The Semifinal That Will Change Their Lives | Meet the Drapers India: Semifinals II

In 1994, my father was the first Silicon Valley venture capitalist in India. He believed in the spirit of this incredible country. 30 years later, my sister Polly and I are on a mission to find India's next unicorn. I'm Tim Draper. I've invested in game-changing companies. Now we're crisscrossing the We're traveling the entire subcontinent, meeting the brightest minds in the world's most populous country as we search for the country's top entrepreneurs. Thousands applied, but only 28 companies have made the cut for a chance to win an investment of $1 million and a shot at changing the world. It's a journey packed with adventure, innovation, And unforgettable moments. Who will rise to the challenge? Who will be India's next great entrepreneur? Let the games begin. Welcome everybody to Meet the Drapers India. We are in the semifinals. We have been all over India to find you, These extraordinary entrepreneurs, these 4 will compete for 2 slots in the finale, and the other 2 you could vote in. So go to meetthedrapers.com and vote. Some extraordinary judges. To my far left is Polly Draper, actress, producer, writer, director, winner of a Director's Award.

Thanks, Tim.

She's a character in Hacks, a mystic, and it's kind of fun to have a mystic and a crystal ball in the same place. So on my left, we have Poonam Khandelwal. She's laughing. However you pronounce it.

Hey, I nailed it.

It sounds beautiful. Poonam Khandelwal, venture capitalist, has done like 300 startups.

I've been investing in startups myself for almost 8 years now. It's exciting to meet startups from across the country. Thank you for coming to India.

The entrepreneurs are from all over India, but we have actually visited some But we still have a little more of India to cover because I do know this is a big—

I love Mumbai.

It is a big country. And to my right is Mohan Lakshmaraju. Mohan and I worked together at DFJ many, many years ago. We together created the first business plan competition in India ever. So Mohan Lakshmaraju Draper, welcome to Meet the Drapers.

Thank you. It's a good family to be part of.

Normally it happens after marriage. I don't know what you're suggesting.

Well, let's bring on our first entrepreneur, but before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

Hi, my name is Rohit Mishra. I'm founder at Earcart.

Hi, I'm Monica Mishra. I'm co-founder at Earcart.

She had one of the best cosmetology practices up north in Delhi, a very, very evolved one, but she gave up that and she said, why don't we start on this journey together? Because 2 is a better team than one. And actually it came true.

And I think it was the right decision for me.

Startup is not an easy journey and for a faint-hearted one. A lot of my friends, a lot of my colleagues, a lot of well-wishers also said it's a very stupid decision. If these big companies have not been able to do it, why are you even going in that direction?

It was like it's a time for you to retire and you are entering the entrepreneur world.

What was more frustrating that I was the managing director of a multinational world's top 5 companies. Being there in 15 years, we did not do significant things. We kept eating market share from one another, but nobody started working on reaching out to the people who need service. We thought this will be not only a service but also become into an expandable business model globally. Numbers have outlived my expectation. They have outperformed my expectations. And I think together we have created a model which has now become self-sustained on its own. So if I look back, I'm so relieved. I'm so comforted from the time that I was anxious and nervous.

So if he did win today, who's your first call?

Like, who do you share your victories with?

Mom, dad, kids, parents, and of course my team, because they have really, really, really worked hard across these 3 years working with Tim.

Uh, I think this is come as an opportunity at the right time.

I think with his insightful information coming for US, Tim could be a great asset, not in terms only of finances, but in terms of showing us the right way to get into the US market. You always had this at the back of the mind that you did not get through to the next level. We land in Delhi at about 11:30. I open my phone after we land and I see a message from Henrik that, guys, you have been given a wildcard entry.

And wow! This is one you made?

That's right.

Okay, so should I try it?

Absolutely. This goes into your ear.

I'm hearing the horns beep very loudly.

Yeah.

This is $350, this is $20, and this is your audiologist right here sitting on the screen.

Oh, why, this is my test. We'll see how it goes. So there were some sounds I didn't really hear that well. Okay, well, that was fun.

Thank you very much for bringing us back, Draper. Wildcard, God bless you.

You got the Polly special.

Thank you, Polly. We are on a mission to help 1.5 billion people who are suffering from 2 problems. One, hearing loss. Second, lack of access to an audiologist. I've been in this industry for 20 years myself, and I have been a very frustrated Less than 4% of these people get to a hearing aid ever. 96% of people don't. And I believe at EarCart, the world can wait for the next dating app. The world can definitely wait for the next super cool marketing app. These people need help, and that's where we come in. This machine is a solution to the shortage of audiologists.

