next country that is like China processes 60, uh produces 60% of rare earth?
• 5:36
  Correct.
• 5:36
  What's what's the other country?
• 5:38
  So if you look at the ore, right?
• 5:40
  So it's a little bit more complex.
• 5:42
  So there are 17 elements which are called rare ears.
• 5:46
  Uh they occur in the bottom of the periodic table.
• 5:48
  I thought I know a lot of us keep the chemistry class or slip through it.
• 5:52
  This is karma catching up.
• 5:54
  This is karma catching up.
• 5:55
  It is critical uh for many, many applications.
• 5:58
  Out of that, half are called light rare, the other half are called heavy radars, just depending on the atomic weight.
• 6:05
  Now, China has close to 50% of the known ore in this world.
• 6:12
  Then I think it is Brazil.
• 6:14
  Incidentally, India is the third largest.
• 6:16
  But it's it's it's a much smaller number.
• 6:19
  I don't think that number matters.
• 6:21
  What matters is also that uh we need to have ores which both supply uh heavy rare earths and light rare earths.
• 6:29
  Um and China, for again, some sheer geographical luck, has both.
• 6:35
  Has both.
• 6:36
  The other thing is that these rare, by the way, rare earths are called so um, not because they are expensive or they are rare.
• 6:46
  Um gold and silver, platinum are rare.
• 6:49
  These rare earths are there everywhere.
• 6:51
  It is rare because the concentration of the ore, of the minerals in the ore is very small.
• 6:57
  So just to set an example, right?
• 6:59
  Uh if you take one ton of iron ore, you actually get 500 kilograms of iron.
• 7:05
  If you take one ton of gold ore, you get about six plus or minus one gram of gold.
• 7:10
  If you take one ton of rare earth, you get one gram of rare earth, uh, one gram of uh uh rare earth mineral.
• 7:16
  That is why they are called rare.
• 7:18
  It's extremely difficult to extract.
• 7:20
  Um, extraction processes.
• 7:23
  Yeah.
• 7:23
  So first is the mining, right?
• 7:25
  First is the availability, then is the mining.
• 7:27
  Mining is easier, you just dig it out, right?
• 7:30
  The second part is the extraction.
• 7:32
  You have to extract the rare earth uh minerals out of the ore, and that is extremely hazardous.
• 7:38
  Every ton of rare earth uh minerals extraction generates 2000 tons of uh radioactive waste.
• 7:45
  It is radioactive because uh again, for chemical reasons, the uranium and thorium occur with rare earth.
• 7:52
  Um, so the the waste that is uh when you extract neodymium and dysposium has uranium and thorium.
• 7:59
  So there are tough there are cancer villages in China on the West Coast.
• 8:03
  All the prosperity is on the east coast in China.
• 8:05
  All the dirty things happen in the uh in the in the middle.
• 8:09
  Something we don't talk about.
• 8:11
  We don't talk about, yeah, we don't talk about.
• 8:13
  Um and then there is the that this second, that is the second part.
• 8:17
  The third part is actually making the magnets in our case and whatever is the other application.
• 8:21
  That also is closely guarded by China.
• 8:24
  The processes and the machinery for extraction and making the final application magnets in our case.
• 8:31
  Uh both uh China introduced an embargo about three years ago on the export of that machinery, long before they actually uh did the embargo on the rare earth magnets, and they've also stopped uh the people from going outside, people who have knowledge in China.
• 8:49
  They are they're not allowed to go outside China.
• 8:52
  So China knows.
• 8:53
  Uh so game.
• 8:54
  Oh, the game.
• 8:55
  So um it is um sometime in the early 90s, 91 or 92, there was, I hope I got the name right, Deng Xiaoping, was the premier of China.
• 9:06
  I think they're called the premier, right?
• 9:07
  The chief.
• 9:08
  Uh he stood in Tian Men Square.
• 9:10
  Tian Ben Square is that that capital, right?
• 9:12
  Yeah.
• 9:13
  Like our Rashtrabati Bound or something.
• 9:14
  I've never been to Beijing.
• 9:16
  Yeah.
• 9:16
  Um, I've been to other parts of China.
• 9:18
  So he stood in Tian Ben Square and said, Gulf has oil, China has railroads.
• 9:22
  And this was 35 years ago.
• 9:24
  So it's a long process, they have invested, and that is why now they are what we call as weaponizing it.
• 9:32
  And we all have to be careful.
• 9:34
  Actually, for for me personally, after uh we sold Easy Tap, I was trying to figure out what to do next.
• 9:41
  So the the thing that triggered me was the Zheng uh Deng Xiaoping's address in Tianmen Square.
• 9:46
  Uh the other thing was there is this island called Senkuko Island between China and Japan.
• 9:52
  So I didn't know China and Japan were enemies politically, right?
• 9:55
  So the huge enemies, uh, the some fishing trawler uh from Chinese fishing trawlers crossed some imaginary international border.
• 10:04
  The Japanese guys arrested them, and China stopped the export of rare earths to Japan.
• 10:10
  Japan took about 72 hours to release them.
• 10:13
  That's all.
• 10:14
  That's why they have that control.
• 10:15
  Japan was the first country that affect that was affected by this ban, and I believe that they are in a far better position now because they have diversified, they figured out what to do.
• 10:26
  They are in a slightly better position than all the other countries now.
• 10:29
  Other countries because they got hit in 2010.
• 10:33
  Okay.
• 10:33
  They had 15 years to prepare.
• 10:35
  Yeah.
• 10:36
  Yeah, they had 15 years to prepare.
• 10:37
  Now, yeah, this was a known problem.
• 10:40
  Uh, when we started in uh late 2019, 2019 November, this was a known problem.
• 10:45
  It's just that people are not paying attention.
• 10:48
  And and now we can talk about Chara and how everything is connected, whatever we discussed just now, right?
• 10:54
  Yeah.
• 10:54
  So we we started Chara in late 2019.
• 10:58
  We uh the the larger opportunity was the what we call as the energy transition.
• 11:04
  We are moving from hydrocarbons to electrons, mainly to combat the climate change uh sustainability.
• 11:10
  Climate change is the biggest threat to mankind, not anything else.
• 11:14
  Um so there are a bunch of opportunities that are being solved.
• 11:19
  Electricity is the only known source of clean energy today.
• 11:23
  Easy to produce, easy to transmit, easy to store, batteries and all that.
• 11:29
  But the big advantage of electricity is that at the point of consumption, it's completely pollution free.
• 11:35
  When you turn on in the electric store, when you turn on your motor, there's no pollution.
• 11:38
  That's the beauty of it.
• 11:40
  Now, the so that huge opportunity, that's why we are electrifying huge opportunities.
• 11:44
  We looked at various parts of this uh chain, value chain, and we then we looked at the motors.
• 11:50
  There are three problems for India specifically.
• 11:52
  One is that um we were not building motors and controllers in a good way.
• 11:58
  Even today, we a lot of things are imported, whether rare earth magnets or not.
• 12:02
  We said we need to do something from India, build the Bharat motor.
• 12:07
  Second thing was the rare earths.
• 12:09
  So we we that time six years ago um we said that rare earth is a problem.
• 12:14
  It was difficult to convince people.
• 12:15
  Half the people said we don't understand what you're talking.
• 12:19
  At least that problem is not there since 10 months.
• 12:22
  We don't have to explain why we do what we do.
• 12:24
  Uh and the third one is sustainability.
• 12:26
  We need to build a sustainable motor.
• 12:28
  Apart from all other problems, rare earths are not sustainable.
• 12:31
  They're extremely dirt.
• 12:33
  And these were the three reasons why we started this.
• 12:36
  And nobody had deployed it.
• 12:38
  Everything is rare earth-based uh magnets, motors.
• 12:42
  Um, there were other technologies that were being looked into.
• 12:45
  There's a class of motors called reluctance motors, uh, so which was known known technology, but nothing had been deployed for various reasons.
• 12:54
  They're highly nonlinear, difficult to control, power density problems, torque ripple, they were noisy.
• 13:00
  So, what we have done is that for the first three to four years, we did fundamental RD in motor technology, hardware architectures, and critically the software algorithms that control the motor.
