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Amit Gaiki and Flam AI: An AI-Native Content Engine That Found Real Revenue by Fixing One Problem
15 Plays1 day ago
How did Amit Gaiki pivot Flam AI from a failing consumer app to a $10M ARR mixed reality advertising platform used by Samsung and Google?
In this episode, we unpack the survival playbook behind one of India's most innovative adtech startups. Amit Gaiki is the Co-founder and CTO of Flam AI, a mixed reality startup that's redefining how brands create interactive advertising experiences. Fresh out of college, Amit and his co-founders set out to build "the next TikTok" for 3D content. When the 2022-23 funding winter hit, they had just 10 months of runway left. Instead of burning out, they pivoted to B2B, solving the one problem that killed every AR advertising platform before them: friction. Their "no app, no browser" technology lets users scan a QR code and instantly experience high-fidelity 3D content. Today, Flam AI powers campaigns for Samsung, Google, ICICI Bank, and Dabur, and has raised $22 million including a $14 million Series A.
In this candid conversation with host Akshay Datt, Amit shares the pivot that saved the company, why video ads are becoming obsolete, and what really comes after the smartphone era.
What you'll learn in this episode:
👉 How Flam AI pivoted from consumer app to $10M ARR B2B platform with 10 months of runway
👉 The technical breakthrough that fixed AR advertising's biggest problem
👉 Why Samsung and Google chose Flam AI for their flagship product launches •
👉Amit's thesis on why interactive 3D content is the next evolution after video •
👉The agency distribution hack that drives Flam AI's enterprise growth •
👉Why glasses might replace phones, but not anytime soon
#AmitGaiki #MixedReality #ARAdvertising #StartupPivot #FundingWinter #AdTechIndia #InteractiveAds #SeriesAFunding #B2BStartup #StartupIndia #AugmentedReality #MRAdvertising #SamsungAds #GoogleAds #StartupSurvival #IndianStartups #FounderStory #AdTechStartup #QRCodeMarketing #3DAdvertising #FounderThesis
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Transcript
Introduction to Flam and Mixed Reality
00:00:00
Speaker
ah Hi, i am Amit. I am a CTO at Flam. ah I started this company with my friends from college. ah So we are building a mixed reality stack for enterprises. ah Like Altec allows enterprises to create and publish content which is beyond videos. It is more interactive and engaging content.
00:00:20
Speaker
So has found a good PMF and advertising space. So a lot of brands ah use Flam to ah power their ads, which are like traditional ads, like newspaper ads or out of formats and also digital ads on Instagram and ah ah like everywhere they can. So it's something which can ah boost your current marketing stack and give you access to mixed reality, which can engage your users very effectively.
Journey to Product Market Fit and Mixed Reality Explanation
00:00:50
Speaker
I'm going to go ahead get some more of the stuff I've been doing.
00:00:57
Speaker
Amit, welcome to the Founder Thesis podcast. ah You are the co-founder and CTO of Flam, which is a mixed reality ah business. You've had an interesting journey of finding product market fit. Let's start with that. ah What was the origin story of Flam? What did you start with? What was version one? Take me through the journey a little bit.
00:01:22
Speaker
Okay. um So yeah, he started his company with a vision to bring mixed reality to the users. Okay. So obviously the first version we are like right out of the college, very excited to build something. First, why don't we define what is mixed reality?
00:01:39
Speaker
Okay, so mixed reality is something ah which is one level beyond videos you can as assume. So essentially it's content which is playing in your physical space.
00:01:51
Speaker
So when you are watching videos, you are basically into digital space. It does no ah like interaction or ah interfacing with your physical medium. But in mixed reality, ah first thing is that you have to use your camera interface because camera is the ah like your device's way to see the world, right?
00:02:12
Speaker
So it plays on camera and then you place content in your real world. So it is basically a coalescence between the ah real environment and digital environment. so I think the the simplest way to describe this is like a filter on Instagram. Like you have those filters which put sunglasses on your face.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yes, yes. So that is one of the basic use cases. So, ah and another thing about mixed reality is that it's 3D in nature. So whatever content you consume on your devices, it's two dimensional because it's just a screen. But the moment you open camera interface, it becomes 3D.
00:02:51
Speaker
So every content can be three dimensional, like you see real world around you, which is 3D. The content that you see in digital space can also be 3D with mixed reality interface.
00:03:02
Speaker
And also it is interactive.
Devices and the State of Mixed Reality
00:03:04
Speaker
So it interacts with the user. It interacts with the surroundings as well. So ah that's the thing about it. So it is much more engaging than any other form of content.
00:03:15
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Got it. So like the Apple Vision Pro is a like the the most expensive mixed reality hardware around. And then you have the... Ray-Ban glasses from Meta slash Facebook. Yes. So how they would interact is like Apple Vision Pro will actually put a window in your room.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yes. you are Within your room, you can have windows or objects which are digital, but you are seeing them inside your room that is in front of you. Yes. Or like avatar, like you ah are speaking to somebody and that person is actually an avatar, not a real person, but it feels like they are standing in front of you as you are speaking to them. So yeah so so these are like mixed reality, mass market mixed reality use cases.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yes. So they are not yet mass market, but yeah. Yeah. True, true, true. Not yet mass market. yeah Yeah. I think that Vision Pro is $3,000 or something like that. in yeah Yes. And also ah it's like, if you see the tech behind it, it's more focused for virtual reality, like VR.