Now, I mean, it's a very low-cost device.

$1,300 for this testing device.

This is the audiologist.

I think the game changer was the demo. When you are explaining verbally, it's a different thing. When you are able to see it, how easy, how convenient, how quick it is.

A test has to be run for every single hearing aid.

How can you make money if that's $20 and you've got somebody full-time, an audiologist full-time?

I keep this machine anywhere in the world. It doesn't have to be an audiologist. My audiologist could be sitting in the Draper's office here. And my machine could be in Nigeria, in Bangladesh, or in Kenya. It's a very simple solution to an extremely complicated problem.

With OMNI, this remote audiometry device, we are able to solve the problem of diagnostic. It can do the otoscopy, it can do live audiometry, it can do the programming of the hearing aids and the fitting of the hearing aids for the person who doesn't have access to walk up to an ENT. And accordingly, the audiologist suggests the hearing aid, and that hearing aid is then digitalized and fitted to the patient.

So it's an end-to-end solution right then and there.

So the customization happens from the device itself?

Yes, absolutely. I can remotely customize the hearing aid.

You don't customize it by an iPhone?

I can do that too, but for the first-time patient, I would rather do it myself for the best fitting.

And is this regulated? Do you need approvals from the regulatory authorities?

These are all regulated. These are CDSCO, these are BIS, these are FDA-approved ones.

So in every country you have to get regulatory approval?

All through this discussion, the only sense, the only emotion that I had was uncertainty.

Generally, US So we have already tested this in more than 31 centers in 10 cities of India.

$1.30 is when I start to break even. If I sell a hearing aid, my recovery is $16.

And it is not over-the-counter sale of the hardware?

In the US, there is a new category called over-the-counter. In India, there is only hearing aid category. The OTC hasn't kicked in yet. Companies are making their annual report entry that we are not going to grow this year because of the shortage of the audiologists.

So your innovations is in the diagnostic device.

The diagnostic device. And the hearing aid also, which I can program through this diagnostic device.

Can't other hearing aids that are there in the market right now be programmed?

If you want to do that, it starts from $4,000.

You two have the same last name. I assume you're married?

Yes, we are.

Just about 28 years old.

So she works for you or you work for her?

I work for him.

That doesn't work in marriage.

Some people appreciate it because husband and wife have an understanding.

What happens when you want to take this thing and go I want to go to the US, and she's saying, I don't know about that.

We've had this discussion multiple times already. So when I was going to US, she wanted to go to Bangladesh. So before I could go to US, we had to start Bangladesh. Now we have this presence in all these countries, but when we went to US, the gentleman says, why don't you license this technology to us? Because at $1.20, we are going to save about $600 million a year. I'm a businessman. I do have a heart. I developed this product for India and countries like India.

And for India, by 2028, it should be 5,000 places where this device will be available.

Coming back to the very important point, this model being plug-and-play, my customer acquisition cost is zero. From the very first diagnostic, I am making money. And one audiologist can cover 6 clinics, so I'm multiplying the current number of audiologists by 6.

I'm not seeing any new technological revolution. Why haven't you done this before?

Ford or Hyundai never came out with an EV.

I had been in this space for 20 years. Every single year I would go back to my company and talk about my forecast projection, and I'll say India has got less than 1% adoption rate. Why don't we do something for the expansion of market? And they would say global is 4, you are not far off. Why we got patent on this, why nobody else even applied for it, is a question that I need to ask to myself. Why so brilliant people did not think about this simple solution? And this is working for me already.

All right, thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Mishra. I think we were better than last time.

We had our devices.

I think we did not do it right the last time, but how badly, badly this world needs a solution, I think we have made that impact that we wanted to. So I'm pretty satisfied with what we did.

Pretty cool. Polly, what'd you think?

Yeah, I kind of like them even more now. This time felt more passionate about what they were trying to accomplish. The fact that no one had even applied for a patent on this, in a weird way, it is really disruptive.

There's a problem. in India especially, and the low-cost devices are important. I wanted to dive in further was the go-to-market strategy. How do you sell it? Why would a customer buy it? And are they dependent on doctors to create that brand?

So I think the innovation here is actually the service delivery. I think that's where the innovation is. And I think so this is like a great use case for telehealth. I find it pretty innovative and disruptive. I think actually the market is global.

Let's bring on our next entrepreneur. But before we do, let's see what's going on Welcome to the program, Behind the Scenes.

