Two young engineers from IIT Kharagpur, Varun Vummadi and Isha Manideep, have 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 creates voice-based AI agents for businesses, secured funding in a round led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator and Nexus Venture Partners.

This milestone is even more remarkable considering how the journey began. Just two years ago, Vummadi and Manideep were turning down life-changing offers, a PhD place at Stanford, and lucrative jobs at top finance companies, to pursue the uncertain dream of building their own AI company. That gamble has now paid off spectacularly.

In a two-year-old LinkedIn post that recently resurfaced and went viral on X, Varun Vummadi reflected on the tough choice he made 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 passed up all those opportunities to pursue my passion for solving challenging problems in machine learning,” he wrote.

Their co-founder, Isha Manideep, took a similar leap, turning down “a $150K job as a systems engineer at a leading Indian HFT firm.”

The post, which the pair shared just a day before Giga officially launches in 2023, has now become an icon of risk-taking in the tech world. Users on social media are re-sharing it in praise, calling the duo’s decision a “masterclass in long-term thinking.”

Building a new generation of AI talents

His story reflects that of many young Indian engineers who are rethinking traditional career paths. Instead of pursuing cushy business jobs or PhD programs, they are increasingly diving into the deep end of the AI ​​startup ecosystem, drawn by the potential for rapid innovation and ownership.

A similar change has been seen in Varun Goyal, a 25-year-old Indian-origin engineer who made 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 told Business Insider that he finds the collaborative, fast-paced culture of startups much more gratifying.

“In larger companies, teams often compete, and you can’t really discuss your work outside your group. As an extrovert who thrives in a collaborative environment, that feels restrictive. Exit options in quant also feel more constrained,” he said.

Goyal’s argument matches that of giga founders, who trade immediate financial comfort for long-term growth. He admitted that joining an AI startup meant long hours and low pay, but the learning process made it worthwhile.

“The biggest surprise at the startup this past year has been how much I’m learning external coding. I’m learning how to hire, optimize, lead product direction, and sell,” he said. “These skills make me much more than just an engineer.”

He said that although the sector is competitive and unforgiving, “delays in launching features can mean being overtaken by the competition”, it is also extremely profitable.

construction of giga

Giga’s mission is to help companies automate customer support through intelligent voice-based AI agents that are capable of handling hundreds of thousands of conversations every day. In a video posted on X to mark the fundraising announcement, Vummadi and Manideep revealed how their technology is already being used by major customers including DoorDash.

In true startup fashion, founders’ reactions to the $61 million funding varied greatly in tone. While Manideep struck a measured note, writing that he wasn’t particularly excited about the money but rather about “what the company will do going forward”, Vummadi’s response was brutally honest.

“I’m excited about $61 million,” he candidly posted, a moment of unfiltered excitement that instantly went viral.

Social media users liked his straightforwardness very much. “Laugh. Well done guys!” One user replied. Another wrote, “Haha, I was going to say this sounds fraudulent. Congratulations on the $61M!”

Be it 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 started with the courage to refuse to play it safe. As Vummadi said it best: “I’m excited about $61 million.”