• 13:15
  Apart from all these things, India as a society, as a country, we have not invested in core technologies.
• 13:22
  We're a net importer, right?
• 13:24
  Yeah.
• 13:24
  To put it very even conservatively.
• 13:28
  Um and um this was my last uh kind of gig.
• 13:33
  Uh and I and I said we should do something that has not been done anywhere in the world.
• 13:37
  Uh deploy it in India and then take it to the world.
• 13:41
  The last thing I want to add is that uh given my you know uh age, um now we see that India is a big enough market.
• 13:50
  We can introduce a new technology, a new product, deploy it in India, and then take it to the world.
• 13:57
  I think all these things were coming together, uh, and that's how we started Chara.
• 14:01
  By the way, Chara stands for motion in Sanskrit.
• 14:04
  Okay.
• 14:04
  Chara means motion.
• 14:05
  Motion, like Charaka.
• 14:06
  Okay.
• 14:07
  Yeah, we are building in motors, came from the word motion.
• 14:10
  Yeah.
• 14:10
  Um, and we are building a new kind of motor.
• 14:12
  We wanted to give a new name, an Indian name.
• 14:16
  Yeah.
• 14:16
  It's like you said that for 200 years, engineers uh would know about reluctance uh motors, right?
• 14:23
  They would, but uh they are cost efficient, they are rare earth-free, but they would vibrate a lot, they would make a lot of noise.
• 14:32
  Um and uh there was one more thing.
• 14:35
  The they are highly difficult to control nonlinearity.
• 14:38
  Yeah, yeah.
• 14:38
  You can't uh they can't produce consistent force.
• 14:43
  Exactly.
• 14:44
  Right?
• 14:44
  Right.
• 14:44
  Because they're nonlinear.
• 14:45
  But but how did you figure it out?
• 14:47
  So that's what uh so the software.
• 14:50
  So control systems.
• 14:51
  So it's not just hardware, it's software also, right?
• 14:54
  Actually, if you Google or search on the internet for reluctance motors, they're usually called software control motors.
• 14:59
  So if we look at control systems theory, right, there are linear systems and nonlinear systems.
• 15:04
  Linear systems are equal inputs, equal increases in input, will give you corresponding equal increases in output.
• 15:12
  Nonlinear systems are not so.
• 15:14
  You do something in the input, you'll do something in the output, noise, yeah, you know, whatever, different torque and all that.
• 15:20
  So this is a classic control system problem.
• 15:23
  Um, the one way to solve it is uh use precise software control algorithms which operate at a very high speed uh and control the motor in a very at a very fine level.
• 15:36
  And this has been done for many, many applications.
• 15:39
  Because we have now um processing power rather cheap uh and runs at high speed, we are able to control.
• 15:47
  And that's one more thing that came together.
• 15:49
  And you have said it in some of the interviews that uh the hardware technology, it can be reverse engineered, right?
• 15:56
  Uh it's the software that you have to that.
• 16:00
  So we are the software you can't, you know, operate this hardware.
• 16:05
  Absolutely.
• 16:05
  So how are you protecting that?
• 16:08
  So we have started supplying motors now.
• 16:10
  Uh, we'll do a we ship about a few hundred motors to mostly customers in India and a couple of customers outside India too, because whereas there's a worldwide problem.
• 16:18
  So when we supply, we supply the motor and the controller.
• 16:21
  Motor can be reverse engineered.
• 16:22
  I know we have patents, but it's difficult to protect.
• 16:26
  Hardware also can be reverse engineered, but the software which is there, we we lock it down with known technologies.
• 16:33
  So nobody can, they can only execute but not see.
• 16:36
  Incidentally, this this I learned from EasyTap.
• 16:39
  Because Easy Tap is a FinTech company.
• 16:41
  Yes.
• 16:41
  There were a lot of certifications.
• 16:43
  Hardware, software.
• 16:44
  Yeah, same thing.
• 16:45
  All those things were just uh uh uh applied to this.
• 16:50
  Yeah.
• 16:51
  What did you exactly learn from EasyTap?
• 16:53
  Easy Tab, what we learned is that we built that device, the MPOS device.
• 16:58
  So one of the things in the and it has to be certified by very stringent standards.
• 17:03
  It's called PCA PTS.
• 17:05
  Incidentally, nobody else in India has ever passed that standard.
• 17:10
  EasyTab was the first one and the last one.
• 17:12
  Nobody has now, because we don't build hardware, right?
• 17:15
  Um, so there one of the requirements is that uh an outside person should not be able to see the software running in the payment terminal.
• 17:24
  Because if they're able to see, they can change it.
• 17:27
  The simple change is I put 100 rupees and they can uh make it thousand rupees and send it.
• 17:32
  So they had very stringent requirements on what we call as you cannot even look, uh so it's called peak.
• 17:38
  You can't peek, and you can't poke also.
• 17:40
  That means I can't go and change it.
• 17:42
  So you can neither peek nor poke, it'll just execute.
• 17:45
  And same, see, we have the same problem.
• 17:48
  I uh I want my motor to run, but you should not be able to peek know what is happening or poke.
• 17:55
  That's all it's very simple.
• 17:57
  Same problem.
• 17:58
  You started um Chara in 2019.
• 18:02
  So building in deep tech wasn't cool, the deep tech sector was not hot.
• 18:07
  Yes, uh, investors were not cutting checks uh uh for deep tech uh startups.
• 18:14
  Like how did you get the conviction?
• 18:17
  How did you convince others to you know build in this uh category?
• 18:22
  Yeah, so the uh always uh before starting a business, uh uh the old classical thing, right?
• 18:31
  Identify the problem and it should be a real problem.
• 18:34
  We identified the problem, the rare earth problem, and the uh designed and manufactured in India motor sustainability.
• 18:41
  I think those were very clear.
• 18:43
  But building and convincing the investors was an extremely hard task because half the people we spoke to, typical investors and customers did not care because they people had still not realized the importance of the problem.
• 18:59
  We always used to say, and we still say, it's not that China is good or bad.
• 19:03
  They will do whatever is good for them.
• 19:05
  We would also do the same thing, right?
• 19:07
  Uh so it was difficult to convince.
• 19:10
  Um, and deep tech was not exactly the darling of the investors that time.
• 19:14
  It has changed now, by the way.
• 19:16
  Which is a change, which is an amazing thing for this country.
• 19:19
  Yeah.
• 19:19
  Now, when I go to uh uh events, I see people working on hydrogen storage and protein batteries, all weird.
• 19:28
  The government uh you know deregulating ISRO, the biggest move you could incorre the the this government is doing the all the right things as far as these things are concerned.
• 19:39
  So it was yeah, there is no other way to do this, uh Ransi.
• 19:42
  We just had to do it hard, uh selling.
• 19:45
  We spoke to a lot of investors.
• 19:47
  Uh the first invest uh the first break we got was the Indian Institute of Science, the premier institute of this country.
• 19:55
  They gave a small grant.
• 19:57
  They gave a small grant.
• 19:59
  At least it was recognition.
• 20:00
  Uh, the money was big then it's not so big now, uh, but we got the recognition saying that this is a problem that needs to be solved.
• 20:07
  One of the few people who understood.
• 20:09
  Then um I am Ahmadabad Ventures.
• 20:12
  Um they invest in uh kind of crazy startups like this.
• 20:16
  Uh they also came in.
• 20:17
  Which year they came in?
• 20:19
  Uh 20, that's what I'm trying to remember.
• 20:21
  21.
• 20:21
  21.
• 20:22
  21.
• 20:23
  They actually came in in 2019 and I still remember, sorry, 2020 and uh in, I still remember uh after Diwali.
• 20:31
  Uh then um they come with a that time it was, if I remember right, it was like a 100k, 60 lakhs check.
• 20:41
  Uh but um you know we told them gently that if I want to do something substantial in this one, I need a million dollars.
• 20:49
  Um because you have to prove, right?
• 20:52
  Build.
• 20:52
  It's not easy, it's not a piece of software which I can sit alone and do it.
• 20:56
  And so we held them at bay.
• 20:58
  Then we convinced Kalari.
• 21:00
  There was a uh partner called Raveendar Singh.
• 21:03
  Um, he invested in a lot of the deep tech companies at Kalari.
