NEXT UNICORN: Rahul Agarwal on Building India’s Most Ambitious Founder-to-Funding Platform

RASA Grouprsquos Founder and CEO Rahul Agarwal has built his own career on scaling businesses across very different sectors from real estate to wellness to automobiles With NEXT UNICORN hersquos turning that experience outward creating a platform that takes founders through business evaluation an international immersion at Chinarsquos Canton Fair and potential investment of up to 10 crore In this conversation Agarwal speaks about the gap in Indiarsquos startup ecosystem that inspired the platform how founders and businesses will be selected from a pool of 50006000 applicants and what he hopes NEXT UNICORN will ultimately mean for Indiarsquos entrepreneurial landscapeInputs by Rahul Agarwal Founder amp CEO Avani Infratech RASA Group1 What gap in Indiarsquos startup ecosystem inspired you to launch NEXT UNICORN and how is it different from existing accelerator and investment platformsMost platforms in this space are built around one thing at a time either you get mentorship or you get capital or you get market exposure rarely all three in one journey I kept meeting founders who had already proven their businesses worked they had traction they had customers but they were stuck exactly where I once was myself figuring out how to scale without the right guidance or accessThatrsquos really the gap NEXT UNICORN is built for It isnrsquot for someone with just an idea on a slide deck Itrsquos for founders already in the game who need three things at once sharper business evaluation real international exposure and potentially capital to back what theyrsquove already built Taking finalists to the Canton Fair in China is part of that itrsquos not a reward trip itrsquos meant to expose them to sourcing scale and market thinking most Indian founders never get access to this earlySo the difference isnrsquot really about being bigger or flashier than existing programmes Itrsquos about sequencing the right kind of support at the right stage evaluation global exposure and investment rather than offering founders just one piece and leaving them to figure out the rest on their own2 You have said that starting a business is often easier than scaling it Based on your entrepreneurial experience what are the biggest challenges founders face while moving from early traction to sustainable growthStarting up has a certain energy to it yoursquore solving one problem proving one idea works and that clarity keeps you moving Scaling is messier Suddenly yoursquore making decisions on product people capital and distribution all at once and getting any one of them wrong can undo the traction you worked so hard to buildHiring is usually where founders struggle first The instincts that helped you build something as a small scrappy team donrsquot automatically translate into building and trusting a larger organisation A lot of founders hold on too tightly and growth stalls because everything still runs through them personallyCapital discipline is another one Early traction can create pressure to raise or spend faster than the business is actually ready for and that mismatch causes real damage later And distribution figuring out how to reach customers beyond your first most obvious market is something founders often underestimate until they hit a wallNone of these problems are unusual Irsquove faced versions of all of them myself Whatrsquos often missing isnrsquot effort or ambition itrsquos someone whorsquos been through it before pointing out the blind spots early enough to actually matter3 What key criteria will be used to select the Top 30 founders and eventually the six finalists from approximately 5000ndash6000 applicantsWersquore really judging two things together the founder and the business but if I had to pick which one carries more weight itrsquos the founder A great market opportunity in the hands of the wrong founder rarely goes anywhere so thatrsquos always our starting point do we see someone with the clarity resilience and hunger to actually build this into something largerOnce thatrsquos established we move to the business itself and there are a few things we look at closely Market opportunity is one is this a space with genuine room to grow or a narrow saturated one Stage of the business matters too wersquore looking for founders whorsquove already moved past the idea stage and have something real running not just a plan on paperBeyond that we pay close attention to repeat and recurring customers because that tells us far more about whether people actually want whatrsquos being built than any pitch deck can And we look hard at the path to profitability not necessarily profitable today but a business with a credible thoughtthrough route to getting thereNone of these sit in isolation A founder whorsquos exceptional but hasnrsquot found traction yet or a business with strong numbers but a founder wersquore not convinced by both get weighed carefully rather than judged on one factor alone Itrsquos this combination founder first business fundamentals close behind that shapes who makes it through to the Top 30 and eventually the final six4 How will NEXT UNICORN ensure that promising founders from smaller cities and lessvisible sectors receive a fair opportunity during the selection processFairness here wasnrsquot left to chance it was built into how the selection panel approached the Top 30 from the outset Every business was evaluated against the same predefined criteria I just spoke about founder quality market opportunity traction and path to profitability applied consistently regardless of where a founder was based or how visible their sector already wasBeyond that consistency there was a deliberate thrust toward diversity in the final Top 30 we wanted businesses from genuinely varied industries represented not a shortlist that skewed toward whatever sectors happen to get the most attention or funding conversations today A founder solving a real problem in a less glamorous category deserved the same shot as one building in a space that naturally draws more buzzI think this matters more than people realise Indiarsquos startup energy isnrsquot concentrated in a handful of cities or a handful of trending sectors itrsquos far more distributed than the funding headlines usually suggest If NEXT UNICORN only surfaced founders from the usual places wersquod be missing a large part of what we actually set out to findSo the honest answer is we didnrsquot create a separate track or quota for smaller cities or overlooked sectors we simply made sure the evaluation itself stayed fair and consistent and let a deliberately diverse Top 30 emerge from that process rather than forcing it artificially5 Why was the Canton Fair in China chosen for the international business immersion and what practical outcomes do you expect the finalists to gain from this exposureThe Canton Fair isnrsquot a curated polished showcase itrsquos one of the largest trade exhibitions in the world real manufacturers real sourcing real scale all in one place That rawness is exactly why I wanted to take finalists there instead of a more conventional business tripMost Indian founders even ambitious