Money Alone Won’t Fix India’s AI Talent Flight: Lightspeed’s Hemant Mohapatra

Lightspeed India partner Hemant Mohapatra believes India's AI talent demand supply gap may be widening but capital alone won't fix the issue and structural changes are called for

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Lightspeed India partner Hemant Mohapatra isn’t sugarcoating India’s AI talent crisis. 

Despite the momentum building up for Make In India use cases for the AI ecosystem, reports of Indian founders, students moving their bases to the US to get closer access to markets, capital and enterprises building native models keep surfacing.

Mohapatra, who led Lightspeed’s important investment in Sarvam AI during its Series A $43 Mn funding round in 2023 acknowledged that for the founders of AI startups wanting to build from India, the journey isn’t smooth.

“Look, it’s a tough journey. You’ve got to create an ecosystem that doesn’t exist,” he said in a recent interview with Inc42. 

“You can’t push it under the rug saying you know what, it’s all great, we got all the talent in the world.’ No, they’re not here. They are born and brought up here and then they do their PhDs in the US.” 

“You can’t push it under the rug saying you know what, it’s all great, we got all the talent in the world.’ No, they’re not here. They are born and brought up here and then they do their PhDs in the US.” 

The exodus of tech........

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