I went to St. Stephen's College in Delhi, where I majored in history and minored in ethics and economics. Grad college, I realized that even though I loved learning about the past, I really wanted to understand how the world works today. That's when I decided that I wanted a degree in geopolitics. Ended up working as an intelligence consultant for an American firm in India, and that's the time that I realized that there is this wide gap between Climate change and the technology solutions that we need to bridge that gap, especially in India. That gap is extremely wide. We saw a lot of plastic litter around, and it just made me realize that you know we're all English-speaking, educated citizens of the country sitting here, and I can see still see plastic litter around. I knew at that point in time also that they're toxic. It was very clear to me that the government is not going to be solving this problem. The incumbent industries are not going to be solving the problem. Once I got promoted at my job, I realized that I couldn't lie to my boss. Or myself. I took my bonus and I left. When it comes to my family, obviously they were not thrilled because I come from very humble beginnings. So I had to work very hard to get into the right colleges, get a good job, all of that. So I was following that good girl path till that time. To me, I knew that something was missing and I knew it just 3 months into the job that I was working. There were a lot of people who told me that this will not work, that this is foolish, that I should stick to, you know, something small. That is something that I've heard a lot. To me, I don't think it ever mattered because as long as I was sticking to science and getting the results in the lab, that's the only thing that I cared about. I've never focused on outcomes. For me, it's, you know, step by step by step. I think what keeps me on every single day when I wake up in the morning and I go to sleep in the night is the fact that I know this is a tough problem to solve and I love tough problems. So in India, we have this story from Mahabharata, which is one of the epics. It has a character called Arjun. Arjun is a sweet character and he's He's an archer. He's an ace archer. There are many tests that he goes through, and every single test he passes simply because of the fact that he was looking at absolutely nothing else but the target. He was only looking at that, nothing else.

Not the tree, not the—

not the bow, not his guru. He was just looking at what he had to do. I was actually really excited. It's fun to compete with folks that are working really hard and building great things themselves.

By 2025, the global plastics market is going to be worth $1 trillion, and right now only 1% of this is bioplastics, which is biodegradable. Currently, plant-based bioplastics are 3 to 5 times more expensive, and they rely on decentralized food supply chains, making it extremely difficult for them to scale. At Terra Bioware, we solve this problem by leveraging microbes that transform carbon emissions into bioplastics. Our novel technology produces twice more biopolymers than plants, making them affordable within a process that is globally scalable.

Together, they somehow create a plastic-like substance that's not plastic.

It's a biodegradable, natural plastic.

I went in with a rehearsed pitch that I ended up not giving because I thought it would be better to just have a conversation with Tim during the pitch.

Do you think that people are gonna buy your plastic because it's biosafe? I've learned that people generally just wanna buy the thing that's the best and the cheapest and the most convenient.

So the entire technology is actually designed to be disruptive to petroplastics at price, scale, and functionality. There's a reason why we focus so much on high productivity, which is exactly to bring the cost of production down. Essentially, this is what allows us to compete with petroplastics in the long term. But in the short term, we focus on high-value markets. So our first product is called TerraVibe. The bioplastic that we have can be converted into a specialty biochemical, which can serve as an alternative source of energy in the human body while promoting longevity. And this finds applications in food, beverages, and nutraceuticals.

This isn't replacing plastic, it just happens. So those are 2 very different markets.

Fundamental technology remains the same. We make the biopolymer, then there are 2 extra steps that we conduct in order to convert it into these 2 specialty biochemicals. This is our first vertical.

Your first vertical is nutraceuticals or cosmetics?

Our first one is cosmetics, but nutraceuticals is also something that we are focusing on.

As somebody who does both tech and business, I also need to improve when it comes to communication.

Where do you actually get this carbon from?

So we work with partners that have carbon capture and utilization systems, and they convert it into something called green methanol, essentially what is used as a food source by these microbes.

You buy this green methanol from these people?

Yeah.

Is that something that's common?

The process essentially works with methanol itself. There are 2 companies in India right now that are focusing on CO2 conversion into green methanol. We've already partnered with them. Globally, what is happening is that green methanol is getting even more focused because they want to decarbonize shipping. But the process itself is not purely reliant on green methanol.

Does it have to be green methanol?

No.

Because you could probably get free methanol.

We just choose to Procure green methanol because we have high-value applications. It also supports green methanol producers in India.

The feedstock is really important whenever we're talking about biomanufacturing, and we again have put in a lot of time in choosing that right feed.

Have you generated any sales?

For both nutraceuticals and cosmetics, early revenue, not a lot, but strong commercial traction. Right now we need capital to scale up our manufacturing.

