'Products That Don't Use AI Or Machine Learning Will Die A Natural Death'

Manish Singhal says products that mine data intelligently will become market leaders and so, he’s investing in startups with a focus on AI, machine learning and IoT through his fund pi Ventures

- Varsha Meghani

In mid-2016, Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni, both entrepreneurs in previous avatars, set up pi Ventures to invest in early-stage startups that use Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to solve problems across a range of sectors. The $30-million (around ₹190 crore) fund, which announced its first close at $13 million in March this year and received another $3 million infusion from the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation in May, will look to invest in 18-20 startups in India over the next 3-4 years, according to Singhal. He speaks to Forbes India about his game plan. Edited excerpts:

Q What led you to set up a fund with a focus on AI, ML and IoT?

Our thinking at the start was simple. Data is becoming an integral part of every product. We realised that products of the future will be the ones that are able to utilise intelligence from data very well. Take the case of Facebook. When you use it, it picks up photographs, identifies people and gives you relevant content. Or when you use Google Maps, it is figuring out traffic patterns, where you should go, etc. So products which are using data intelligently will become market leaders.

And the best way to use intelligence in real time is through AI and ML. In conventional, rule based analytics, there are ‘if’ and ‘else’ kind of algorithms—if this happens, then what? But the grey areas that lie between a clear ‘no’ and a clear ‘yes’ are hard to make out. With AI and ML, which try to mimic human perception, the learnings are pattern based, so they do a much better job of plugging those gaps. Basically our initial insight was that data is going to be king, or the new oil as they say. And so, AI and ML form the right hand pump, if you will, to take out that oil.