• 21:07
  Um, he invested in us, he understood uh uh what we were doing.
• 21:11
  He's also an engineer.
• 21:12
  Uh he teaches at Harvard and all that.
• 21:14
  Um, incidentally, we asked him three years later.
• 21:18
  Um I know it's very difficult to convince investors, but we also have fun.
• 21:23
  After three years later, we always typically, at least I like to ask the question.
• 21:26
  So if you are an investor, I know I take forever to convince you.
• 21:30
  Reluctantly, you put their money.
• 21:31
  It's all fine, no problem.
• 21:33
  Three years later, they'll ask you the question.
• 21:34
  So tell me why did you invest?
• 21:36
  Why did you invest?
• 21:37
  Why did you invest, right?
• 21:38
  Uh we ask our founders why did you take money?
• 21:41
  Because we are we have invested in 60 companies, 30 of them are started by second-time founders.
• 21:46
  So our LPs ask her, TK, why are second-time founders like who have sold their first second companies to public companies in the US are taking money from a smaller fund like Neon?
• 21:57
  So we have to go back to our second time.
• 22:00
  Founders.
• 22:01
  Just give us a clear, honest answer.
• 22:03
  Why did you take money?
• 22:05
  Yeah.
• 22:05
  We asked Rabinda saying in a public forum, actually, uh, why did you invest in us, Ravi?
• 22:11
  There was like complete silence.
• 22:13
  He thought for Ishlo recorded 15 seconds approximately.
• 22:18
  Best answers come after that session.
• 22:19
  He said only one word, geopolitics.
• 22:22
  Geopolitics.
• 22:23
  And that is when we realize that that's our game.
• 22:26
  Geopolitics is our game.
• 22:28
  You also mentioned somewhere you also started with this same insight.
• 22:32
  Yes.
• 22:33
  And then you know you thought that you want to do something for the country also, right?
• 22:38
  So both the things combined.
• 22:40
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:41
  No, the uh yeah, doing for the country is one thing.
• 22:43
  As I said, we need to do uh we need to do new things that has not been done anywhere in the world.
• 22:48
  That was a or wanted that feather in the cap.
• 22:51
  So uh that was one of one more reason why we wanted to structure.
• 22:54
  But now, of course, there are a lot of other companies working on really cool stuff, um, especially in the sustainability space, which I think is a huge opportunity for the next uh two, three decades.
• 23:06
  But do you think India is doing uh enough relevant work in climate?
• 23:12
  Or we are still in very, very early.
• 23:15
  So there is there is uh plenty of good work going on.
• 23:20
  Um I don't think we've seen the results of it yet.
• 23:23
  Yeah.
• 23:23
  Uh but I think we'll we'll see it in the next.
• 23:26
  Um the reality is that uh whatever we do has a long gestation period.
• 23:32
  Yeah.
• 23:32
  And like software businesses.
• 23:34
  Yeah, seven years, ten years.
• 23:36
  So you'll see a bunch of those things uh in the next uh several years, like when we go online with a lot of motors, then a bunch of other companies uh they're working on um other kinds of batteries, hydrogen storage.
• 23:51
  I think we'll see quite a bit.
• 23:53
  Now, if you but you coming back to your question, are we doing enough?
• 23:56
  No, it's never enough.
• 23:58
  Because I think sustainability is a big problem.
• 24:01
  I also think I have no proof, Earth is also a non-linear system.
• 24:06
  It is taking a lot of beating from us.
• 24:09
  When it when the climate goes bad, it won't gradually go bad.
• 24:14
  I think there will be a disaster.
• 24:16
  I think, but nobody knows.
• 24:18
  Climate is a complex system, right?
• 24:20
  But I have that suspicion that every time we are slowly destroying the climate, right?
• 24:26
  So it's like almost like the frog in the boiling pan.
• 24:30
  The temperature slowly starts um going up and the frog still lives.
• 24:35
  Like one of the things can be extracting hard water uh from the ground in Bangalore's example.
• 24:43
  Yeah.
• 24:43
  Like those types of things.
• 24:44
  Those types of things we are we are slowly we're destroying.
• 24:48
  But I think the destruction will come in a very big fashion sometime soon.
• 24:51
  I hope not.
• 24:52
  But uh, what are the other things that we are doing wrong as as society ecosystem?
• 24:59
  So the fundamental problem with us now is with all humans is that we are spending way too much energy uh to live.
• 25:08
  That is the problem.
• 25:09
  That energy has to come from somewhere.
• 25:11
  Whether it's the houses, the air conditioning, uh jump into your car and go from point A to point B.
• 25:19
  It's just energy.
• 25:20
  Um, energy has to come from somewhere.
• 25:22
  Uh today it is coming principally from burning hydrocarbons, and that is what is uh creating all the problems.
• 25:30
  So there are two ways to solve this problem.
• 25:32
  Uh, first one, it's not possible.
• 25:34
  We all become very nice and start uh you know living like safety.
• 25:39
  Yeah.
• 25:40
  And that will automatically solve the problem.
• 25:42
  Unfortunately, there's not a possibility even for me.
• 25:44
  I'm used to this riches, uh, this energy riches, right?
• 25:48
  The oh the technology solution is to find a cleaner source of energy.
• 25:52
  Electricity is the only one now, and that is why we I think that's why it's a huge opportunity.
• 25:57
  Generation, transmission, selling, uh, consumption like motors.
• 26:02
  It's a huge opportunity, and that is where the opportunity is.
• 26:05
  Do we have startups solving that in India?
• 26:09
  So uh in terms of uh batteries, there is uh uh some research going on, uh, but not enough, I strongly believe.
• 26:20
  Okay.
• 26:20
  Um so there are, I think, three or four technologies that every country should possess now.
• 26:27
  Um one is uh nuclear, um, the other is semiconductors, which India is now starting.
• 26:34
  Hopefully, we'll make a good job out of it.
• 26:37
  Uh the third one is batteries, which India still does not have any production capacity.
• 26:43
  I know they're all coming up, but as of now, every cell that used in India is imported from outside.
• 26:50
  Uh and the last one is rare.
• 26:52
  And now I think the AI LLMs have been added.
• 26:56
  I mean, that's why the LLMs are critical.
• 26:58
  Yeah, yeah.
• 26:58
  Yeah, it takes a lot of money.
• 27:00
  Last to last year, DeepTech was the hottest.
• 27:03
  Now AI is the hottest.
• 27:05
  And but all these things will be there.
• 27:07
  Semiconductors will not go away, batteries will not go away, rares will not go away, AI will not go away, uh, nuclear will not go away.
• 27:13
  Yeah.
• 27:14
  I think uh these five technologies are critical.
• 27:16
  We have one, I think, uh, which is nuclear.
• 27:20
  Uh, all the others we are way behind.
• 27:23
  Yeah.
• 27:24
  And and let's go back to our journey uh in Chara.
• 27:27
  In 2019, you started uh with Maha and Ravi.
• 27:31
  Yes.
• 27:32
  And let's just talk about the first first year.
• 27:35
  Like, what all did you do?
• 27:37
  Because six years in total were spent in research before the product came live.
• 27:41
  Yes.
• 27:42
  So, how was the first year?
• 27:43
  Like, imagine you, Ravi, and Maha are in the room trying to figure out or revive the 200-year-old technology.
• 27:50
  Yeah, yeah.
• 27:51
  No, the uh so we we knew the principles correctly.
• 27:55
  I just so that you know, I don't know anything about motors.
• 27:58
  Uh for me, motor was this round thing with the shaft which turns when you apply current or something.
• 28:03
  Uh so first thing I has to find a person who understands motors uh just like uh in all its detail.
• 28:11
  Not only understand, he's ready to build.
• 28:13
  So there are people who understand, there are people who build, but we need both do a startup.
• 28:17
  So I phoned Ravi.
• 28:18
  Ravi went to the same college as me, uh, a little earlier than me.
• 28:22
  Um I phoned him through the alumni network.
• 28:25
  I told him that uh look, this magnet is a problem, and he said, You don't even have to tell me.
• 28:30
  His problem is that was that he he knew exactly how the motor works, but he did not have the hardware or the software experience.
• 28:37
  So I write software, Maha was the hardware guy.
