
VC with a heart @BlumeVentures. Love how new tech can change industries and behavior. Always puts founders first. Rookie birder. Co-founder @Headstarters
Bengaluru, India
Joined March 2008
- Tweets19.7K
- Following1.8K
- Followers20.3K
- Likes11.8K
Killer performance... public markets, stay tuned!!
1. Started playing in non-competitive territory (read: new corridors), it was hard but paid off; built from scratch new destinations & got to market leadership there, @leverageedu now not just a winner but the only platform operating 360-degree across a bunch of new options
2. Massive AI-fication of business. For universities and agent partners last year. Now doing it for 2C customers, hospital partners et al @leveragecareers ++ the most exciting stuff is what we are building in-house for our teams @leverageedu to do better. AI analysis after every single counselling available to our Coaches now, like a Partner that makes you do better, every day and every moment. Lot lot lot to do here.
3. Brand caught up. Referrals caught up. Many years of work here. CACs saw decline. But we still prominent only in a few markets, 95% still fragmented and local peers do a better job.
4. Attachment rates of financial services and housing and insurance and other ancillary services went up, > leading to much better LTV on the same cost base, while also improving NPS. More productisation to do here. Not even halfway there.
The past 6 months / this FY, have seen us:
- focus 10x more on tech, LE-AI (our AI suite) starting to come into its own, right now interacting with P&L row by row; Vasu & Anna, agents at @leverageedu & @leveragecareers, are senior members of the exec team
- focus 100x more on customer experience; building new categories, new destinations / corridors in our case, is very hard, as a marketplace, with Universities, Housing Providers, Banks, and even Sovereign Bodies on the other sides, negotiating with them, learning how they work across thousand of nuances, hard but once you do it >> big moat
- efficiency on marketing; come to our HQ and you will see 100s of ad creatives x copies splattered all over, we experiment SO MUCH, mad effort here, that CPQL >>> is v imp to us; when we made significant wins, we pass a lot back to the customer
- deep meaningful enterprise relationships, hard-won trust, now we are launching / co-creating programs of tomorrow with Universities around the world
- get much better on our cash cycles, creating delight here is very important to us, the path to improving FCF will help
- people; we are going through a period where we double down on folks that have given @leverageedu everything, have hard conversations with others where necessary, & also bring to the floor new senior talent that knows a bunch of stuff better than all of us
- experimenting with some new GTMs, some new TAMs, early days but it’s keeping the nights busy!
Right at the starting line.
ONLY BEGUN.
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
From “What have you built?” to “Where can this work for the industry?”—that is where meaningful industry–startup collaboration begins. 🤝
Mr. K. P. Sharma, VP – Global CS&Q Power Systems and Services, Schneider Electric and Industry Mentor, ASSOCHAM National Startup Council, joined Mr. Manveen Chadha, Additional Director – Startups, ASSOCHAM, in visiting Vecmocon Technologies Pvt. Ltd. to understand its solutions and explore where they could create value for industry through B2B engagement, technology adoption, and co-innovation. 🚀
ASSOCHAM is creating structured opportunities for startups to engage directly with industry leaders, understand real business needs and explore pathways to adoption, collaboration and scale. 📈
#ASSOCHAM #IndustryConnect #IndustryMentor #Sherpa #MarketAccess #CorporateInnovation #CoInnovation #StartupGrowth #Startups #Innovation #Industry #IndiaInc
@vecmocon @theISFnetwork @arpiit @BlumeVentures @InnovationByMS @ambishhh @ManveenCh
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Looking for ex-founders (both junior / senior roles) to join us on building @STAGEdotin - the future of AI-native entertainment for the world. DM me and let's get on a call. RT pls.
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
This is the crate everyone came out to watch being opened.
Inside it, a ZEISS coordinate measuring machine. Granite base, a bridge that travels across it, and, from now on, the final word on whether anything we make is right.
Metrology runs on a rule of ten. The instrument doing the checking has to resolve about ten times finer than the tolerance it checks. Ten times finer is what separates passed from close.
Every machinist here now has something harder to satisfy. Nobody seems to mind.
We built the machines that cut. We bought the one that judges.
The red braces are still on. When they come off, we will show you the first part it measures.
#Metrology #PrecisionEngineering
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Congratulations to @tarukapoor, @rajatsahni, and the whole Rivet team on launching in the US today!
We've watched this team build something genuinely different from day one, a fresh take on dating and connection for the AI era.