00:04:21
Speaker
So the use cases of it being in your physical environment are less prominent on those devices. So when you wear are those like even like Meta Quest or Vision Pro, you are actually cut off from the world. So you are entering into a new world. So ah obviously it has cameras and it can take you into mixed reality, which is like interacting with your physical environment around you. But the devices are not meant for that use case per se.
00:04:48
Speaker
ah The Ray-Ban glasses, they are the ones ah which are meant for that, where everything is happening in your physical world and you can see the digital objects interacting with the physical environment.
00:05:00
Speaker
So, you and your co-founder wanted to build mixed reality. Why is that? um A lot of people are excited by VR virtual reality because there are so many use cases, gaming, whatever, like education and so on and so forth. And of course, there is so much of science fiction content that you see around being in VR worlds, etc. ah Why would a bunch of 20 year olds or something like that, I guess you must have been, get interested into mixed reality, which is not something that people dream about at that age?
Flam's Vision for Interactive Content
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah. So, ah mixed reality is not something which we wanted to build. We just landed into mixed reality. So we wanted to build more engaging and interactive content. So the idea is like content on internet has evolved since like past two decades. So first when internet came about, it was all text content, like text chats, everything, websites were static.
00:05:59
Speaker
Everything was around text. Then we transitioned into images. So internet became image heavy. You had like apps like Facebook, Instagram, they took over and the content was all images. Then it was all videos with TikTok, Reels and all coming up. So obviously it has to evolve into something better. So we thought like interactive content is the way forward. Now, if it has to be interactive, ah then you have ah like, you can build it in virtual reality, which is like games and all that you mentioned, which are, we are focused, but they don't appeal to
00:06:33
Speaker
let's say all segments of users like gaming is limited to a few people who are like very passionate about gaming and it's like a cult kind of product if you build games but if you build something which is ah content heavy and if you can build ah interactive content so then it can have a mass appeal like Instagram or TikTok so That was the vision to build something which everyone like you and me can consume and create content on.
00:07:00
Speaker
right And then the most ah effective way to do it came out to be a Mixed Reality, which is like interactive camera. Because people are used to using camera as a content creation device. Like you shoot videos and photos, but you don't use it as a consumption device. So that's a bit of a habit change, but it gives you access to lot more engaging content.
00:07:22
Speaker
What was the original ah thesis that you wanted to create something for creators to use to create content? Or you wanted to, what what did you want to do? Like, what do you want to build? And you've raised the seed round on that thesis. So you must have basically building more interactive content. So like you ah watch videos, ah you can watch content in your 3D space around you, which is interactive in nature, right? So that's the whole thesis. Now it requires creation side as well. right So someone has to create that content. So first of all, someone has to create a platform where consumption of this content is ah very lucid. Like you can scroll videos all day. So have to build an interface which is very lucid for the users to use.
00:08:06
Speaker
then someone has to publish content on that interface. ah So and then someone has to create that content. So it's it all goes hand in hand. But ah like the end goal is to make the consumers use the interface and like watch 3D content instead of the videos that they are used to.
00:08:24
Speaker
So you raised the seed fund in 2021. Tell
Early Development and Market Entry
00:08:28
Speaker
me about that. Like what was your pitch at that time? Did you have a demo product to show? What was your story that you wanted to build? ah Tell me about that.
00:08:36
Speaker
We are building, focusing on mixed reality, day interactive content, and we want to build ah the next consumer app for that. Like, ah We saw how Instagram took off ah for images, how TikTok took off for videos. So we wanted to build something like that in mixed reality where consumers can, you know, ah billions of consumers are consuming mixed reality content.
00:08:58
Speaker
Right. So that was the entire ecosystem that we wanted to build. We wanted to build in consumer space. So that was like something which was exciting for the investors. So at that time, ah Snapchat was, I think, the only app which had some mixed reality components to it.
00:09:13
Speaker
So, ah and also like Snapchat was not as big as ah Facebook at that point of time, it still not is. So ah we were trying to build and also it was like, that was an app which we ah took for a reference of what Mixed Reality was back then in 2021. So it had just face filters, nothing else, right? So mixed reality can be much more than that. ah Not just using your front camera, but also using your back camera to interact with your surroundings. So there were a few apps like Kokimon Go, ah which had those components, but they were not into content creation, right content creation and content consumption. So there we saw that white space that we can build something here.
00:09:56
Speaker
And that was our initial pitch to the investors, like that's the ecosystem that we want to build. You had a working prototype to show them? ah Yes, we already had a consumer app. ah so it ah So we had like ah a system to build your avatars, to build ah something with motion capture, our own motion capture technology. So all those things we had in place, that was like the initial build that we had.
00:10:24
Speaker
so um yeah So, when we went out for raising, we already had an app, ah we had a user base which was sticky um and that was the basis to double down on this.
00:10:36
Speaker
So, ah how like people could using the app create 3d content which others could consume there were multiple use cases to this so first thing was that uh if you had your photos which were like printed photos uh you can add like interactive content on those photos like most easy and simple one is video so you can have photos you can scan the photos with our camera app and the photos can ah be moving objects and interactive objects. right So that was a very simple use case. So ah
Pivot to Business Solutions
00:11:11
Speaker
we built a consumer app to support that. Then we had avatar system where you can create your own avatar and use any of video from online sources to do motion capture and animate that avatar. So you can basically create your own content in your 3D space using avatars as like evervadas and all digital objects. So that was another use case. So we kept on building use cases like this for consumers to experience mixed reality, which was not just face filters or something, but which you can actually use in your environment.