So how much have you—

$600 is what we've gotten so far. Right now we're selling this in grams because we are based out of a lab, but in December we're tying up with the contract manufacturing organization to scale this up.

Walk me through what they're, they're used for inside the cosmetic itself.

So we have a bioplastic, we convert it into an acid. It provides hydration and protection to the skin also. That's why these companies want to adopt this acid into their formulation.

What's special about your method?

Right now around the world, we're the only company utilizing green methanol to produce The microbial strain that we use produces extremely high amounts of biopolymers. They're also better performing than other microbes as well.

You, you don't own that microbe, right? Like, anybody can use that microbe?

No, we own that microbe because we have developed a strain which is only with us right now. It's proprietary. We're filing IP in early December. It's capable of producing higher amounts of biopolymer than any other strain.

Have you run something before? I mean, I know you know the science, How about the business?

So I have to focus on both, and in fact, I'm the person who ties the science to the market.

Even the scientists that we work with also focus on business. Whenever we're taking up work, we never think of it as science or business, just what we love to do.

There are some very fundamental problems that exist with biomanufacturing. If you focus too early on a high-volume market like paints and packaging, it essentially leaves both the company and the investors in a place where nobody's making any money. We didn't want to do that, so I myself went through, I would say, hundreds of scientific papers that we had to go through because the link wasn't so clear. Right now, there's no other PHA company that's producing these specialty biochemicals out of PHA.

When you started, I really thought that we are talking about replacing plastics. We're talking of nutraceutical and cosmetics. How old is your company?

So we registered on 3rd of February, 2022. Last year, we raised a pre-seed and we came to lab in July 2023.

How much time typically it takes to convert a customer to become a paying customer?

If it's a startup, as long as we have regulatory approval, it takes 3 months. With companies like Britannia, we've been speaking to them for a while. The interest is there, but it takes a long time for that to convert.

Why don't you have your own brand?

I have a background in strategic intelligence and global risk, and I apply the same kind of skill sets to solve this problem as well. For me, it's far more important to build a technology that can disrupt petroplastics, far more important to scale this technology. I want to take it outside of India as well.

Shruti, thank you so much for coming to be on Meet the Drapers.

Thanks a lot, Tim.

I feel great.

I think there was a newer set of judges. They asked questions that were quite intriguing, and I enjoyed answering them as well.

Polly, I'll start with you. What do you think of—

I think I realized in this time it's just the very beginnings. I also was under the misconception they were finding a solution to the plastics problem and getting—

Science project.

It's a science project right now.

So far.

But she's—

But she's amazing.

A genius.

I really love her. I would— I bet on her more than this.

She's a great innovator. The business person inside her is yet to come out. I don't think nutraceutical is that big a market for now, but yeah, plastic— I was really excited to hear about the plastic.

I found Shruti very impressive. She had all the answers on the science of it, setting this tremendous promise. I hope she's able to validate that in the market. it. $600 sounds very little, but then she said that it's from a lab, they don't really have production. So I'm really hoping to see this become a business.

Let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

Those doctors who use AI are going to replace those doctors who are not going to use AI. Losing a good friend, a class friend, to a heart attack was the trigger. He had come to Goa over the weekend or for the New Year's E122, and then on 4th of January, he had a heart attack and he was no more. We had information, but nobody had insights. So what we believe is AI can get to the insights part very quickly, wherein you can predict and look into the future and look at the markers which are present and then correlate it with a high level of confidence to indicate an onset of a severe or an immediate threat to your life. Today, the challenge is that information is in paper, they're in different locations, they're with different people. But if you put it in your fingertips, that is where the value addition helps, and very relevant, pertinent information for that particular patient in that moment of care. The doctors who start using AI in their daily practice will become more productive, their patients will get better clinical care, and in society also they'll get known as people who have the best advanced technology, or they're the ones who have the best practice.

AI agents are built based on the patterns and the data points, and you can say the AI healthcare models are the more efficient, and if doctors are using that, and that may be the game-changing moment for the whole world.

What did you say to like your dad, the doctor?

Yeah, so now he's believing that the pattern may be the biggest secret sauce that can be used for healthcare domain. But earlier when I started, even AI was not there that much in Indian ecosystem, right? But I never had to prove my parents and other people to what I'm doing right now. If you really trying to do something, and I think the universe is there for you to help you out. And every moment I am getting the validation of that. So this is also a surprising thing, but now I am habituated of the process that if you are really trying something and you have the honest intention, and the universe is there to make it done for you.