Rivet's Social Matching is built on something we already do naturally: asking friends what they think, sending profiles to the group chat, playing matchmaker for people we know. Rivet turned that instinct into the product itself.
So excited to be part of this journey!
@BKartRed @sanjaynath @AshishFafadia @sajithpai @arpiit @vikramg05 @saritaraichu @mehtaalok @mitul_am @riashroff @_sairamkrishnan @gauthamsiv @RinushreeS @mar_kodi
Today, Rivet @rivetdating launches across U.S. Backed by $10.5M Seed from @peakxvpartners, @shinecapital , @BlumeVentures, @elieseid. Rivet is a dating network built on Social Matching, our unique approach where real people help each other find love and connection.
Truly exciting to see this thesis in detail. This is exactly what it takes for a globally competitive brand to emerge from India, as opposed to all past efforts. Wishing them luck.
Our attempt in this direction has been iDo Devices, an ODM for wearable. Still early days there...
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Day 1693: The irony of #Bitcoin —
The banks that warned you against it are now buying it.
The governments that banned it are now holding it.
The media that called it dead is now covering its rise.
Everyone who fought it is quietly joining it.
#IndiaWantsBitcoin
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Ethereal Machines raised $28.5 million in June and the line that matters isn't the number. They're building an indigenous multi-axis CNC controller.
Walk any Indian shop. The casting can be Indian. The spindle, the ways, the ballscrews, all Indian now.
The control is Fanuc, Siemens, Mitsubishi or Heidenhain. Almost every time.
We've learned to build the body, the shell, the mechanical components and we still import the nervous system.
That's the part of the import bill nobody puts on a slide.
Ethereal might just change the game!
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Hiring a social media manager and content producer for my team at @BlumeVentures. This is a start-of-career role, and the upper limit is 3-4 years of work ex.
You'll own our LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube, set the strategy, sit in on shoots, make the edits, even build new formats from scratch.
If you've got taste, have strong ideas, are confident, and enjoy working from first principles, please DM me your CV here, or at [email protected].
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
My favourite festival with my favourite tech reporter @ashleevance
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Field Station / Rajasthan is open for applications.
One week. A regenerative living project in Rajasthan. Scientists, engineers, cryptographers, and developers building the parallel with @Logos_network and @ZuGramadotorg.
Apply here: logos.co/field-station/
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Dear @TimDraper please accept our deepest condolences on Bill's passing away.
You've been one of our supporters from almost Day One, and we're aware of the larger-than-life role Bill played in shaping not just yours but the lives of many of the valley's successful VCs and founders/ceos, as well as all the investors within the Draper clan.
In this solemn moment of reflection and remembrance, I was able to pull out a very special picture taken many years ago in Silicon Valley, where I was fortunate to stand alongside Bill. His intellect, statesman-esque persona, charisma as well his humility stood out.
Bill will no doubt be missed first and foremost by the Draper family, but also - as you rightly say - by all the people whose lives he touched across Silicon Valley, and across the world.
On behalf of the @BlumeVentures family, our deepest thoughts and prayers to the Draper family 🙏
@BKartRed @AshishFafadia
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Factory 2 coming soon.
3× the size of Factory 1.
More machines. More capacity. More square feet dedicated to building India’s sovereign manufacturing capability. 🇮🇳
@etherealmachine
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Six years ago today, Unacademy became a unicorn. Today, Unacademy has closed its acquisition by UpGrad for just over $200M. We raised at a peak, but sold at a fraction of that. I'm not going to dress these facts up. But I am proud of what this team did between those two numbers.
When @RomanSaini and I started Unacademy with @hemezh and @sumjain, the mission was to democratise education. We didn't end up capturing all the economic value of that mission. But we changed what online education looks like in this country, and the products we built became the template for the entire sector.
Unacademy's free platform created a generation of celebrity educators. Educators are a cornerstone of any economy, and they should be celebrated, and our platform enabled that in our country. Their YouTube videos crossed 10 billion views. That's a milestone I am proud of. Airlearn, in under two years, became one of the top 3 most downloaded language learning apps in the world. We always wanted to build a global consumer product out of India. We did.
With a topline of around 400 crores, most businesses profitable or near-profitable, and 900 crores in the bank, we had every option to keep going independently. Nobody was forcing this. But sometimes, you are drawn towards a path that is more exciting than the one that makes you more money.