ones havenrsquot seen global sourcing and manufacturing at that scale up close Walking through it changes how you think about your own supply chain your pricing and whatrsquos actually possible if you rethink how you source or manufacturePractically I expect finalists to come back with a sharper sense of where their business sits globally not just domestically Some will spot sourcing efficiencies they hadnrsquot considered Others will see product categories or manufacturing approaches that open up entirely new directions Itrsquos the kind of exposure thatrsquos very hard to replicate through mentorship sessions or case studies alone you genuinely have to stand on that floor to understand what it teaches you6 How will RASA Group help the finalists convert their learnings from China into tangible improvements in areas such as sourcing product development distribution and market expansionExposure on its own doesnrsquot create change itrsquos what happens after the trip that actually matters The China immersion is meant to be a starting point not a standalone experience which is why it sits inside a larger journey that includes business evaluation mentorship and potential investmentOnce finalists return the idea is to work through what they actually saw and identify whatrsquos realistically applicable to their business whether thatrsquos a sourcing relationship worth pursuing a product tweak worth testing or a distribution approach worth adapting to the Indian market Thatrsquos where RASArsquos own operating experience comes in wersquove built and scaled businesses across very different sectors ourselves and that execution experience is what we bring to helping founders translate an idea from the fair into something concrete in their own businessIt wonrsquot look identical for every founder a packaged food business and an automotive brand wonrsquot take the same lessons from Canton But the underlying approach stays consistent turn exposure into a specific actionable next step rather than letting it remain just a memorable trip7 The finalists may receive an investment of up to 10 crore What factors will determine which businesses receive investment and how much funding they are offeredThe 10 crore isnrsquot a fixed number every finalist automatically receives itrsquos a ceiling based on what we believe a business can genuinely absorb and put to productive use Scalability sits right at the centre of that decision whether we can see a credible path for this business to grow meaningfully larger than it is todayWersquoll also be looking closely at what the China exposure reveals about each founder how they process new information whether they can translate that exposure into real decisions for their business That combined with the fundamentals we assess through the Delhi Founder Experience business model traction team strength gives us a fuller picture than financials alone wouldFunding amounts will vary founder to founder because the businesses themselves are at different stages and need different levels of capital to scale responsibly Some may need less capital and more strategic guidance Others may need meaningful investment to move to their next phase The goal isnrsquot to write the largest possible cheque itrsquos to back businesses where we genuinely believe the capital will translate into real sustainable growth8 Beyond capital what mentorship strategic guidance and execution support will RASA Group provide to help the selected businesses scaleCapital is often the easiest part of this kind of programme to offer and honestly the least differentiated What I think matters more is what comes with it and thatrsquos execution experienceRASA itself operates across very different sectors real estate food wellness automobiles and each of those businesses has had to solve its own version of the scaling problem That gives us a fairly wide lens to draw from when a founder is dealing with a hiring challenge a distribution bottleneck or a decision about entering a new marketBeyond direct mentorship founders will get access to the broader RASA ecosystem itself whether thatrsquos operational knowhow categoryspecific insight or simply a sounding board from people whorsquove made similar decisions before and sometimes gotten them wrong The support is meant to be practical rather than theoretical less about frameworks and more about the specific decisions a founder is actually facing at their stage of growth9 Since the Delhi Founder Experience will be filmed how will you ensure that the programme remains a credible businessevaluation platform rather than becoming primarily an entertainment formatThe filming is a byproduct of the process not the reason for it The Delhi Founder Experience exists to evaluate real businesses understand what founders have built and figure out who deserves to move forward that evaluation would happen with or without cameras in the roomThat said Irsquom not naive about the fact that a filmed format creates its own pressures therersquos always a temptation to lean into drama over substance The way we guard against that is by keeping the actual evaluation criteria business fundamentals scalability founder capability separate from anything to do with how a segment might look on screen Founders are being assessed on their business not their performance for a cameraIf NEXT UNICORN is going to mean anything to the founders who go through it and to future applicants it has to hold up as a genuine evaluation process first The filmed element can make the foundersrsquo journeys visible to a wider audience but it canrsquot be allowed to influence who we actually choose to back10 How will you measure the success of NEXT UNICORNrsquos first season and what is your longterm vision for developing the platform in India and potentially beyondIn the short term success looks fairly concrete to me did the finalists walk away with real usable exposure from China and did we back businesses that go on to grow meaningfully over the next few years If a few years from now some of these founders have built genuinely larger more resilient businesses because of what they gained through this programme thatrsquos the clearest signal it workedLonger term Irsquod like NEXT UNICORN to become a recurring platform not a oneoff initiative something founders across India actively look forward to applying for each year RASA Group itself is aiming for a strong panIndia presence over the next three to five years and I see NEXT UNICORN as part of that same ambition discovering and backing the founders whorsquoll help build Indiarsquos next generation of significant businessesWhether it eventually extends beyond India is something Irsquod rather let the first couple of seasons prove out before committing to Right now the focus is on doing right by this first batch of founders and making sure the model genuinely works before we think about scaling the platform itself

NEXT UNICORN: Rahul Agarwal on Building India’s Most Ambitious Founder-to-Funding Platform

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NEXT UNICORN: Rahul Agarwal on Building India’s Most Ambitious Founder-to-Funding Platform

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