In a riveting session from the Digital Renaissance Summit 2025, five influential voices from India’s venture capital and legal ecosystem unpacked what’s truly shaping early and growth- stage investments in the current tech cycle. In a world saturated with buzzwords—AI, disruption, deeptech—the panel brought in-ground truths and pragmatic frameworks that define investability today.
Hear from:
Gireendra Kasmalkar, Managing Partner, Pentathlon Ventures
Avik Ashar, Principal, Riverwalk Holdings
Ashwani Singh, Managing Partner, 35North Ventures
Davesh Manocha, Founder & Managing Partner, CDM Capital
Anirban Mohapatra, Partner – TMT, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas
Founders, Archetypes, and Adaptability
A compelling opening metaphor described founders as illusionists, opportunists, or enthusiasts. Yet, the message was clear: rigid classifications don’t define outcomes. The startup journey is rarely linear. Many founders start with unclear or even flawed ideas—but what matters is how they respond to the market. It’s perseverance, adaptability, and relentless listening that often define long-term success. Investors are not looking for perfection on day one—they’re backing those who learn and evolve faster than the curve. As Gireendra Kasmalkar noted, “It takes all to build an ecosystem. Illusionists included—today’s illusion may be tomorrow’s breakthrough.”
The Shift from Products to Platforms and Services
A crucial insight from the panel was the shift in investment thesis—from traditional product startups to service-oriented solutions. With the rise of generative AI, the foundational advantage has moved from owning code to owning contextually rich data. Startups that leverage proprietary enterprise datasets, drawn from Enterprise Resource Planning, CRMs, or sector-specific operations, are becoming far more attractive. These companies are building customized AI services on top of large language models, turning them into domain-specific tools.
This makes domain expertise critical. The panel underscored that deep knowledge of a sector, healthcare, logistics, finance—isn’t just a value-add anymore; it’s a prerequisite. In fact, the rise of “founders over 40” is a trend to watch, driven by the need for experience, network, and contextual understanding of problems that AI alone can’t solve. As Gireendra Kasmalkar emphasized, “There’s no shortcut to domain knowledge. You’ve got to spend those 15–20 years in the industry to earn it.”
AI’s Urban Planning Metaphor: Infrastructure vs. Layers
To visualize AI’s landscape, the conversation used an urban planning analogy. The ‘infrastructure’, compute power, foundational models, LLMs is already dominated by globalplayers like OpenAI and Nvidia. What remains is the middle layer: specialized, nimble Indian startups acting like EPC contractors who build bespoke solutions on top of existing infrastructure. This layer has immense potential.
Startups aren’t building new LLMs, but they’re fine-tuning them for medical imaging, vernacular customer support, or enterprise workflow automation. One panelist described this vividly: “B2B players don’t need to be in the top five of infrastructure—because they’re solving actual industry problems with contextual precision. That’s where differentiation lies.” As Davesh Manocha put it, “If the big tech owns the roads, think of Indian startups as expert contractors building the real value—the custom designed structures on top.”
Why Legal Infrastructure Now Matters Deeply
As startup ideas become more sophisticated, especially in AI, fintech, and healthtech—the legal risk surface has expanded. From data provenance to IP violations, compliance is no longer an afterthought; it’s part of product strategy. Founders need to deeply understand where their training data comes from, whether it violates copyright, and how robust their audit trails are. The legal lens emphasized the importance of “human in the loop” systems.
Full automation is still flawed in mission-critical areas. Regulatory bodies are starting to demand explainability, transparency, and oversight in AI systems. Startups that pre-emptively build these mechanisms stand out, and avoid risks that could compromise their scale. As Anirban Mohapatra stated, “For startups today, legal compliance isn’t optional, it’s a differentiator. You can’t afford to build AI solutions without clarity on data lineage and accountability.”
What Makes a Startup Fundable in 2025?
Across the board, the panelists emphasized pragmatic markers of fundability: real-world traction over theoretical TAMs; founders who combine domain fluency with technological ambition; solutions that are mission-critical for customers, not just nice-to-have tools; and early signs of revenue, especially in enterprise B2B plays.
One investor noted that “everything may be built on ChatGPT, but differentiation comes from what problems you solve and how deeply you understand your customer.” With capital becoming more discerning and cycles tightening, outcomes matter more than optics.
India’s Edge: Frugal Innovation and Service Layer Dominance
While there was much debate over whether India should invest in foundational tech like LLMs or semiconductor fabs, the consensus leaned toward leveraging India’s real advantages: frugal engineering, a massive tech talent pool, and access to localized, high-quality data.
India doesn’t need to build everything from scratch. Instead, its real opportunity lies in solving its own problems—rural healthcare, financial inclusion, multilingual education—through scalable AI-powered services. These solutions, if built with rigor and compliance, can be exported to similar economies across Asia and Africa.
Final Thought: The Rise of Thoughtful Innovation
2025 marks a shift away from blitzscaling and consumer unicorns to thoughtful, layered innovation. The most promising startups will be those who blend technology with specificity—of sector, of market, of need. The services mindset is replacing the “product or bust” model.
If you’re a founder building for real customers, in real markets, with compliance, scalability, and clarity at the core—the investors are not just listening. They’re waiting.
Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/O6qJHygBvMA