NEWSTECH · FOUNDER STORIES
The people behind the products.
A single long-form founder archive covering the journeys, pivots, setbacks, product decisions and current roles of technology entrepreneurs shaping India and the global digital economy.
10 detailed profiles
Updated September 18, 2026
India + Global Technology
Sources linked below each story
INDIA · SAATHIX
Roshan Gupta
Founder, SaathiX · SaaS, ERP & business automation
A founder journey that moved through design, corporate work, ERP, entrepreneurship and digital marketing before converging on SaathiX.
Roshan Gupta’s professional journey did not begin with a software startup. It began around computers in Bihar and developed through graphic design, corporate roles and hands-on exposure to business software.
His time in design built a strong visual and product sense, while work around ERP exposed him to the less visible machinery of everyday businesses: billing, inventory, records and operational workflows. Those experiences later became useful when thinking about software for small and growing businesses.
Gupta also experienced the difficult side of entrepreneurship through an earlier education venture. The period brought lessons around cash flow, operations and the difference between having an idea and building a sustainable business. Returning to employment gave him another opportunity to build skills in digital marketing and business operations.
SaathiX represents the next phase of that journey: turning accumulated experience across design, ERP, marketing and entrepreneurship into a product-led technology platform for Indian businesses. The story is still being written, with the product expanding across business software, digital tools and AI-enabled workflows.
StartedCyber cafe in Bihar
BuiltSaathiX
FocusSaaS · ERP · AI
Primary editorial reference:
newstech.blog
INDIA · FINTECH
Nithin Kamath
Founder & CEO, Zerodha
Nithin Kamath built Zerodha around a problem he knew personally: the friction and cost of traditional brokerage.
Kamath started trading as a teenager and spent years working around the markets. Zerodha’s own account of its origin says the company came from seeing a disconnect between customers who increasingly wanted to trade online and a brokerage industry still carrying heavy offline infrastructure.
In 2010, Kamath and his team started Zerodha with a simple proposition: stay online, build reliable technology and reduce the cost of participating in the markets. The company’s name itself combines 'zero' and 'rodha', a Sanskrit-derived reference to barriers.
Zerodha’s growth became a case study in bootstrapping rather than depending on the conventional venture-backed route. The product and business model focused on technology, pricing and self-service experiences for a large base of retail investors.
As of 2026, Zerodha continues to identify Nithin Kamath as its founder and CEO, with Nikhil Kamath as co-founder and CFO. The story remains notable because the company was built by starting from a specific customer problem and attacking the cost structure around it.
FoundedZerodha · 2010
ModelBootstrapped brokerage
FocusLow-cost digital investing
Primary editorial reference:
zerodha.com
INDIA · CONSUMER TECH
Deepinder Goyal
Founder & CEO, Zomato
Deepinder Goyal’s story began with a practical information problem: making restaurant discovery easier.
Goyal has written that after graduating from IIT, he first tried a food-focused startup in 2005. That attempt did not work. In 2008, he and Pankaj Chaddah tried again with a more focused product, and the restaurant discovery service that became Zomato began to find a much larger audience.
The early product was essentially an information layer around restaurants. Over time, Zomato expanded into online ordering, delivery and other parts of local commerce. The company’s own retrospective describes the first years as a period of finding product-market fit and building a durable culture.
The larger founder lesson is the progression from a narrow utility to a broader consumer platform. Each expansion was connected to an existing user relationship rather than starting from an unrelated market.
By 2026, Goyal remains Zomato’s founder and CEO, while the company operates within a much broader consumer ecosystem that includes food delivery and quick commerce through Blinkit.
StartedFoodiebay / Zomato
Core ideaRestaurant discovery
TodayFood + quick commerce ecosystem
Primary editorial reference:
www.zomato.com
INDIA · BEAUTY & RETAIL
Falguni Nayar
Founder · Executive Chairperson · MD & CEO, Nykaa
Falguni Nayar left a long investment-banking career to build a digital-first beauty business at a stage when many people would have chosen to stay in their established careers.
Nayar spent years in investment banking, including a long tenure with Kotak Mahindra Capital. That background gave her direct exposure to capital markets, consumer businesses and the mechanics of building and financing companies.
In 2012, she founded Nykaa with a focused idea: build a trusted, curated beauty marketplace for India. The company expanded from online beauty retail into physical stores, fashion, owned brands and B2B distribution.
Nykaa’s 2026 corporate materials describe Nayar as Executive Chairperson, Managing Director and CEO, and record her reappointment to those roles effective February 12, 2026. The company’s current story is therefore not just an e-commerce story; it is a multi-channel consumer and brand-building story.
The founder journey is particularly relevant because the company was built by combining domain experience, customer understanding and a willingness to start a new chapter after a long established career.
FoundedNykaa · 2012
Earlier careerInvestment banking
2026Reappointed MD & CEO
Primary editorial reference:
www.nykaa.com
INDIA · TRAVEL TECH
Ritesh Agarwal
Founder & Chairman, OYO
Ritesh Agarwal’s founder story grew out of repeated travel and a simple observation: affordable accommodation was often inconsistent and difficult to discover.
OYO’s own company history says Agarwal travelled extensively as a teenager and stayed in a large number of budget properties. That experience exposed a gap between what customers wanted and the quality and predictability available in the unbranded budget hotel market.
He started with an accommodation marketplace concept before building OYO around standardized experiences, technology and a network model. The company expanded rapidly across cities and countries, making operational consistency a central part of the product.