• 28:41
  So we all got together.
• 28:42
  We literally started building the motors by hand.
• 28:45
  We went to the machine shops, build motors, um, we assembled the hardware.
• 28:50
  We I initially wrote all the software.
• 28:53
  Uh I still love to do that, but I don't do that anymore.
• 28:56
  Um, two reasons I don't have time, and there are smarter, better, younger people doing that.
• 29:02
  And so for the first two years, we were building motors and running them.
• 29:06
  Um and unfortunately, it was COVID.
• 29:09
  Uh so we we we started when COVID was also starting.
• 29:13
  So we were also stuck for a few months, I think in wave one.
• 29:17
  There were three distinct waves, right?
• 29:18
  Yes.
• 29:19
  Wave one was bad because we didn't.
• 29:20
  Superman, yes.
• 29:21
  So between wave one and wave two, we actually built some motors, started testing it.
• 29:25
  Then the wave two happened, and everything got shut down.
• 29:28
  Wave two, I think, was the worst wave.
• 29:30
  Um then I think towards the end of 20, yes.
• 29:34
  Uh, then I think slowly things started picking up, and somebody introduced us to uh IMA and uh we got this one.
• 29:42
  But we also signed up our first customer in 21.
• 29:45
  21?
• 29:46
  Yeah.
• 29:47
  All and all you know or Zoom calls because nobody was traveling.
• 29:52
  Uh which was this first customer?
• 29:54
  So there is a company called PICL, uh which manufactures uh air conditioning equipment.
• 30:01
  They wanted to build a motor uh and so we built one for them.
• 30:05
  Uh and initially we our business plan was to build more design, build motors, but not manufacture.
• 30:12
  So I sell it to you, you manufacture, and we get the license fee.
• 30:16
  Okay.
• 30:17
  Yeah, we are a satellite and all of that.
• 30:19
  So I come from a semiconductor background.
• 30:21
  I used to work for this large semiconductor company called Intel.
• 30:24
  Okay.
• 30:25
  Um, and uh had the opportunity to spend a couple of months in another large semiconductor company called ARM, based out of UK.
• 30:32
  You ARM's business is amazing.
• 30:34
  They never build anything, they just uh do the models.
• 30:38
  They are leaders in mobile, right?
• 30:40
  Exactly.
• 30:40
  The amazing.
• 30:41
  This is a$40 billion company last time we checked.
• 30:45
  All their revenues in licensing fees.
• 30:47
  So we wanted to be the ARM of motors.
• 30:49
  We built and uh, but then um uh as time progressed, we started building other motors.
• 30:55
  Uh when we tried to sell them, we used to tell the same story made in India, designed and made in India, rare earth-free, sustainable motor.
• 31:03
  Um, and they said this is all good, give me the motor.
• 31:06
  And then we said, Oh my god, we have to start manufacturing it.
• 31:10
  And I had never done manufacturing.
• 31:12
  I was born and brought up in the city, I'd never visit Pinya, and this is a fact.
• 31:17
  Um, because I thought Pinya was there are some blades and some whatever casting machines, you know, who cares?
• 31:23
  Yeah.
• 31:23
  But now again, karma is catching up.
• 31:25
  So we now run a factory in uh Pinya.
• 31:29
  So and again, uh again, uh for good tailwinds, right?
• 31:34
  Manufacturing is uh is getting a lot of support in India.
• 31:38
  Investors are investing.
• 31:40
  So uh so that also we went to the investors and told them look, we need to change our business model from licensing to manufacture, and they said yes or no.
• 31:49
  This was before um Kalari and Xfinity uh this was after Xfinity.
• 31:54
  After the second round.
• 31:56
  So that time we were all building and started selling, we tried to do that licensing thing.
• 32:01
  We worked with three large companies, did not pan out, to put it bluntly.
• 32:05
  And that is when we said no, we have to enter the business.
• 32:07
  So we became a classic product company.
• 32:09
  We build the products and uh sell it to our uh customers.
• 32:13
  Um and uh the the yeah, manufacturing is getting some support both from the government and the uh investors now.
• 32:23
  What kind of response uh you were getting from earlier doctors?
• 32:27
  Like any embarrassing moment you want to share?
• 32:30
  Yeah, um, so we were telling the same story and this one.
• 32:35
  So the the uh initial customers, yeah, we had a bunch of issues.
• 32:40
  The motors not starting, motors burning out, uh manufacturability issues were there.
• 32:46
  One of the difficult things with reluctance motors is there is some difficulty in manufacturing.
• 32:50
  Uh so there is something called an air gap between the rotor and the stator.
• 32:54
  The air gap is of tighter tolerance and reluctance motors, but not impossible.
• 32:59
  So we have to figure all those things out.
• 33:01
  I mean, with one of our deployments, the air gap became so small.
• 33:06
  Um, it was working quite well.
• 33:07
  The smaller the air gap, it works really well.
• 33:10
  But the problem is when the big when the air gap becomes very small, when the rotor turns at a higher speed, there are centrifugal forces which expand the rotor momentarily.
• 33:19
  It actually went and hit the stator.
• 33:21
  Um, and it's very dangerous.
• 33:22
  And it's like uh so we had all those issues.
• 33:25
  So we had to figure out all those problems.
• 33:28
  I think once we figured it out, then what we did was I think we took a step back and we did a lot of testing by ourselves on two-wheelers, three wheelers, on the own test trick.
• 33:37
  We ran for hours and hours at various temperatures and we generated a lot of data and fixed all the problems.
• 33:43
  Um and now the customers like us because we do everything from first principles.
• 33:50
  So the level of support we can give is unmatched, and that's actually the main resource customers are coming to us.
• 33:57
  And Greaves Cotton is one of your top top customers, right?
• 34:00
  Yeah, they're also a partner now.
• 34:02
  Yeah.
• 34:02
  And they are one of the largest, also, right?
• 34:04
  Yes.
• 34:05
  How how many meetings did it take for them to you know finally implement?
• 34:10
  Increment.
• 34:11
  Um I'll tell you, we signed the uh agreement uh in the end of March of last year.
• 34:18
  Last year.
• 34:18
  Right?
• 34:19
  Um, incidentally, just a week before this whole thing broke out, uh, this embargo of this one.
• 34:25
  Yeah.
• 34:26
  Um, so took about uh nine months, a long time, because it is a partnership agreement.
• 34:33
  They were also figuring out.
• 34:35
  We should also remember that when they signed, this rare earth was still not a known problem.
• 34:41
  So that's why they were like, oh, is this a real problem?
• 34:44
  You know, how how big of a problem it is.
• 34:47
  Uh they were not convinced.
• 34:48
  We were convinced, but they were not.
• 34:50
  That's why they took a long time.
• 34:52
  And in some way, they were they turned out to be lucky because we signed, and three days later, this thing happened.
• 34:58
  And everybody said, Oh, you knew about this, and like, yeah, really, no, we did not know about this.
• 35:04
  But what we knew was that rare health is a problem and China is going to create someday a problem.
• 35:09
  Just like the Gulf countries created the um 1972 oil embargo.
• 35:14
  Anybody who has power will exercise it.
• 35:16
  And what kind of response you got?
• 35:18
  Like China restricted the export and then suddenly you are sitting in the most important room of the of India, right?
• 35:24
  No, not that way.
• 35:25
  Um it the first thing that uh um it uh the first thing that really helped us is made my job easier.
• 35:34
  I didn't have to tell people what is their error.
• 35:37
  I am no offense to you, if I had spoken to this about six years ago, you would have wondered, like, what are you talking about?
• 35:42
  Yeah.
• 35:42
  So that is that is the biggest push we got.
• 35:46
  And customers, investors, future employees, same thing, right?
• 35:49
  Our three critical segments.
• 35:51
  That is the number one.
• 35:52
  Customers started signing up.
• 35:54
  So before they were telling, you know, your motor does not run at high speeds, it's slightly heavier, all those things.
• 35:58
  Now we're like, no.
• 35:59
  Um so Ravi has um as an interesting.
• 36:03
  He always ends with his long arguments with uh with a Canada saying.
• 36:08
  Okay.
• 36:08
  We are both Canada.