Viewers, usually I'm pretty easy to reach. I mean, there are only 300 million of you. I'm making it a lot easier for you to contact me. I have downloaded my brain into this digital twin, and you can scan this QR code You can pitch me your idea, you can talk about your business, anything, and I'll answer it 24/7. Enjoy it, it's great. It's a new feature of Meet the Drapers and Draper TV. I think you're gonna have some fun.

It was a tough competition.

It was pretty close, and of course there is last-minute jitters, but we were excited and And, uh, we were prepared.

As Lark, we are the harbingers, or we herald good news. What we have is a solution which tells you how good your health is. We also can do predictive analysis and tell you how is the health going to be. So what we do is we delve into 5 vital parameters which the body requires. We've solved for multiple problems. One of the factors, like making healthcare very accessible and affordable, but you also would notice that healthcare records are non-digitized. They're kept in disparate We've put it all together, insight which is relevant and useful for that doctor, for that patient, in moments that matter.

So one of the things I worried about a little bit was doctors are going to start relying on this and they're just going to wait for the alarm to go off before they pay any attention. How do you keep the doctor's attention while you know, yeah, you're making their life really easy?

I do not see doctors becoming lazy. But I do feel that they will more and more doctors will start using this, which will reduce his or her burden.

A lot of healthcare workers are overburdened, so we make their life better.

I haven't understood, you know, the use case. So the thing that's there in the ICU that gets plugged in is exactly exactly.

But then we have an IoT and AI device, which is at one tenth the price of imported devices. So this Lark is a multi parameter device called Ren, and it has got five vital signs parameters which it can measure.

Wait, it's also plugged into the ambulance too.

Yeah, that's it.

Okay, so this goes.

In the ambulance and it goes in the hospital?

It goes entire care continuum.

So it's like BP and heart rate and all of those things you're talking about?

BP, heart rate, respiratory rate, ECG, temperature.

So the patient has to have the BP thing on them all the time?

It's like a simple off-the-shelf solution. So if you know how to monitor your own BP, this just plugs into it.

So your innovation is just the communication between that and the doctor?

Yeah, so we built this design and developed it in India.

ICOs already have these machines. Ambulance already, why would somebody replace it? What's the catch of replacing?

None of those devices are IoT or AI enabled. Number 2, they are legacy devices which do not have any kind of intelligence into it. Any hospital, this costs somewhere around $3,000. We have something for $225 for the hospital. Larger hospitals, when they replace their systems, it's a better device at a lower price.

You know, your device is cheaper, but I didn't get the AI part. And what is the use of that AI?

It pulls in all your patient data from whichever modalities which you had. For example, you might have done an X-ray, A year back, and today you did an audiometry sound. We correlate your information from any of the information which you've done earlier, and we give you predictive analysis.

What you described as your intelligence sounds like something that's much more general.

I think this is something we need some more time to explain properly because everything is interconnected what we're building right now.

So we have 3 pillars. Yeah, first pillar is the hardware. So any rural medical practitioner, doctor who's got nothing else, no digitization, Any physician can get an AI IoT-enabled device on his tabletop. That's one device. And then second is an app which basically integrates this device to the cloud. And then the third one is what radiologists and cardiologists use. They use image analysis algorithms to identify any kind of modalities, whether it's CT, MR, ultrasound, and identify if there's any kind of a correlation to a disease which you might have.

These 3 are interconnected through our common platforms, and then we're trying to build What if it's just an old person and this thing has to be sitting beside him?

It is for elderly care and for nursing homes. So for example, in this case, the patient doesn't have to walk to the hospital and he can transmit his vital signs to the caregiving doctor.

And this is battery operated?

This is battery operated.

How long does the battery last?

6 hours, roughly 300 patients.

I gotta tell you, my 2 experiences in the hospital, one, The problem we found was with battery-operated, they were going off all the time. The ones that plugged in were very calm. The thing you really do have is that that's much smaller.

So what we've learned is like alarm fatigue is a big concern, not just for the patient because he can't sleep, but even for nurse. So what we've built is only relevant alarms which really matter.

Can you define your market? Hospitals, existing hospital ambulances.

So all of them are our markets.

Like you've sold 162 units. Whom have you sold it to?

Any ambulance service provider, any elderly care service provider, any home healthcare provider, any hospital who has to do patient monitoring needs to buy our device.

How are you selling it to them?

So we sell it through our channel partners, distributors.

I'm impatient for results, which is really month-to-month sales, year-to-year growth, and so on.

Are there any regulatory challenges to hold data?