The journey also illustrates the trade-off in marketplace businesses: technology can create the discovery layer, but the real-world service still depends on operations, partners and execution.
OYO identifies Agarwal as its founder and chairman. His story remains a useful example of starting from repeated customer observation and turning an offline service problem into a technology-enabled network.
FoundedOYO
Early insightBudget hospitality gap
2026Founder & Chairman
Primary editorial reference:
www.oyorooms.com
INDIA · FINTECH
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Founder & CEO, Paytm
Vijay Shekhar Sharma built Paytm from the mobile-recharge era into a broad digital payments and financial-services company.
Sharma’s entrepreneurial career predates Paytm. The business began in 2010 around mobile recharges and payments, and the platform expanded as smartphone adoption and digital payments accelerated in India.
Paytm became one of the most visible consumer-fintech brands in the country, extending from payments into merchant services and financial products. The founder story is closely tied to the growth of India’s digital payment infrastructure.
In 2026, Paytm’s investor communications continue to identify Sharma as Founder and CEO. The company reported its first full year of profit for FY26 and has highlighted AI-led operating leverage alongside payments and financial-services growth.
The current chapter is therefore less about the original wallet product and more about how a payments company can broaden its monetisation and technology stack while staying close to its merchant and consumer base.
FoundedPaytm
Core areasPayments & financial services
FY26First full-year profit
Primary editorial reference:
paytm.com
INDIA · FINTECH
Kunal Shah
Founder, CRED · former CEO
Kunal Shah built CRED around the idea that strong credit behaviour could become a product experience rather than simply a financial score.
Shah first became widely known as the co-founder of FreeCharge. His later company, CRED, launched in 2018 with a deliberately focused target: consumers with established credit histories.
The product combined payments, rewards, financial tools and a strong consumer brand. Over time, CRED expanded into lending, insurance, wealth and lifestyle products, turning the original credit-card payment use case into a broader financial platform.
A major update in 2026 changed the leadership chapter. CRED announced a Series H round led by Meta and said Shah would step away from his operating role as CEO while retaining his shareholding and transitioning to Meta’s global leadership team. Miten Sampat was named interim CEO.
That makes Shah’s current story different from the older 'founder-CEO' narrative: he remains CRED’s founder, but the operating leadership has moved into a new phase.
FoundedCRED · 2018
EarlierFreeCharge co-founder
2026Transitioned to Meta global leadership
Primary editorial reference:
newsroom.cred.club
INDIA · E-COMMERCE
Vidit Aatrey
Co-founder & CEO, Meesho
Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal started Meesho around a distinctly Indian problem: enabling people to start selling online without needing a large upfront investment.
Meesho’s company profile says Aatrey worked at ITC and InMobi before founding the company in late 2015. He and Barnwal focused on enabling individuals and small businesses to participate in online commerce.
The model evolved from social commerce into a broad e-commerce marketplace. The founder thesis remained connected to lowering the barriers for sellers and expanding digital commerce beyond traditional online retailers.
Meesho’s leadership page continues to identify Aatrey as co-founder and CEO, while Barnwal is co-founder and CTO. The company has also described initiatives aimed at bringing millions of sellers into digital commerce.
The story is a useful example of how a founder can build around distribution and access rather than only around a premium consumer segment.
FoundedMeesho · 2015
Co-founderSanjeev Barnwal
FocusSocial & inclusive commerce
Primary editorial reference:
www.meesho.io
INDIA · MOBILITY & EV
Bhavish Aggarwal
Founder, Chairman & MD · Ola Electric
Bhavish Aggarwal’s journey moved from app-based mobility into a much deeper bet on electric vehicles, manufacturing and battery technology.
Aggarwal co-founded Ola in 2010, building a ride-hailing platform around the rapidly changing way Indian consumers booked urban transport. The company’s growth put him at the centre of India’s consumer internet and mobility story.
He later pushed aggressively into electric mobility through Ola Electric. The strategy expanded beyond selling scooters into manufacturing, batteries, software and the broader EV supply chain.
Ola Electric’s 2026 investor materials identify Aggarwal as Founder, Chairman and Managing Director. The company has also continued discussing cell manufacturing and energy-storage opportunities alongside its two-wheeler business.
The founder story is therefore a shift from an asset-light marketplace model toward a capital-intensive manufacturing and technology business.
FoundedOla · 2010
EV focusOla Electric
2026Founder, Chairman & MD
Primary editorial reference:
www.olaelectric.com
GLOBAL · AI
Sam Altman
Co-founder & CEO, OpenAI
Sam Altman’s founder story connects startup acceleration, venture investing and the rapid rise of frontier AI.
Before OpenAI, Altman was a startup founder and later became president of Y Combinator, where he worked with a large number of early-stage companies. That experience shaped a career focused on finding and scaling technology businesses.
In 2015, Altman co-founded OpenAI as a research organisation. The company’s mission centred on developing increasingly capable AI systems while aiming for broad human benefit.
OpenAI’s 2026 public materials identify Altman as co-founder and CEO. The company is simultaneously expanding across models, products and infrastructure, including work on its own AI inference hardware.
The current founder chapter is therefore about moving from software experimentation into a full-stack AI company spanning research, products, compute and governance.
Co-foundedOpenAI · 2015
EarlierY Combinator
2026CEO, OpenAI
Primary editorial reference:
forum.openai.com