00:11:49
Speaker
So, like those products already had some traction in the market. So that's when we yeah we raised some money to, you know, double down on those use case. And this was pre-generative AI videos.
00:12:02
Speaker
Generative AI, yeah, yeah. So like generative AI, like the first use case that we saw was ChatGPT. So that came about in 22, like I guess, early 22. Mm-hmm.
00:12:15
Speaker
And after that, ah like Generative AI took off. So this was all before that, like 2021. It sounds like it must have been primitive because without Generative AI, if you want to have someone scan a picture and then make that picture into a video.
00:12:32
Speaker
i mean, today, Generative AI does such an excellent job of it. yes You cannot believe it was not originally a video. But yeah at that time, I'm not sure how good it would have been. for someone to scan a picture and see that other videos. It was not focused on AI. It was focused on delivering ah immersive experience to the user. So the videos need not be ah created by AI. are The videos you can upload, like create the videos of those moments. So it was a very um like personalized product. So let's say you have some videos which you have shot on your vacation or on your birthdays.
00:13:09
Speaker
So you can preserve those memories and you can use mixed reality to you know experience that again. so that okay right So it was around that. So AI didn't play a big role at that point. Like Generative AI, obviously we had a lot of AI ah in our stack for image tracking and everything, which still is the case.
00:13:27
Speaker
but yeah When did you realize this app is going be running? you know, that you need to pivot. Yeah, yeah. So ah more than the app nature, nearly it was the ecosystem. Like in 2021, it was very ah good environment for getting funded. But then things changed 2022, 23, and we So ah consumer apps, if you want to build, ah you need a very different kind of mindset ah to build them, to scale them. right So you can't talk about ah generating revenue until you have X million users or stick-ins or The metrics are very different, right? So it was not very conducive for us to build it. And especially ah something which was ah not a very um established use case. So let's say if you are building an app in videos, you could have scaled it, raised funding because everyone knows how videos work. So it was not...
00:14:24
Speaker
ah something which was, um what you can say, ah new kind of ecosystem or something which didn't exist. was It was riskier bet for a VC to take.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yes, yes. So, ah yeah, so it was like creating a new market. So that is always a hard problem. So without having a good, um like, cash flow or backing, ah you can't really do that, like building an ecosystem. So that's when we realized that ah we need to pivot this into a business facing entity.
00:14:58
Speaker
And ah like, build the ecosystem first. So consumers will follow, but you have to build an ecosystem first. And the consumer is not the best place to do that. ah Probably empowering businesses to, you know, ah drive value from this platform is something which we can explore. So that's when we started exploring um the current version of the app that is.
00:15:22
Speaker
And like how much runway did you have when you figured out that you're not going to be able to raise more money and you need to find paying customers soon? About 10 months.
00:15:34
Speaker
okay yeah Okay. Okay. Okay. So you were fairly... ah Prudent, like a lot of founders have the curse of being very optimistic, that you know ah that that excessive optimism that I will manage to raise the next round. Okay, that's pretty good. um So ah then when you decided, okay, you need paying customers, what was your pitch to businesses?
00:15:59
Speaker
Okay, so ah first thing that was different was when it's a consumer play, ah we had app on Play Store, App Store. So consumers were downloading the app and creating the content. But when you are pitching to businesses ah for an advertising use case in mixed reality, you can't expect them to build this when there is an app download required. So users are not going to download app for watching mixed reality content which is essentially an ad right so they will use it for their own use case ah if they want to ah like watch their own personalized content then that makes sense otherwise it's not going to happen so that was again ah that was the white space in advertising part so mixed reality and advertising didn't pick up
00:16:45
Speaker
because it had a lot of friction, right? So the first thing that we realized is that we have to solve that friction. ah Otherwise, this is not going to pick up. So the only other way before Flam was to have a web interface, which is like mixed reality opening in browser, browsers opening your camera.
00:17:04
Speaker
And there's like you build image tracking or ground tracking, air tracking, everything on browser, and then render content on that, right? So that was also not a very good interface, primarily because of limitations on browsers. So you don't get enough resources on your phone browsers to have all these computationally heavy tasks running for you. right So that's when we realized that we have to build something from scratch um and build an interface which is like not a browser, not an app.
00:17:37
Speaker
So fortunately, like Google and Apple ecosystems, ah they supported us with this use case. So we were able to build appless ecosystem which is basically one click installation of our MR bundle onto the user's phone.
Advertising Innovations and User Experience
00:17:54
Speaker
So ah what changed was that when you want to interact with mixed reality content, you don't need an explicit app download. You can just scan a QR code or click on a Flam link and the bundle gets installed and the camera opens up directly in one click. So that was something which changed the game completely.
00:18:15
Speaker
So you are saying that it is neither an app nor on the browser. Can you tell me, yeah ah like when I scan a QR code on a newspaper ad, what happens? How does it work? Okay, so ah when you scan any QR code, so basically it installs Flam's Mixed Reality Bundle onto your phone seamlessly. So it doesn't require you to go to Play Store to install anything.
00:18:39
Speaker
All this process happens very seamlessly and it opens the Flam camera so that you can start ah watching content ah on the camera interface. So, going from like scanning a QR or clicking a link to Flams interface is just one click for the user.
00:18:55
Speaker
So it simplifies a lot of things. It like removes friction from the system. And since this bundle is running natively on your phone without a browser, ah we have access to lot more resources than the browser scan. So the experience is very smooth. ah You can render very high quality content.