• 36:10
  And he always said that the type of food you eat is always dependent on the hunger.
• 36:17
  Yeah.
• 36:17
  Right?
• 36:18
  So if if you're if you're a hungry man, even a bad food will work.
• 36:23
  So suddenly the world was hungry for rare three motors in April.
• 36:27
  And that is when they spoke, they started speaking to us.
• 36:30
  Uh the third thing was the government uh also woke up.
• 36:34
  Yeah.
• 36:35
  For the first time in my life, uh, I had never met a minister um any time in my whole life.
• 36:44
  I'm in Bangalore and all that.
• 36:45
  So I got a call on a Saturday afternoon.
• 36:48
  I and he said, I'm the personal secretary to uh Mr.
• 36:51
  Goel.
• 36:52
  Uh uh, and you know, there's a meeting tomorrow, and my Hindi is not that good.
• 36:57
  Um and I'd made two mistakes.
• 36:59
  My Hindi is not good.
• 37:00
  I by the way, I can perfectly understand and study it in the account.
• 37:03
  The second thing was uh no offense to the personal secretary, he's a very close supporter of us.
• 37:08
  I thought personal secretary is some you know some person.
• 37:11
  Uh uh So I again he called on Saturday night at eight o'clock and he said, Tomorrow you come.
• 37:16
  And I told him I've broken in the cull Sunday 5:30.
• 37:20
  And he said, What is your problem?
• 37:22
  I said, Okay, no problem.
• 37:23
  I will fly.
• 37:24
  So we flew.
• 37:25
  That even I realized a personal secretary, a cabinet minister, is a very, very senior IAS officer.
• 37:31
  Yeah.
• 37:31
  I went and told him, sorry, he said, No problem.
• 37:34
  He still supports us.
• 37:35
  And similarly, we met a lot of people in the government, all the way to the principal scientific advisor, um, the DST uh chief, uh, the MHI minister, MHI is a nodal, this one.
• 37:47
  We really hope to get some support for us in um to uh support our technologies which are rare earth-free.
• 37:56
  Now the government has invested approximately a billion dollars into rare earth extraction and manufacturing.
• 38:02
  Um we now we are telling the government that look, we're also solving the same problem.
• 38:07
  We're not using rare earth.
• 38:08
  There's always a technology solution to all problems, or it's a technology solution, and hopefully we will get that support also.
• 38:16
  And that was a big change.
• 38:17
  And we now, because of that ANRF scheme, right?
• 38:21
  Anasandhan National Research Fund, um, they are now supporting projects like us.
• 38:26
  Uh, it's getting operationalized this quarter.
• 38:29
  Um, we hope to get some grants or support from the government.
• 38:33
  They've indicated, but I've never dealt with the government in a detailed fashion.
• 38:37
  But in 2025, um all the the deep tech sector combinedly uh raised some 1.06 uh billion dollars in private equity.
• 38:51
  Uh and this was this was double of the amount they raised in 2024, right?
• 38:57
  Uh and uh including Chara.
• 38:59
  A lot of deep tech startups uh raised pre-seed seed or series A rounds.
• 39:04
  But we still don't have investors who can come in series B, series B, series C, right?
• 39:10
  Like you're absolutely right.
• 39:12
  So um the we'll see the good part.
• 39:15
  We are not always an optimist, otherwise you can't be a startup founder.
• 39:18
  So there is support for uh pre-seed, seed, pre-series A and series A, whichever way you define it, initial stages, let's say up to 10 million dollars rounds.
• 39:28
  Beyond that, it is harder in India.
• 39:30
  We have to look outside.
• 39:31
  Hopefully that will change.
• 39:33
  Um, that will change because of two reasons.
• 39:35
  I think some of the funds are now looking at uh growth stage companies.
• 39:39
  We have started speaking to them.
• 39:40
  Um then there is always the foreign funds.
• 39:43
  Um, then there is always the government support.
• 39:45
  But you are you're absolutely right.
• 39:47
  Series B and above is a little harder from an Indian um investor.
• 39:54
  Do we have funds that are coming in B and C rounds?
• 39:58
  There are a few funds.
• 40:00
  Um they're they come at uh series B.
• 40:02
  But they're typically the classic growth funds.
• 40:05
  Yeah.
• 40:06
  Um they were But they are not focused funds.
• 40:08
  Deep tech funds.
• 40:09
  That is a problem.
• 40:10
  That is a problem.
• 40:11
  So now uh the onus is on people like us, like Chara, saying that look, this is a business now.
• 40:18
  It's deep tech that is all cool stuff and hard stuff and all that.
• 40:22
  Now the onus is on us to show that this is a business and we we are here to grow and we have to convince those funds.
• 40:29
  Basically building the conviction in growth stage investors who are not focused on deep tech, but have the money to invest in.
• 40:37
  Absolutely.
• 40:38
  The bunch of funds who have invested in FMCG, uh you know, uh fashion, yeah, consumer, all those things, right?
• 40:45
  Now we have to convince them that this is actually there is a viable business.
• 40:49
  And all the deep tech companies typically, without exception, are worldwide businesses.
• 40:55
  Because the problems are uh everywhere.
• 40:57
  Yeah, same thing.
• 40:58
  Like how Europe is taking so much interest in Chara.
• 41:01
  Yeah, yeah.
• 41:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 41:02
  They were inbound requests.
• 41:04
  Yeah, because they're worldwide problems.
• 41:05
  Yeah.
• 41:05
  Climate is a worldwide problem, rail earth is a worldwide problem, hydrogen storage is a worldwide problem.
• 41:11
  I think that is a bright side.
• 41:12
  But I think I just even the risk of reputation.
• 41:15
  I think the one advantage we have is India is a large enough economy now, which is not the case when I graduated out of college.
• 41:22
  We are a poor country.
• 41:23
  Yeah.
• 41:23
  If we did something like that that time, uh we have to look for outside.
• 41:26
  Now that's not the case.
• 41:27
  Dude, I will sell in India and then I'll go, I'll figure out everything, right?
• 41:32
  Then we can you can start in India, you can sell in India, you can raise early uh stage invest fundraise in India and then go out.
• 41:41
  That is I was always questioning why Silicon Valley is so prominent, successful, and all of that.
• 41:49
  Bunch of reasons.
• 41:50
  But one of the reasons is that they have the customer base to try a new thing.
• 41:54
  And that is happening in India now.
• 41:56
  Like how the US is the largest uh consumer of software.
• 41:59
  Correct.
• 42:00
  And they are, by default, the largest uh producer, also, right?
• 42:04
  Producer also.
• 42:05
  And they're they're related.
• 42:06
  Because they are a consumer, startups can go sell them.
• 42:10
  Similarly, for products like ours, there are consumers in India, and that's that actually is a big deal.
• 42:17
  So now we have to convince the growth stage investors um to go and uh to invest in companies like us.
• 42:24
  That is happening slowly.
• 42:27
  Uh uh, but I'm pretty sure if things continue to go the way India's GDP is growing, I think that's a given.
• 42:36
  Yeah.
• 42:36
  Chara has raised series A.
• 42:38
  What are the other deep tech companies that have raised beyond series A and what are the funds that have invested?
• 42:44
  If you can show the numbers.
• 42:46
  I know of one which is a um um fellow um investee from Kalari, Digantara.
• 42:53
  They raised a massive series B,$50 million.
• 42:56
  That came from outside.
• 42:57
  Uh with good participation from inside also, that came from outside.
• 43:01
  I think it's a Japanese investor.
• 43:03
  I don't know the details.
• 43:04
  That was one.
• 43:05
  Um the rocket company.
• 43:08
  Sky Skyroot.
• 43:09
  Skyroot.
• 43:10
  They also have foreign investors, as far as I know, series B.
• 43:14
  That is also Arkham had invested earlier.
• 43:16
  Yes, yes, Arkham invested.
• 43:17
  Rahul had invested earlier.
• 43:19
  They also had foreign investors.
• 43:20
  Uh Skyroot is also Agniqual, Skyroot.
• 43:23
  All these companies are um, you know, receiving massive support from government, not just money, the recognition, and all the other resources.
• 43:30
  Yeah, yeah.
• 43:31
  Actually, that is that actually is a very welcome change.