After meeting Ronnie over the years, understanding what he's built with UpGrad in higher education, and getting inspired by his vision for education in India (and more), I always walked away with the thought that it would be fantastic to work with him. And because there was no pressure of running out of money, we could take the time to actually think it through. The more we did, the clearer it got: this is a better path for the ecosystem, not just for us.
I'm looking forward to the path ahead, and I am very sure that our shareholders will create immense value from the merger hereon. My heartfelt thanks to every employee who stayed when it would have been easier to leave. To everyone who worked with us in the past. To our educators. To our investors. To my co-founders. We did four ESOP buybacks that created real value for our employees, even though the founders and investors didn't create much for themselves in the process.
A special note to a few people without whom I would have personally given up when things got really hard: Shailendra Singh, Deepinder Goyal, Bhavin Turakhia, Sujeet Kumar, Bhavish Aggarwal, Aakrit Vaish, Mukul Arora, Shantanu Rastogi and Karthik Reddy.
Also a huge shoutout to family and friends. And most importantly, my wife Reema, and my co-founder and close friend of almost 20 years, Roman. Thanks for sticking around during my lowest and my cockiest moments. You two make me better 🌞
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
It was super energising to meet with the Honourable Prime Minister @narendramodi ji today and talk about @PixxelSpace and our growth alongside the growth of the private space sector in the country.
India has always had the talent and ambition to be one of the great spacefaring nations of the world - and we are now entering an era where that ambition can translate into companies, technologies and infrastructure built in India for the world.
At Pixxel, we have been fortunate to see this transformation firsthand - from building our first satellite as students to now building and operating a commercial constellation and some of the most advanced space technology being built anywhere in the world. Transformation enabled by this government and the Prime Minister.
Grateful for the Prime Minister’s encouragement and his continued belief in India’s entrepreneurs and private space ecosystem.
There is a tremendous amount left to build. We are only getting started. Inspired and raring to go after the interaction. 🇮🇳🚀
Thanks also to @INSPACeIND @GoenkaPk for helping set this up as part of National Space Day Celebrations #NSpD2026
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Recently spoke to @shubhamknitt on all things talent + AI agents! :)
Full episode dropping soon.
It was lovely to speak with you Menaka. Thank you for patiently listening to our story of deeptech in India over last 20+ years.
@BlumeVentures
India is at an interesting juncture in its deep-tech journey, where money is looking for scale and scale is waiting for money.
If the US is a 10 on the deep-tech scale, @arpiit of Blume Ventures puts India at perhaps “three, four” — and warns the scale is logarithmic, “so it will be harder with every step.”
Read 👇
bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Left - From China.
Right - In India, from @etherealmachine + Lots more rows to come soon.
Every CNC machine is a bet on industrial capability. Enough of those bets, and you don't just build products. Your nation becomes one to fear.
Arpit Agarwal retweeted
Beyond Build vs Buy: Is there a third path to enterprise innovation?
For years, enterprises have approached innovation through two familiar choices: build in-house or buy off-the-shelf solutions. But what if the greatest competitive advantage lies in co-innovating with startups?
Join us for Episode 02 of Innovation Speaks Many Languages, ASSOCHAM's Corporate–Startup Collaboration Series, as we explore "Beyond Build vs Buy: The Co-Innovation Edge."
Featuring:
🎙️ Jimmi James – Enterprise AI Transformation Leader | Venture Builder | Investor
🎙️ Gautham Sivaramakrishnan – Vice President, Market Networks, Blume Ventures
Together, they will unpack:
✔️ Why many innovation pilots fail—and how to prevent it
✔️ The emerging "third path" of co-innovation
✔️ Practical frameworks for building successful enterprise–startup partnerships
✔️ How leading organisations move from pilots to measurable business impact
Friday, 21 August 2026 | 2:00 PM IST | Interactive Zoom Discussion
If you're a CXO, Innovation Leader, Digital Transformation Leader, Corporate Venture Team, or decision-maker shaping the future of enterprise innovation, we look forward to having you join the conversation.
Register now: lnkd.in/ggxNJV4q
@BlumeVentures | @arpiit | @InnovationByMS |
@ambishhh | @ManveenCh
#ASSOCHAM #InnovationSpeaksManyLanguages #CorporateInnovation #OpenInnovation #CoInnovation #EnterpriseInnovation #DigitalTransformation #StartupEcosystem #StartupIndia #CorporateVenturing




