00:19:13
Speaker
and have a very good FPS. So the content is very engaging in that way. So it essentially solves the problem ah which browsers or app have like app in app if you see the performance is very good but accessibility is very low ah versus browsers where accessibility is high but the performance is very low. So we get the best of both the worlds by using this interface.
00:19:38
Speaker
ah You said FPS, which is normally used for video, but from what I understand, there is some let's say a phone. So that phone will be in 3D and you can probably move your camera to see the sides of the phone, etc. Where is the FPS coming in over here? so It also affects your camera ah speed, right? So whatever your camera is seeing, if that is rendered at lower FPS, ah you can see jitters in the camera. So you can experience that in some phones, like low-end phones. If you have too many apps running in the background, you'll see camera jittering, right? So that's where FPS comes into play.
00:20:14
Speaker
So if you have... ah like good hardware acceleration, access to all resources on the phone, ah you can basically ah work around with that. So, it's not... So, in a way, the FLAM camera is a... Like a real-time live stream almost.
00:20:28
Speaker
Like it's capturing. and From your physical environment and playing content, which is interpolating with that environment. Right, right, right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Interesting. And ah when I scan a QR code, I can point my phone anywhere else in the room or I point it on that newspaper ad, which I see.
00:20:46
Speaker
So it depends on the kind of experience that you have we have built, like the brand has built. So if it requires you to keep scanning the ah like newspaper, then it's a different kind of experience, which is like, we call it image tracking experience. So ah you're tracking the image continuously and that is your anchor point. So all the experiences around that image.
00:21:06
Speaker
But if you want it to be free flowing in your room or in your like pin to a wall or air, ah you can build all those things as
Brand Partnerships and Real-World Applications
00:21:14
Speaker
well. So the point is like it is anchored to some anchor point which can be in your room or on the image and then there is content which is playing which is 3D in nature. So those are the two components which the brands play around and build experiences. ah Give me examples of both, like where it is anchored to the newspaper ad versus where I can point it to. me So ah let's say if it's contextual to the image. So let's say if... Give me like real examples, things that you've actually done.
00:21:46
Speaker
Okay. So ah let's say we had done one experience for Dabber, which was with real use. Okay. So there, ah whatever the creative was, ah the experience was that the creative opens up like a box.
00:22:00
Speaker
And real juice comes out of it. Right. So the image was a box image and you could see that the box is opening up. Right. So that requires you to have box in your camera frame to start with. Right. So it is more engaging that way. Right. So there ah you need image as an anchor and the experience starts playing from that image itself. Right. versus we had one experience where like ICICI bank was using Flam to communicate with their users about their mutual fund scheme. So there the users were clicking on the link ah from like messages that they received on WhatsApp and they anchored the experience in their room. So it was about ah the fund manager talking to them about the scheme that they were launching. right So the fun, like you see on TV, ah the anchors are presenting something and they have the graphics around them. You could see that exactly in your room. that ah Like the presenter was standing in front of you and you had graphics around it. So they were telling you about the scheme. You could interact with those graphics and learn more about the things. So it really depends on what suits your needs and where you want to play. And ah the basic components being that it's interactive and 3D in nature. Those hold true for all kinds of anchors.
00:23:18
Speaker
very interesting so you could for example have like a kbc experience with the a b c d choices and then amita bachan sitting so amita bachan is actually sitting in your room in front of you and those and um available then you have the options on the screen so all those kind of experiences can be built so it again uh whatever are creativity you can use uh you can uh have both things like Okay, very interesting. So ah is this a gimmick or a business?
00:23:47
Speaker
Like, you know, what's what's your motto here? I mean, it sounds... ah I mean, I'm not sure what is the long-term sustainable moat here. Sounds like it would be easy for other people to also replicate. ah You might have... Yeah.
00:24:05
Speaker
yeah life oh Yeah, so that's a very valid question. ah Like everyone thinks that that's the case. So um again, like mixed reality as an ecosystem existed 10 years before Flam as well.
00:24:19
Speaker
Right. But what Flam has built is something very unique in a few ways, ah which has solved the problem for advertising industry. So first thing is like as I told you it's no web, no app, one click interface. So that's a very big mode. Until you have an interface like this, you can't really ah be appealing to the advertisers. Right. But behind the scenes, apart from this interface, there are a lot more things to flam than it looks on the face so one is that ah like mixed reality as an interface ah it's accessible only on 60% devices in India on Android so Android is a big market in India so ah you can't be ah like available on 60% devices and expect the advertisers to publish ads only
00:25:07
Speaker
right So that's one place where Flam has flourished. So we are compatible across 100% devices and we can stream high fidelity 3D content. So all these things coming together and building an ecosystem is the real mode that we have built. So just for comparison, ah not comparison actually, but ah to walk you through the limitation in the systems, ah like every other interface, which is 3D, it's not a high fidelity interface. So you avatars and all you could make out that they are not real, right? Yeah, pixelated.
00:25:43
Speaker
yeah pixelated So on Flam whatever you publish it's like pixel perfect. You can't make out that it's an avatar. So it's like hyper real rendering and we have built a proprietary library for streaming that content as well. So ah that solves a lot of problems of um you know making it very interactive for the user. So from scanning a QR code to the first buffer of you know rendering the content it happens within a second right so that is not possible to replicate or like very hard to replicate so that is the real mode yeah see but my other reason for asking you is this a gimmick is also that ah a lot of these things are ah i do feel
00:26:32
Speaker
A vague memory of something similar might have happened before where there was some newspaper ad and there was some interactiveness which could happen on that ad. ah All of these were things which you you would see once and then you would not really do it again.