• 43:34
  And if India gets deep tech right, like across verticals, how would the country look like in 20 years?
• 43:43
  So um we have to move up the value chain.
• 43:47
  So we can't be in the services, we can't be in manufacturing all the time.
• 43:51
  And the only way to move up the value chain is to invest in technologies, whatever are the next generation technologies.
• 43:58
  Um, if you do That right, then there is a uh good um chance that uh we'll be a much larger economy than uh what is being projected.
• 44:12
  Uh I think we'll continue to be the third largest economy because there's a big difference between that second and third.
• 44:17
  We'll hit third, I think, by the end of the decade if nothing goes wrong.
• 44:21
  Yeah.
• 44:22
  That is uh that is number one.
• 44:24
  Uh and number two is that the I know there is the Viksit Bharat and Atmanirabhar Bharat and all that, um, the the big slogans.
• 44:34
  But we need to control our technology, otherwise, we'll always be at the mercy of the uh the foreign uh sources.
• 44:42
  Uh I think that one is far more important as we grow.
• 44:47
  Um as Nandan was telling once, please remember all the things we use like Gmail and social media, they are controlled by American companies.
• 45:01
  They're not even controlled by the American government.
• 45:04
  They are American companies.
• 45:05
  You know, they can shut it off anytime they want.
• 45:07
  Yeah.
• 45:08
  I think we have to get away from that.
• 45:09
  So all these things have to happen.
• 45:11
  Like China has built their own versions of everything, right?
• 45:14
  Yes.
• 45:14
  Yeah, their uh WhatsApp, they have their WhatsApp, their uh uh ride hailing, everything.
• 45:19
  Whenever I go to China, I have to install all the apps.
• 45:22
  Gmail does not first time when I went to China when Gmail and Google did not work, I thought this was some other planet.
• 45:28
  Yeah.
• 45:29
  But it did not hit me.
• 45:30
  Once I came back, then it hit me.
• 45:33
  Because they don't they're they don't have to depend on the US.
• 45:36
  We have we are the data centers.
• 45:39
  I think that is why it is very, very critical that we do all this.
• 45:43
  And I think if we get this, all these things right uh in the next 20 years, I think we will actually be a um the quote unquote superpower um because we can exert our influence.
• 45:56
  Um yeah.
• 45:58
  I'm about to say a bad thing because twice in my life we have been I've been told that India will become a superpower and and we did not.
• 46:05
  Once in the 80s during Indra Gandhi's time.
• 46:09
  Yeah.
• 46:09
  But we have come a long way.
• 46:12
  We have come a long way.
• 46:13
  So somehow you have to believe in that thought.
• 46:15
  Oh, yeah.
• 46:16
  No, we have come a long way.
• 46:17
  And our country is complex, diversity, you know, it's not a monolithic society and all that.
• 46:22
  And democracy is democracy.
• 46:25
  Uh so uh no, we have come a long way.
• 46:27
  So we have any deep tech founder or any founder in the audience sitting on the deep tech idea.
• 46:34
  Anything that you would want to say?
• 46:36
  Like how to get everything right, or how to even start, or do it or not?
• 46:43
  Oh okay, I'd not thought about that.
• 46:46
  Um so um I think um one is the the conviction we need to have because it's a long-drawn process.
• 46:55
  Yeah.
• 46:56
  Um we uh I think the conviction is uh in terms of the problem definition, in terms of the market opportunity, and in terms of um that I can actually do this.
• 47:10
  I think those are the three things that are needed for a deep tech startup.
• 47:14
  Um I don't um I did not even mention market size or uh product market fit and all that.
• 47:21
  I think those three are the ones uh which in my experience um sustained us for the first at least two years, right?
• 47:31
  That conviction that we need to do this, conviction that there is a problem, conviction that, you know, look, I'll build this.
• 47:37
  Uh we were very sure of building it.
• 47:39
  Um not that we are boasting that we are good engineers, but we're that's why your conviction was so high that you could get uh someone like Ravi joining the team who is the best uh brain in motors, right?
• 47:50
  Yeah, yeah, best brain.
• 47:51
  Yeah, yeah.
• 47:52
  So the uh the other um thing, I mean, again, it's a particular example because I'm a second-time founder.
• 48:01
  Um I think I learned a few things uh in um in EasyDab Journey.
• 48:07
  And um how to put this correctly, um I'm not doing this for the money.
• 48:14
  Yeah.
• 48:14
  Yeah.
• 48:15
  I think that that that freedom is there.
• 48:18
  You know, um I got some money in my old age, um, and there are a lot of people who say that what difference has it made to you uh to me personally and all that.
• 48:29
  Um I think one of the, and this is a known thing, it just hit me only in the last two years.
• 48:35
  One of the things uh money gives you uh uh is that it gives you freedom.
• 48:40
  Yeah, freedom to do things like this.
• 48:42
  I think uh why I'm saying, sorry, long story, why I'm saying this is that people who have made money should try these things.
• 48:49
  That's what I'm trying to say.
• 48:51
  Especially, I would like to say the second generation, third generation of the big uh industrial houses, I think they should do this.
• 48:59
  So a lot of uh second-time founders who have made successful grades or you know, big family offices should be trying hard problems.
• 49:09
  Because they have the freedom, they have the financial freedom.
• 49:12
  Other things will fall in.
• 49:13
  Because we need because if you're always thinking about money, you know, how do I buy my Rice and Dal next month, it will be a self-defeatist uh situation.
• 49:25
  And I think that that's what that that attitude needs to change.
• 49:29
  I'm seeing that slowly in some of the family offices, uh, but not all of them.
• 49:34
  What are they doing?
• 49:35
  They're investing more in deep tech startups.
• 49:37
  So uh one of my best examples is there's a company called Sagar Semiconductor.
• 49:42
  We are trying to use their semiconductors.
• 49:44
  Um he is uh he's a son of his app who was the proprietor of Sagar Cement.
• 49:51
  Sagar cements is a large uh cement factory in Andhra Pradesh.
• 49:56
  Um and so they made uh presumably a bunch of money, lots of money, right?
• 50:00
  Doesn't matter the quantum, right?
• 50:02
  They have enough money, right?
• 50:03
  Now his son is doing semiconductors, Sagar semiconductors, and he came to us.
• 50:07
  He is classic, he was educated.
• 50:09
  He came to us and he said, No, Bhakta, I'm doing this.
• 50:12
  Uh, please use my MOS MOSFET, is that thing we use in our controller, the most expensive part, most money consuming part.
• 50:19
  And we are we are uh trying them out.
• 50:21
  And if it becomes a success, uh you know uh we will use their MOSFETs.
• 50:26
  Now I don't know whether uh Sagar semiconductor will be a success or not.
• 50:29
  I'm pretty sure they will be.
• 50:30
  But that is the kind of behavior we need.
• 50:32
  So I'm saying from sements to cement.
• 50:34
  Not just investing in deep tech, starting in deep tech.
• 50:37
  Starting in deep tech.
• 50:38
  Because he had the freedom, he has education.
• 50:40
  Uh, and I think uh I almost think they have a responsibility to do that, but who am I to say that?
• 50:46
  Right?
• 50:47
  Yeah, and they can also make money if they're successful, can make only so much money in second.
• 50:51
  But they do say that for second-time founders, that first-time founders solve because they want to they want to make it really big.
• 50:58
  Yes.
• 50:58
  But second time journey because they know the pain.
• 51:01
  Yes.
• 51:01
  They know that it'll be the same.
• 51:03
  Yeah.
• 51:03
  If it is not fundraising, something else.
• 51:05
  Yeah.
• 51:05
  But the pain will be there, the stress will always be there.
• 51:09
  So the second time they do it for purpose.
• 51:11
  Correct.
• 51:12
  And then purpose.
• 51:13
  But not family offices.
• 51:15
  Correct.
• 51:15
  So I think that should come from the family offices also, I believe.
• 51:19
  And I've seen some examples of it.
• 51:21
  This is the example I know because they're they're trying to come and sell our MOSFETs.
• 51:25
  And I I I wholeheartedly uh support him.
• 51:28
  And I really wish that those MOSFETs come out of that factory in uh Andhra Pradesh.
• 51:33
  Yeah.