Yeah, so we've already received the CDS approval, which is for HIPAA.

Already compliant. We already compliant HIPAA and FHIR too also for the security part.

Do you find that they're resistant in hospitals? A lot of times they have their set things.

In general, true for any AI, but what we've done is we've kept the doctor at the center and the last person to make a decision on.

You know, this other thing that you talked about, AI and intelligence and all of that, yeah, that has been the holy grail for Lots of companies for a long time to get access to all the patient data. That never happens.

We're building from decentralized model so that every hospital can trust us for the data part because we are not taking data, we are taking learning only, and based on that we are making other models stronger.

That's our main goal and ambition.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Happy life.

We have goosebumps, Murat. It's a good opportunity to present to everybody. We are thrilled also as well as relieved also. And I hope we were able to convince most of the judges.

All right, Mohan, what'd you think of it?

Being plugged into the kind of internal IT systems of the hospitals and then getting all of that data, that is a nightmare to actually happen. Nothing that I've heard so far gives me confidence that that is a use case that they've actually solved. The way I'm looking at this is that they're just, they're basically making a better widget, and that may itself be a substantial market.

When it comes to adaptability, Indian doctors are already using robotics to do surgery. My problem here is, will the hospital replace us? And what Polly said, you're dealing with lives of people.

This is such a dangerous territory, medical devices. I love the whole concept. I just worry about whether it will catch on.

And Siemens and Philips are probably not sitting on their hands with regard to AI. Well, we'll see. Let's hear from our next entrepreneur. But before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

My name is Vijay Khupchandani. I'm the founder and CEO of Seven. Seven is a fintech startup in the wearable payment space. I've been always following Apple as a company, as my inspiration, the way they build their products, the marketing, brand building, right? So Always fascinated with that and always thought I should do something which involves some kind of a hardware play because, you know, I mean, hardware also gives you defensibility in many cases, you know, if you're able to get that IP right in the early days. I'm a 4th generation entrepreneur. Everybody in my family has been entrepreneurs and this is my 3rd venture. I worked with Citibank initially for around 8 years selling mortgages. People around me thought I was nuts because the Citibank gig used to pay very, very well. I was not a payroll employee, but I was more like a franchise arrangement with them, but it was a very high-paying venture. So when I did this, of course there was backlash in terms of the family thinking that, are you sure what you're doing? And I've been on my leap of faith faith for almost a decade now. And, uh, to some extent, uh, yeah, I mean, initially it was a lot difficult, but I think now they understood that he's a, you know, crazy, uh, you know, kind of passionate entrepreneur and trying to pursue. And now that when you see that you're able to generate revenue, there is validation around you, then, you know, they, they also feel that, yeah, okay, we're in the right direction. But yeah, early days, like, it was very, very bad. We got early validation and we got an investment from an angel network, which is very unheard of in India for a hardware startup back in the day. That was our first small win. The second win was when we got certified by Mastercard. That actually reinforced confidence in us that we can deliver a globally certifiable, globally credible kind of a product. So that was that. And then we also had filed a few patents in India. We won those patents. So that also further, you know, reinforced the belief that yes, you know, we are on the right path. And then there have been a few other small victories here and there where we have won government grants, you know, in India, and we won a couple of innovation hackathons and challenges, you know, along the journey. Yeah, we went up a few notches up from the city round. Could have been a disadvantage to perform twice, but we have been, you know, in situations where we are pitching multiple times in a day. That practice kind of, you know, helped us.

We live in an era of speed and convenience where everything is just a tap away. There was a time when we used to swipe our cards, then the cards evolved to dip cards for better security, and then came along tap cards for faster seamless payments. Now you don't even need cards, you have payment wearables. You can just tap your hand on the POS, hear the beep, withdraw your hand, and your payment is done. As simple as that. There are now innovations in India like these which are called NFC card sound boxes. The audience here would recognize this as the QR scanner, as we call it in India. But this has gone under an upgrade. I'll just give you a quick demo.

Kind of played a gamble, you can say. That demo, let's keep that for the semifinals. I mean, if I would not have made to the semifinals, would have never come on screen.

I'm gonna press card pay. To make a payment of rupees one, tap your card.

So what I'm gonna do is.

Take my ring. There was a small beep, faint, couldn't hear. Now it's processing. I hope it goes through.

Paytm पर एक रुपए प्राप्त हुए। They could relate with the power of that device, you know, being in the ecosystem. Our bet paid off, you can say.

So are you making those too, or is somebody else making?