00:26:48
Speaker
Like, you know, as a consumer, ah I might do it once on an ad where I see some 3D content happening. Like the Dabar example would be, there would be a novelty value. First and I would do it, I'd say, oh, wow, this is so cool. um But...
00:27:04
Speaker
Is this like, do you see this fundamentally changing behavior of ah consumers where every time they see a newspaper ad with ah option to make that ad 3D on their phone, they will actually do it. you know what is What's actually likely going to be the engagement of users on these QR codes?
00:27:25
Speaker
Okay, so ah like this interactive advertising is not restricted to newspaper firstly. So ah you can have this on every touch point that you have where the user is interactive with your brand. So newspaper is one thing. ah You can have it on your television. So like Every TV ads now have QR codes in them, right? On like Hotstar or any CTV applications. ah You can have it out of home advertising ah on your billboards. You can have it in your digital advertising stack like Instagram, where you have like... ah
00:27:59
Speaker
All kinds of ads on the interface like banner ads are there, ah you have like content ads on Instagram while you are scrolling. ah Then there is WhatsApp marketing which happens. ah So every touch point that the brand is communicating with the user, it can be an immersive Flam ad. So you just need a QR code or a link, digital link to interact with Flam, right. So ah if you talk about just one touch point, then this thing dies out. But if you build an entire ecosystem around it, ah then the users also start ah interacting more with the brand if they find the content is engaging. It's not spammy content, right? So that's where the ecosystem gets built and as a brand you can leverage Flam very effectively because ah like whatever engagement you get ah from the user it's active engagement because user is actively watching the content interacting with the content unlike any other platform where it's all passive and you want to just get rid of the ad.
00:29:00
Speaker
right So the engagement is very real. So essentially, then the way a brand looks at video, for example, you could give the insurance policy features through text or through a PDF, or you could have a video where somebody is explaining the features of the insurance policy. ah so So places where brands consider that video can increase engagement ah is where instead of video, brands can go one step ahead of video and do mixed reality to increase engagement.
00:29:31
Speaker
Okay, got it. and There's on the consumption side and the users can also interact with that content. So that gives a more enriching experience and you know what the users are, you know, asking about your brand. So if it's interactive and users are interacting with one part of the whole experience, then you know, that's like something like a hotspot, like that's what the users are curious to know about.
00:29:52
Speaker
So all these insights also you can gather if the content is engaging and like two way interaction. Hmm. ah So is there evidence of ah ah brands, of brand love for this kind of advertising?
00:30:11
Speaker
Do you, ah I mean, you know, at the end of the day, every ah a marketing guy wants engagement and for them it's a simple, ah I mean, for them to invest money into some form is not necessarily a big deal if they are convinced that there is engagement there. Yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
um So is there evidence that are, do you see a lot of brands who want to use this? Like, like did Davor start doing this in every ad?
00:30:44
Speaker
Yes. you know that would be That would be a proof point that you have found PMF if Davor started doing this and then seeing Davor, ITC also wanted to do this on their ads and so on. So so are you seeing that or... Yes, we are seeing a lot of repeatability when the brands are doing this. And ah not just repeatability, ah it's more of launching your flagship products on it as well. So just to give an example, ah like last year when Samsung launched their Circle to Search feature on their phones, ah the All India ad that they did on front page was with Flam, where it was an interactive ad, like the first interactive ad that we did. ah where you could interact with the content by tapping or circling the features on the ad, right? Ad creative. So it was like something with Samsung built with Flam, the interactive content which showcased the capabilities of their phone even one before it launched. So they used Flam interface to do that.
00:31:41
Speaker
And this year when they launched Flam, voice search feature, they again did it with Flam where, ah you know, the ad was voice interactive. So the first touch interactive ad Samsung did was with Flam. The first voice interactive ad that was there in Mixtrad. Actually, it was like we did some research, the first voice interactive ad in Mixtrad interface all across the world. So we did that with Samsung. So there is a lot of rep repeatability and there's also a lot of confidence of launching your flagship products with Flam.
00:32:13
Speaker
right So you want to cut out all the noise and be very exclusive, very premium. So ah that's one more place where we have found rep repeatability. So we can expect that this is this trend is going to continue and people will want to launch some of the most ah creative ads that they create on Flams interface.
00:32:34
Speaker
So you're saying when it's a... ah high stakes ah product for which you anticipate that there already already would be some audience interest and you want to leverage that interest and make it even stronger interest then going mixed reality is a way to do that like up the game it's not just high stakes it's even for high stakes right so when you are so samsung did these campaigns with you once a year for the phone release have they gone beyond that
00:33:05
Speaker
ah Like Samsung does like launches once a year. So that's like kind of marketing that they do. But Samsung is doing marketing all the time, right? If they're only using you for this once a year launch, then it's not exactly...
00:33:20
Speaker
ah So it depends on how the brands want to do it. So this is one use case which I mentioned, which was for the flagship product that they are doing. like ah But if you see other brands like, again, another example from a big brand like Google.
00:33:34
Speaker
So ah they are rolling out Flam across all their digital outlets, ah sorry, physical outlets. ah where ah they are selling all the phones. So you could interact with everything in the store ah with FLAM codes. ah Like right from knowing about the features of the phone to you know seeing what kind of products are gonna come up. So every ah physical collateral in their ah store is gonna be FLAM collateral. So it really depends on ah what kind of use cases you are ah using it for.