• 51:34
  Let's go back to our journey in um conversation uh about Chara.
• 51:39
  Like what's what's the state now?
• 51:42
  How much motors are we making?
• 51:44
  What are our customers?
• 51:47
  Any number you can share?
• 51:48
  Uh thanks for asking that.
• 51:49
  We are at the classic inflection point.
• 51:51
  We have developed the technology, we have the product market fit, we have the customer traction.
• 51:57
  Our only problem is to um you know sell, manufacture, and deploy both in India and outside India.
• 52:04
  This year is our real revenue start.
• 52:08
  Last year we made a little bit of revenue.
• 52:10
  We sold a few hundred motors, uh, generated about the crore of rupees.
• 52:14
  This financial year, which is ending next month.
• 52:17
  Yeah.
• 52:17
  Yeah, in a month, uh we will be shipping about a few thousand motors.
• 52:23
  This month we'll be doing about 350 motors, next month we'll be doing 500 motors, and we continue to increase.
• 52:29
  So we are at that stage where the technology we developed has become a reality, and we're shipping against uh revenue.
• 52:36
  Uh of course, aided by the geopolitical uh tailwinds.
• 52:41
  Um, yeah, that's where we are.
• 52:42
  Quite an exciting time.
• 52:44
  Oh, this is the most exciting time.
• 52:46
  This is the hardest time for me because uh uh in my heart, I like to think I'm still an engineer.
• 52:53
  Uh so now we have to deal with money, we have to deal with operations, we have to deal with support.
• 52:59
  We are growing the team.
• 53:00
  We have hired a CFO, we hired a CO.
• 53:02
  You have to solve for scale, no?
• 53:04
  You have to solve for scale.
• 53:05
  So the entropy levels are so high in the company, it is the most exciting time.
• 53:10
  But I also think that next year will be a decisive year for us.
• 53:16
  If we don't uh grow very big, we will stall.
• 53:21
  Yeah, we won't die, but we will stall.
• 53:23
  Why do you think so?
• 53:25
  So it has been six years, and you know, employees, investors start getting antsy.
• 53:32
  And for good reasons.
• 53:33
  You and I get antsy, dude.
• 53:34
  When do I see that this end for this?
• 53:36
  End not in like uh an exit, but end like, dude, I want to see the motors deployed.
• 53:41
  And that is why we need to deploy this 10,000 motors or 12,000 motors next year.
• 53:46
  There is a there is a good, very good chance.
• 53:48
  It's just execution now.
• 53:50
  Um if you don't do that, then people will slowly start losing confidence, right?
• 53:55
  See, I always think of only three people investors, customers, and uh employees, right?
• 54:01
  Uh and the order keeps changing depending on the time of the year.
• 54:05
  Sometimes the investors are important, sometimes the employees are important.
• 54:08
  Yeah, all the time customers are important.
• 54:10
  So cust it's it's critically the customers and the employees right now.
• 54:14
  Because employees also have worked hard, you know, long.
• 54:17
  For them, the biggest satisfaction is to deploy these motors and go to the next level.
• 54:21
  Uh, customers are also like uh watching us, the new technology, and they also want to see the large deployment.
• 54:27
  And then it will be like the classic flywheel, right?
• 54:30
  You put it in motion, and that's why it's important.
• 54:34
  So um Bhakta India's startup success was built on software because um uh the tech talent was available, funding was available, and and it was exact opposite for deep tech.
• 54:53
  It was hard to even explain to investors.
• 54:56
  Let's just talk about that.
• 54:58
  Like, how do you now see the next five years for let's just say for Chara?
• 55:04
  Like investing will be fundraising will be a bit easier or hiring will be uh a bit easier.
• 55:11
  Correct.
• 55:12
  So um so now we are at a stage at Chara where we are not considered deep tech.
• 55:19
  We are doing a deep tech work, but now it's a business.
• 55:22
  We have to show revenue.
• 55:24
  Yeah.
• 55:24
  And all our efforts are towards that.
• 55:26
  We'll continue to invest in technology, we'll continue to invest in new products.
• 55:30
  But our challenge is to grow.
• 55:32
  Um so uh where we so our next five-year journey is only about execution, selling, operations, uh, you know, managing their money and all that.
• 55:44
  And if we do this uh the growth what we have projected, I think there's a huge amount of support.
• 55:53
  Investors have come and spoken to us.
• 55:56
  Um, we keep talking to them on a continuous basis now.
• 56:00
  People come and talk to us for various reasons.
• 56:03
  One of them is, of course, their error story.
• 56:06
  Uh and now they also realize that we are a growth stage company.
• 56:10
  And if you show the growth, I think this is a huge opportunity.
• 56:13
  I don't think we are uh we'll ever be starved for funds if we execute well.
• 56:19
  That's that signaling has come very, very clearly.
• 56:22
  That's why you said the next one year is very, very critical.
• 56:24
  Very critical.
• 56:25
  Because if you uh execute well in the next one year, it'll solve all the problems.
• 56:30
  It'll solve all the problems.
• 56:31
  Customer problems.
• 56:32
  Excitement among customers, yes, employees.
• 56:34
  Employees will be encouraged, motivated because what they are uh doing, they can clearly see the impact of their work.
• 56:41
  Absolutely.
• 56:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 56:43
  And then of course the uh the investment investors also will see the growth and invest.
• 56:48
  Um even irrespective of the rare earth uh situation.
• 56:52
  We don't know China might become good and all that.
• 56:55
  So irrespective of that, we will From sustainability sustainability, yeah, control or technology.
• 57:01
  Because someday um we always know that it'll we are under the control of a foreign entity, which is not good, especially as we grow bigger.
• 57:11
  Right?
• 57:12
  We can't afford to do that.
• 57:14
  And that's why the government is investing.
• 57:16
  At least the signaling is there from the government.
• 57:18
  Yes.
• 57:18
  I think it's not enough, but at least it's there.
• 57:22
  And and let's talk about Intel.
• 57:24
  You have worked with Intel.
• 57:25
  At one point in time, Intel was a clear leader in chips.
• 57:30
  Um, now Nvidia is a leader in AI, uh, ARM is a leader in mobile.
• 57:35
  Similarly, uh TSMC is leader in manufacturing.
• 57:39
  Intel lost on all three grounds.
• 57:42
  Like, why do you think it couldn't, you know.
• 57:45
  I have to laugh first.
• 57:46
  Uh, we discussed this so much.
• 57:48
  I left Intel uh forget 20 years ago.
• 57:51
  Uh uh worked in the US for about 11 years and one year in uh Intel India.
• 57:57
  Uh feel extremely sorry to say this state of Intel now.
• 58:02
  Yeah.
• 58:02
  When we used to go to conferences at ISSEC, the International Semiconductor Conference, Intel was always the first paper to be presented, and the hall used to be full because Intel used to tell this is the way semiconductor solvability in the 90s.
• 58:18
  And now it's not.
• 58:19
  TSMC has taken you're absolutely right about TSMC has taken over in manufacturing, Nvidia and ARM have taken over the in the product as well.
• 58:28
  Um not sure why it happened.
• 58:33
  A bunch of uh reasons.
• 58:36
  Um is that um I think um success breeds uh laziness.
• 58:45
  Intel was minting money in the 90s, so I think uh that led to some behavioral changes in the at the company level.
• 58:54
  So I was in the mobile um division.
• 58:58
  Intel was planning to build mobility chips.
• 59:01
  Intel made a large acquisition of$2 billion then in the late 90s, acquired a company called DSPC from Israel.
• 59:09
  We all went to Israel, did the due diligence, and with and I was in that group.
• 59:13
  Uh, and Intel never put the uh the mind share into the mobile chips.
• 59:19
  Uh now uh a lot of things I can't disclose, obviously, but what publicly I can whatever is publicly known.
• 59:26
  Um Apple came to Intel to build the iPhone chip.
• 59:32
  And Intel said no.
• 59:34
  Yeah.
• 59:34
  And then it's like, I don't know, a trillion dollar mistake or$100 billion mistake.
• 59:40
  And the reason was very clear for Intel.
• 59:42
  The ASP, average selling price of the processors we were selling at that time was about$225,$225 then, so it must be like$1,000 now, right?
