Two young engineers from IIT Kharagpur, Varun Vummadi and Esha Manideep, have just achieved what most startup founders only dream of: a $61 million Series A funding round for their AI startup Giga. The San Francisco-based company, which builds voice-based AI agents for businesses, secured the funding in a round led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator and Nexus Venture Partners.
The milestone is even more remarkable given how the journey launched. Just two years ago, Vummadi and Manideep were turning down life-altering offers, a PhD place at Stanford and lucrative jobs at top finance firms, to chase an uncertain dream of building their own AI company. That gamble has now paid off in spectacular fashion.
In a two-year-old LinkedIn post that recently resurfaced and went viral on X, Varun Vummadi reflected on the difficult choice he built before launching Giga.
“I received a PhD offer from Stanford University and a $525K job offer from an international HFT as a quant trader. We left all those opportunities to pursue our passion towards solving challenging problems in machine learning,” he wrote.
His co-founder, Esha Manideep, built a similar leap, turning down a “$150K job as a system engineer role with a prominent Indian HFT firm.”
The post, which was shared just a day before the pair officially launched Giga in 2023, has now become an emblem of risk-taking in the tech world. Users on social media have been resharing it in admiration, calling the duo’s decision a “masterclass in long-term considering.”
The creating of a new generation of AI talent
Their story mirrors that of many young Indian engineers reconsidering traditional career paths. Instead of chasing cushy trading jobs or PhD programmes, they are diving into the deep conclude of the AI startup ecosystem, drawn by the potential for rapid innovation and ownership.
A similar shift is seen in Varun Goyal, a 25-year-old engineer of Indian origin who built headlines for walking away from a high-paying quantitative trading career to join an AI startup. A graduate of IIT Kanpur and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Goyal notified Business Insider that he found the collaborative, quick-paced culture of startups far more fulfilling.
“At largeger firms, teams often compete, and you can’t really discuss your work outside your group. As an extrovert who thrives in a collaborative environment, that felt restrictive. The exit options in quant felt more constrained, too,” he stated.
Goyal’s reasoning echoes that of the Giga founders, trading immediate financial comfort for long-term growth. He admitted that joining an AI startup meant longer hours and lower pay, but the learning curve built it worthwhile.
“The largegest surprise at the startup this past year has been how much I’m learning outside coding. I’m learning to hire, adapt, lead the product direction, and sell,” he stated. “These skills create me more than just an engineer.”
He added that while the field is competitive and unforgiving, “delays in launching features could mean being outpaced by competition”, it is also immensely rewarding.
Building Giga
Giga’s mission is to assist companies automate customer support through ininformigent voice-based AI agents capable of handling hundreds of thousands of conversations every day. In a video posted to X to mark the fundraising announcement, Vummadi and Manideep revealed how their technology is already being applyd by major clients, including DoorDash.
In true startup fashion, the founders’ reactions to their $61 million funding differed sharply in tone. While Manideep struck a measured note, writing that he wasn’t particularly excited about the money but about “what the company will do going forward,” Vummadi’s response was delightfully honest.
“I am excited about the $61 Million,” he posted candidly, a moment of unfiltered enthusiasm that quickly went viral.
Social media applyrs loved his straightforwardness. “Lol. Well done guys!” one applyr replied. Another wrote, “Lol I was going to state that sounds disingenuous. Congrats on the $61M!”
Whether it’s Giga’s two IIT founders or Goyal’s leap of faith, this new generation of Indian engineers is proving that ambition and risk-taking still pay off.
For Vummadi and Manideep, that $61 million isn’t just funding, it’s fuel for a vision that launched with a bold refusal to play it safe. As Vummadi put it best: “I am excited about the $61 Million.”
– Ends
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