00:34:05
Speaker
ah Another example can be ICICI Bank where they were using ah WhatsApp messages to communicate their existing users about the fund that they were launching.
Content Creation Process
00:34:15
Speaker
So they did it on Flam. So ah like it depends on your marketing outlook how you do it so if you want to make a big splash ah Flam is the way to go about it if you want to you know digitize every ah like touch point brand touch point again you can use Flam for that so it really like depends on the brand's outlook how much would it cost the brand to have a Flam ad made what is the process of creating the Flam ad creating the content
00:34:47
Speaker
So we have a publishing platform which the brands use. So we have some publishing guidelines which we share with the brand on how to publish the content on Flam's platform.
00:34:58
Speaker
And then we have a process ah like pipeline which converts it into the most ah like optimal form for rendering it on your camera screens for the users so ah like brands essentially publish that onto our platform and then everything happens behind the scenes where it are you a low touch platform like say if you're advertising on Facebook Facebook will ah it's self-service uh versus probably if you are advertising on let's say a tv channel there will be more concierge service and they will help you to set things up etc etc so what are you are you low touch or are you a sales of platform uh and so no code platform so that's a big boost for advertisers so everything that we build uh even the interactive experiences uh you can build that without writing a single line of code
00:35:52
Speaker
So we just have to build content in the format that we have specified and that also can be done outside of Flam platform. So let's say ah if the marketeers or designers, they are more proficient into using Adobe's tool chain or any other and like any other creation platform, they can continue to do that ah and then they can publish it on Flam.
00:36:14
Speaker
Like they don't have. OK, one part is the platform is there, but how much did it cost Dabur to create that box opening 3D experience? Did they, because they would have used some agency to create that experience for them. ah what What would an agency charge Dabur for creating that kind of experience for them?
00:36:36
Speaker
ah So those things are, I think, already budgeted. So they have contracts for content creation and that content can be used anywhere in their TV ads. or in nobody Is this a couple of lakhs kind of an agency contract? or See, today, why I'm asking you this is because today, a brand can create a video ad in 10,000 rupees. There are video AI agencies who will do a pretty solid... video ad, ah like a Diwali ad or whatever. A lot of brands did have AI-generated Diwali ads. So there are agencies which will give you in 10, 20,000, something like that, maybe 50,000, a video ad. ah
00:37:18
Speaker
What would an agency charge for creating a Flam ad? That is what I'm trying to get at. like Is it a niche skill and therefore expensive? No, so agencies have to do exactly the same amount of work that they have to do for a video ad.
00:37:31
Speaker
So I don't think there's ah something more that you need from the agency. And ah like regarding the video ads, I don't think on mass scale anyone is using video ads. Like we haven't seen that yet. ah Like it can be for some ah campaigns on social media. Maybe not TV ads, but for sure. A lot of social media video ads are now AI generated. I also very restricted to the users.
00:37:57
Speaker
ah They are not for mass consumers and more of like it's a secondary effect like user share. Like they're doing some in influencer marketing probably that I saw this AI ad. Well, they're explicit that it's AI. But if you are doing ah ads at the scale of like Samsung, Apple, Google, ah then they are really ah working hard on production. So okay so they you for the the big boys are not using AI ads as of now.
00:38:22
Speaker
ah Not for ah like mass consumption. So it's still like a very restricted use case. So obviously in that ad components, ah you can use ai generated ah like clips or assets.
00:38:37
Speaker
ah But the entire composition, we haven't seen it happening with AI. Not just for Flamp or any other use case as well. So most of these creatives are reused from the campaigns that they already have.
00:38:48
Speaker
So print ads, if they are doing it's anyway going to go in print. If they are doing video ads, anyway, they have the assets that they are using to make the composition. So those assets are used for creating flam content as well. What exactly is the process of creating a flam experience? What do you need to upload? Do you upload video files? do you upload some other proprietary software files? What do you do?
00:39:10
Speaker
ah No. So yeah ah like if you are publishing 3D interactive ad, ah you would need 3D assets for the things that you want to show in three d And then the final... come how do you How do you get these 3D assets?
00:39:22
Speaker
ah So those are mostly created by agencies or brands. So if you are like advertising for a Samsung phone, ah you would need a 3D model of Samsung phone, right? And that is done on ah Adobe kind of a tool.
00:39:34
Speaker
ah Yes, you can use any tool for that. Like not just Adobe, Blender is also used. So lot of tools available in the market of the shell. ah Whatever the designer is proficient in, they use that.
00:39:47
Speaker
And ah we expect them to upload a final composition, which is ah layered 3D composition and render it in the form of a video, which gets uploaded onto to the Flam platform.
00:40:01
Speaker
And then ah based on the metadata, ah we are like adding all the 3D elements behind the sequence. ah Is it possible to use Generative AI to create a Flam experience?
00:40:14
Speaker
ah Yes, so we have also provided that interface on the our platform. So instead of like if you are not specific about the models that you are using, so let's say, ah like if you are creating a campaign, wherein there are a lot of props around you, right, so there the props need not be exactly like what you want, right. So if you are advertising for a Samsung phone, and if you want icons of music or icons of ah any like any iconography around that phone. right So you are very picky or particular about the phone model because that is your flagship product. right So there ah you might not want to use AI because it cannot generate the exact model that is there ah of the phone. right So there you have your own model, you upload it onto the platform. And then you generate the other elements ah using generative AI, which we also provide to our users. And then you use it
Pricing and Growth Strategy
00:41:08
Speaker
for the composition. So again, composition also has to be very specific. You can't use ai there. Like it's not being used right now.