It is something under the RBI mandate where they have to deploy this. this so that credit penetration can increase in India. You know, I mean, putting up all the railroads for us for free of cost. The Seven Ring, or any of our smart rings, if you see, they don't require charging, they don't require pairing with your phone, 100% waterproof, so you can wear it all day. It's a one-tap, one-second experience. You don't have to take out your phone, just tap and go.

And when you say waterproof, you literally can take a shower, go swimming?

Yes.

What's in the ring?

It works on the RFID principle, So RFID electronics do not require constant power. They can draw power at the time of operation. So right now, if you saw, I actually drew power into my ring from the machine itself.

Is it like a magnet?

It's an electromagnetic field, EMF.

They were not able to understand how the technology works in terms of how does it take power from the reader and stuff. After they understood, we were back on track.

And we have 3 product categories. One is our mid-segment $54 product. We have a mass market variant coming in, which is going to be selling at $18. And we have a third variant. It's an 18-karat real gold payment ring.

What's that listed for?

So that'll, that'll depend, you know, on the grams of the gold that is used. So we'll have a small markup of $50 on top of that for the technology.

Why would you have an item like that if your margin's no good because you still have to sit on the inventory?

So the first and the second product, we actually keep inventory because we have standard sizes.

It's a non-precious metal.

For the gold, it'll be a 2-week waiting time. We only make when you order. Why the 3 products? Because it's a rule of 3. So because of the top anchor, my second product actually sells faster. And because of the second product, my first product goes faster.

And, and there's no difference in terms of what they can do?

There are 2 main differences. One is the material. In terms of features, they will both do payments and metro access. The 7 ring will get you flat 1% cashback from our revenue perpetually. Apart from payments, you will now be able to use the ring as a ticket at any metro in India.

So this you're doing With the government, B2G.

Similarly, NPCI, the parent body of UPI, they have created NCMC stack. It's a stack for mobility which we integrated in our ring.

No permissions; you can do all of this yourself.

Yes, and this payment demo that you saw—it's a live payment.

Now that you've explained that it's RFID, yeah, it's pretty simple. Anybody in the U.S. doing this right now?

There is a company in the UK. They have a B2B model. Ours is a B. B2C and B2B2C.

Why would they do that?

Because they don't have technologies like UPI in US and UK, which is instant. So if you top up your ring today, you're gonna get the money tomorrow, versus in India, if I top it right now, I can pay in 10 seconds.

Sweet spot that we are here in, in India to leverage this opportunity. I think that went in our advantage.

How did you come up with this?

You know, genesis was Apple Watch, so I thought maybe the next generation of devices is going to be the smart rings.

How old is the We are actually a slightly older company.

We founded in 2018. We had a bad phase in the company where one of our partners, Mastercard, was under an embargo. We were collateral damage and we kind of came back like a phoenix. And 2023 is when we launched. So we sold 3,000-odd units till date. We've generated $167,000 worth of revenue and we have close to 35,000 waiting list.

35,000 on the waiting list.

In fact, there are people who put review videos about us and it spreads like wildfire and then we start getting orders. We're not having that much capacity today to supply.

I wouldn't think that you need marketing. I would think that you would distribute this through distribution partners, whether it is the banks or, you know, the card companies.

Right now we are doing D2C because we wanted to test the waters, test the technology, make it robust. As a next leg, we are going to go to the metros. And the second thing is we are going to partner with banks and do co-branding arrangements where a bank and us will be co-partners in this. So that we get a transaction revenue and the data also on that.

Adaptation of this ring could be really fast. Having said that, what is the biggest challenge? Because you're the first mover. I'm sure others can adapt this technology. What is the biggest nightmare you see?

Competition is always good for business, and especially a new product category like us. You need more people to be marketing it.

See, there are two main challenges. One is the The acceptance challenge. The small merchants today are not equipped with the card machines. So what happens is our customers tell us that I want to make payments at 10 places, but I'm only able to make it at 7. So with this technology coming in, that will solve for us.

Terrific. Vijay, thank you so much for coming on Meet the Drapers.

Thank you, Tim. It went well. Second time lucky, I believe.

Yeah, feeling great. Feeling a little tired, but always good, you know, one more day as an entrepreneur.

Poonam, what do you think of Seven?

I think it's very interesting. As women, we do not have pockets all the time. 10-cent payment we are doing through our phones these days. So the adoption is there, but I don't know, wearing that ring, whenever I'm tapping that ring, my husband's blood pressure will go high. But they have to move like really fast, create the brand name.

Yeah, a lot of competition will follow, but they're first.