• 59:51
  In equivalent month.
• 59:52
  You know, I'm talking about 20 years ago in the early 2000s.
• 59:55
  Um, and the ASP of the processors that go into the mobile phone that time was about$12,$15.
• 1:00:03
  So Intel looked at$200,$12, like no this one.
• 1:00:07
  That vision was not there that the thing is going to change.
• 1:00:10
  Similarly, in uh graphics, in in GPUs, what we call as GPUs are being used to in the AI chips, right?
• 1:00:17
  Yeah.
• 1:00:17
  Again, this is public knowledge.
• 1:00:18
  Intel ran a very large, very famous program called Larrabi.
• 1:00:22
  Uh and again, lost interest because they could not see the commercialization of that.
• 1:00:30
  Um but uh this little company uh uh Nvidia um was doing graphics chips, supplying graphics chips, but they figured out that it can be it's also a little bit of luck for them that the AI needed the GPUs for training and uh inference.
• 1:00:51
  Uh so but Intel never had a product.
• 1:00:54
  Um so I think it was clearly, clearly lack of uh coherent strategy um looking beyond.
• 1:01:03
  Intel had enough money.
• 1:01:05
  I mean, GMs used to say we don't know what to do with the money.
• 1:01:08
  So we are towards the end of the conversation.
• 1:01:11
  So my last question to you is that what do you know about yourself that made you keep choosing difficult?
• 1:01:20
  Like it is a difficult space, we know, right?
• 1:01:24
  Uh it took you six years just to reach the product market fit or product.
• 1:01:30
  You knew that market is there, but reach that level of uh product, right?
• 1:01:36
  And a lot of years in RD, you know, uh building conviction in investors.
• 1:01:41
  So this is definitely uh the hard or difficult choice to make.
• 1:01:46
  So what did you discover about yourself?
• 1:01:49
  Like you are made to choose.
• 1:01:53
  Uh so uh the I'm I'm more it's more than discovery, even I've started to learn.
• 1:02:02
  Um the the discovery part is that I didn't tell my family, tells my wife tells that.
• 1:02:09
  Um uh and I've slowly started realizing that I think if I lock onto a target, I'll never let it go.
• 1:02:15
  Yeah.
• 1:02:16
  Uh what whatever small it is, we'll I'll make it happen.
• 1:02:20
  So because just like, sorry, no offense, most wives they keep telling, do this, do that, you know.
• 1:02:25
  And they never do it.
• 1:02:27
  And she and she's I'll tell her it's too hard, I have to call that guy, and all my wife always says, No, if you want to do it, you'll do it in half hour.
• 1:02:34
  I think uh that was one discovery about myself that I said, you know what, I think I have that whatever, that grit or uh the focus.
• 1:02:42
  The other thing is to I have to learn a lot of things.
• 1:02:44
  The main thing is the uh art of storytelling, narratives, right?
• 1:02:48
  The difference between the difference between a leader and not a leader is the art of storytelling.
• 1:02:54
  Jesus apparently was the greatest storyteller.
• 1:02:56
  I don't, I don't have proof for that.
• 1:02:58
  Lord Krishna was a big storyteller.
• 1:03:00
  Yeah, the storytelling is a part.
• 1:03:02
  And we have I have honed it very, very by doing it many, many times by this one and identifying the problem.
• 1:03:11
  I think that is that is core.
• 1:03:13
  Um and long ago, one of our profs from uh UVC had told that there are phases in life for an engineer.
• 1:03:21
  Um, you know, you're you're born, of course, not born an engineer, you're a student.
• 1:03:26
  Um, then you you ideally become an apprentice, you know, internship and all that.
• 1:03:32
  Then you be an you'll be an employee for about two to three decades.
• 1:03:37
  Uh, then he said all of he said this in the convocation, he said all of you should try to become an employer, uh not retire as an employee.
• 1:03:45
  That was one more thing that stuck in my mind.
• 1:03:47
  Maybe I should also become an employer, generate jobs.
• 1:03:50
  Uh I think that also gave me a push.
• 1:03:53
  I think not very clear.
• 1:03:55
  Yeah.
• 1:03:56
  Sometimes.
• 1:03:57
  Yeah.
• 1:03:57
  This makes a lot of sense.
• 1:03:58
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:59
  I think that's a good uh this one he gave.
• 1:04:01
  Because the kind of opportunity you get to do that apprenticeship makes a lot of difference.
• 1:04:06
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:07
  Like it creates a huge impact or gives you that kind of clear understanding what you want to do next.
• 1:04:13
  Yes.
• 1:04:14
  I've been told, I don't know, um, that Germany does this systematically.
• 1:04:19
  So you never get a job after you graduate.
• 1:04:21
  You do that apprenticeship, which is typically like internship.
• 1:04:25
  Low pay, uh, you learn.
• 1:04:28
  I think you should do that.
• 1:04:29
  Like you're not there for money, you are there for just for understanding.
• 1:04:32
  Right.
• 1:04:32
  And you get paid some money.
• 1:04:34
  I think that one, if you do it systematically, I think we'll be far better builders, um, all of us, right?
• 1:04:41
  In whatever you do, whether it is uh doing a show like this or building the next gen motors.
• 1:04:47
  Same thing, right?
• 1:04:48
  Yeah.
• 1:04:49
  Because you don't get that kind of training, but you need the training to do something or anything, right?
• 1:04:56
  So you somehow, like for us, this podcast, it's a great learning mechanism.
• 1:05:01
  Absolutely.
• 1:05:01
  Because you don't get time to sit and learn.
• 1:05:03
  Yep.
• 1:05:03
  Right.
• 1:05:04
  Uh so you need that, like for this interview.
• 1:05:07
  I dedicated some four or five hours to, you know, just to read about Chara, read about Bhakta, Ravi.
• 1:05:13
  I was really surprised on all the data you said.
• 1:05:15
  Um I thought, oh my god, you actually done research.
• 1:05:17
  So when I was researching, reading, I was thinking that uh if I if I don't do podcasts, there would never be a time when I'm, you know, sitting and reading about a startup which has no relationship with Neon.
• 1:05:30
  Yeah.
• 1:05:31
  Yeah.
• 1:05:32
  That is actually that is one point I want to tell.
• 1:05:35
  Um I know somebody told me, and maybe it's a well-known technique.
• 1:05:40
  The technique is that always meet a person one every week, by the way.
• 1:05:46
  It's slightly tough though.
• 1:05:47
  One every week who is not doing what you do.
• 1:05:50
  So, like an artist, uh, like an auto driver, like a pilot.
• 1:05:56
  And typically from all strata of the society, yeah, you actually learn a lot.
• 1:06:02
  So I I met this uh national level Bharatanatyam dancer.
• 1:06:07
  Dancer.
• 1:06:08
  Um, I mean, when to his performance, he he's like out of the world, right?
• 1:06:12
  He he renders a song, and we can actually see that song being rendered, right?
• 1:06:17
  Um but then uh one day I went to his home and he was practicing uh in his normal clothes, like just a uh pajama and a kurta and no accompaniment, no stage, nothing.
• 1:06:32
  And I actually thought that dance was better than this dance on the stage.
• 1:06:36
  And I asked him, his name is Satyana Randra.
• 1:06:38
  I said, Satya, local guy, Satya, like I like this dance uh better than the your dance on the stage.
• 1:06:45
  He said, No.
• 1:06:46
  Um he said, every time I dance, I think this is my last dance.
• 1:06:51
  Okay, yeah.
• 1:06:52
  So what I learned is that every time I present, right, like this, or anywhere, I always think we should put our 100% effort.
• 1:07:00
  Does not matter.
• 1:07:01
  Does not matter about the outcome.
• 1:07:02
  He was he was dancing to nobody.
• 1:07:05
  I think that's I think things like this we learn from non-professional.
• 1:07:11
  Yeah.
• 1:07:12
  Non-our profession, right?
• 1:07:13
  Or whatever is your profession.
• 1:07:14
  Yeah.
• 1:07:15
  So things like that.
• 1:07:16
  I think I try to make it, but it's hard.
• 1:07:20
  Thank you so much.
• 1:07:21
  Thanks, Nancy.
• 1:07:23
  Yeah.