00:41:16
Speaker
So so the the steps of creating an experience is first is you upload the 3D assets. and then you do something called composition. Yes. So composition is basically a final video or a final render that you need for your ad creative.
00:41:30
Speaker
Okay. So it has multiple layers to it. ah All the layers have 3D objects, 2D objects, everything. everything ah But like what you require for the final creative, that is very specific and definitive. Like you need, ah like you can't have any sort of ah ah what you can say, prediction or predictive thing happening, you need very specific elements in the video, right? So Generative AI can create things which are not very specific. So you have to recreate, recreate and you can never be sure that it will create what you want exactly.
00:42:06
Speaker
Right. So that's where composition comes into picture. So you generate all the assets that you want with Generative AI and then use your skill set to do the final composition.
00:42:18
Speaker
so So one part of the ah cost of the brand is creation of the creative or the 3D experience. Then and the other would be what you will charge the brand for using the platform. So what is that like?
00:42:32
Speaker
So again, it depends. It is like a large spectrum. ah So if you want some bespoke features like interactive, ah voice interactive, then the price goes up. But typically it can be somewhere around like 20% of the spend ah on what you're already doing um on the collaterals. 20% of spend here, spend is defined as what? The media buying spend or also the creation spend?
00:42:57
Speaker
No, not the creation. Obviously media buying. ah Yeah. yeah So if you're paying a newspaper for the front page, then typically 20% of that amount is what yeah you might be paying Flam. But is there a... So it varies according to ah the kind of experience that you want. So if it's like a simple experience of playing just 3D content or a video, which is non-interactive, then the price is not that much. But in interactive content, then it's charged higher.
00:43:26
Speaker
ah Is there a... pricing formula of like, is it based on per download per impression? No, no, we don't charge on per impression because it can get very tricky for the brand. So you want a lot of engagement, but then if that engagement costs you a lot, then you don't get approvals for that. Right. So let's say if we charge for per interaction or anything like that, and the experience blows up, then it could incur your billing in crores also. Right.
00:43:55
Speaker
So that's why they sign up for like a fixed one time fee. And obviously the experience is active for a specific duration. So we have our estimates on how the engagement is going to be. So we charged according to that.
00:44:09
Speaker
Obviously, if it goes up, then we have to serve it. ah So, let's see. It's something which is doing like it costs us but it also does our marketing for Flam because then you get that kind of engagement. Yeah, if something goes viral then it's good for Flam. are okay to handle those kind of spikes but the brand might not be. So, we want to you know keep it at a fixed price. like They know what they are spending before the actual ad goes live.
00:44:36
Speaker
As an example, how much would DAWR have paid you for that box opening, the that campaign? ah So exact numbers, I am not sure. ah Is it like in the less than 10 lakhs range or more than 10 lakhs range?
00:44:52
Speaker
Somewhere around that. Okay, got it. Okay, and understood. um What kind of ARR are you at right now? What kind of revenues do you do as a company? So, ah like, when we started, after that, I can give you a multiple because, like, numbers I'm not sure, but we are growing in multiples, not in percentages. That's all I can say.
00:45:15
Speaker
Like, when we started out ah making revenues last year, um like, the first ad we did, after that, it has been ah continuous growth and, like, grown in multiples. So, that's a bit confidential, but, yeah.
00:45:31
Speaker
That's all I can say. ah Let me ask this. By when do you think you'll cross 10 million ARR?
00:45:39
Speaker
We've already crossed it. Oh, okay. Amazing. Congratulations. Okay. That's pretty good. 10 million ARR for India market. You're only serving India market today, right?
00:45:52
Speaker
ah No, so we are serving India, Middle East, Japan and US. But the major share is from India at the moment. Like we have just launched the product this year in the other job rupees.
00:46:04
Speaker
Like 90% of your ARR is India? Yes. Amazing, amazing. And ah how much have you raised so far? So, so far, I think it's somewhere around 22 million across all the rounds.
00:46:20
Speaker
I think you did, ah your your seed was three and a half million and then the most recent was 14 million 25 only. least Yes. Okay. okay ah What was like, you know, insights, lessons learned in the fundraise because your ah initial raise was for a consumer product and I'm sure this 14 million you raised now was very clearly a B2B What was the difference between the pitches? What have you learned about how to raise funds?
00:46:48
Speaker
So I'm not actively into the raising funds, so I can talk about it from product or technical sense. How is it? So ah the first fundraise was the seed fund where ah like there's no PMF, there's just belief on ah what they you're building. ah Some proof of work ah where you have shown some differentiable tech and some traction and stickiness on the user base.
00:47:12
Speaker
So that helps you get the first round. But the recent one, like the 14 million one, ah that is like more on like actual proof of work and proof of market. So in the first round, you don't know how the market is going to react. You just know like you as in the investors and you know that you are building something and you are capable of building it. And you have shown some resilience to, you know, market forces that you're going to build a great product.
00:47:40
Speaker
But ah when you are going for Series A, ah then it's more of like the market is already established. There is a clear PMF. And now ah you need to scale this product, right? So the first round that you raise is on belief. The second is on like two-fourth work and ability to scale.