I think it's amazing, and I can't wait till it comes to the United States. He said it was in 6 months. It is— doesn't feel quite that fast.

The US is a little digitally challenged.

It's still behind.

How do you know that?

I find it pretty fascinating, and I have resigned to this customer behavior that even a slight amount of convenience, people are adopting. I didn't think, like, the watches would get the kind of adoption they did. I like it. I think it's pretty compelling.

I love the idea.

I would use it. I would totally use it.

Totally. I would use it too.

Yeah.

And you guys could use it right now.

All right, let's bring out these entrepreneurs.

So I'm gonna start with EarCart. My question for you is, this seems like a very obvious thing to do. I was thinking, well, maybe it's just not a high-quality hearing aid.

All the top 5 companies put together, nobody has the remote diagnostic facility. This is absolutely comparable, and on 2 counts better, especially the music streaming and the SoundUp noise reduction.

Trudi, very interesting. How do you convince us that this is not just a science project, but it is a business I'll answer this question by saying that the entire technology is designed to be affordable and globally scalable.

We understand that petroplastics are a huge problem and by extension a huge market.

And Lark AI, something I noticed which I often see in founders is one interrupting the other. And when that happens, it's kind of like you both want to be running the company. Show me how you respect each other and your decision process?

It is good to have disagreements which are constructive, but we've been there for 4 years. We've done 1 million happy customers, $1 million in revenue.

And BJ, what's the significance of the name Seven?

I'm glad you asked me that. So, you know, Apple is an inspiration, Apple Watch, 3 apples that have changed humanity. So, I mean, one is of course Steve Jobs' Apple as a company, so Newton's apple And then there's Adam and Eve's apple.

Yeah.

7 is an anagram for Steve, Eve, Newton. So it's S for Steve, Eve, and Newton.

2 of you will go on to the finale. Here's the hard part. Polly, you ready to go?

My 2 picks are 7 and Ircard. These guys, I, I fought for you to come up to the semifinals, and I think I did the right thing. And you were You're kind of a phenomenon today. So I'm very excited about both of you. You are an amazing person, Shruti, and I feel like you're gonna have huge success.

I'm so impressed with all 4 of your businesses. I'm seeing you guys use India's advantages really well. So my picks are Earcart and Seven. I'm not convinced about the second part. I think that's a very tough problem. It's a very messy coordination problem in an industry that hates change.

With Earcut, I love the problem you're solving. And I told him I have your ring problem as well. With Seven, obviously it's a phenomenal thing. I don't want to carry my phone. You know, women like rings.

It's all about marriages here. Okay, I'll quickly go through my analysis. We're just going to have to rely on the crystal ball. Seven, I'm I'm concerned that it commoditizes once you got all those customers.

Yeah.

This is going to be a short-term blip, but if somehow people become very loyal to their ring, you could end up with a really big business. Trudy, you're a genius. I know that. You've discovered something that could potentially make a huge impact on the world. Not much commercial traction just yet, but I think there's something here and I kind of feel like you need backing to get that going.

Yeah.

Lark AI, you guys did talk over each other. I was a little concerned about that. You're going after something interesting and different from Mohan. I actually like the AI. I'm not quite sure how this ends up in practice. I know there's going to be huge friction going into the hospitals. So your card. You got a really interesting product. You've clearly built a business. You're way beyond where a lot of these entrepreneurs are. But I tried the hearing aid and I was not impressed. And the service, there was no feedback on that service. Very concerned about the quality of the product and the service here. But the crystal ball has a mind of its own. Send your strongest vibes To this crystal ball. Oh, can you hear? Hear us, crystal ball. Is it a medical issue? Would you like us to ring? Ring. Something about a ring. Crystal ball, would you rather be made of a biodegradable plastic? Crystal ball says— They have an ear cart. You're both going forward.

Ecstatic, a true feeling. This is like a husband-wife combination.

The husband and wife, the diagnostic and the hearing aid, it should go together.

It's great. I've been meaning to visit the Valley. for a couple of years now, thanks to, you know, Meet the Drapers platform. Visit the Valley, meet some other investors, and also expose the product to the American community there.

I think you should vote for Terra BioWare because we're working really hard to ensure that we're building a technology that can really disrupt petroplastics. They affect all of us, they're inside all of us. There's only so many people really building a solution that can solve for this.

Life is so valuable that that if you give us a chance, we can take our technology to many more people. We've touched 1 million lives. Our goal is for all people to live healthy lives. That's something which is inbuilt in our promise and our technology.

See you next time on Meet the Drapers! All right!