Product-Led Growth and Market Expansion
00:48:00
Speaker
What do you need to scale it? Like, do you need... ah more sales muscle, like hire more salespeople and like, you know, what are the things you need now at this stage to scale? Okay.
00:48:13
Speaker
So that's a very ah traditional way, high like more salespeople, more revenue. ah But ideally we want to build a product, which is like, but like,
00:48:25
Speaker
contributing to the growth. So it's product led growth that we are more focusing on. So obviously, it's a new product, something which is like market creation. So you need to educate the users about this kind of product. ah So that's where salespeople and creative people come into picture.
00:48:43
Speaker
So ah like to leverage the full potential of the platform, you need to really communicate it to ah the creative people in the advertisement industry or any other industry that you are ah targeting. right So it's more of user education and then the product should be ah like proficient to serve. That's the only way to scale beyond 10 100 million. So you can't have salespeople um like selling the product and expect to go that way. It's always product led.
00:49:14
Speaker
So that is going to be the focus going forward. Typically, product led growth works with a product like say a Canva where you have a free trial. And so you have 100 million people who do a free trial and free free usage. And then out of those 100 million, 5 million become paying customers. very Yes. How will that work for you?
00:49:36
Speaker
So we are iterating on the product. So obviously brands, when they have like when we launched, after that, when brands wanted to publish content, they had to pay and launch. But now we have come up with a model, come up as in we are continuously iterating, but we are allowing users to now create content for free with the Watermark so that they can experience the platform before they pay.
00:49:58
Speaker
right So if you have experienced it once, ah then you don't need that push from a salesperson to, you know, ah make ah convert you into a paying customer right so that's how like small features on the platform by analyzing user patterns uh you can do to get that kind of reach ah do you think this will work for enterprise sales because you're not uh you're not uh chasing mid-market or smes uh enterprises don't get attracted by free trials, right? like Like you actually need feet on street and people knocking doors.
00:50:35
Speaker
Yes. yeah So there are multiple ah ways to reach enterprises. ah One is where Flam and the salespeople from Flam are reaching out to the enterprises. Another way is all the enterprises have creative agencies, right? Who make all the creative content brand content for them, right? So they can publish content on Flam, which is like with quarter mark, which they can try out, fix to the brand. And that's where ah the brands can, you know, ah get onboarded to Flam.
00:51:03
Speaker
So it's a multi-pronged approach. um You need as many users and creative people, especially brand might not have those many creative people at their disposal, but the agencies are built around ah providing the creative services to
Future of Mixed Reality and Wearables
00:51:17
Speaker
enterprises. So when they start using it, that's when ah like you get more foot in the door for brands to come on to your so So the agency market is basically the attack vector for you to really get entry. Like like the agencies will take you in.
00:51:35
Speaker
Got it. Interesting. Okay. Let me end by doing some amount of ah future gazing. ah You know, Mark Zuckerberg's bet is that the the next big device is going to be a mixed reality device that you wear on your head instead of a phone. That the phone is a...
00:51:55
Speaker
It's not something that 10 years down the line, we will still be on our phones, but it will be some mixed reality device on your head. ah Do you agree with this as the future? Like even Apple is hoping to catch that next device evolution through their Vision Pro. yeah Do you think that's the future of...
00:52:13
Speaker
ah how we interact with digital screens or how we interact with digital media through ah glasses or yes will phones stay? For mixed-related interface, ah the best interface is through glasses. But right now we are stuck on mobiles because that's the most commonly used device by the users. 10 years later, will most of us still be accessing My prediction is 10 years is a shorter time frame, but you never know. like If the trend catches up within a year, people can shift. Not a year, but at least five years, ah the entire internet can be driven like consumption on internet can be driven through glasses. But you don't know when those five years will come. like They can come in next five years or 10 years or 15 years. I want to hear your take on it. Like like like you're saying, your prediction is 10 years is not enough time frame. 10 years down, we'll still be on phones. What do you think is the likely time frame by which phones will be obsolete and
00:53:12
Speaker
You know, what what will make it happen? Just go go crazy and tell me what you think. like okay you Okay. So ah my take on that is like ah the headsets that is ah current, like that was currently the next interface that the users will, like the companies were thinking about. ah That is not coming up very soon ah because the headset, the interface and the usability for the users is not something which is very, you know,
00:53:41
Speaker
easy like I am cut off from the world so headset is not the interface that will take over phones for sure like the net next bet is on glasses but glasses we haven't seen anything in market yet right so any ah like even the Ray-Ban glasses and all ah like we see videos of them having the rendering capabilities but they are not out in the market yet. right So only when they are out in the market will we be able to see ah like it can only be experienced like you can't predict it. It can only be experienced. So when you experience ah like MetaQuest or Apple
00:54:15
Speaker
It looks good at the start, but if you see anyone who owns a MetaQuest, two months or three months down the line, they stop using it, right? Because it's not very convenient. So convenience of phones is unparalleled. So until you have something which is as convenient as a phone or more than that, ah there's not going to be an adoption. So glasses might be, but then you have to experience it before you can do that prediction, right?
00:54:40
Speaker
So if it sticks with you, like if it is as ah user friendly or lucid for you to use as a smartphone, then adoption can happen very fast. But we don't know yet if glasses are going to provide that.
Conclusion and Farewells
00:54:55
Speaker
plus the challenges like how do you fit computing power onto glasses that sounds like those are all engineering problems so those problems can be solved but whether it's convenient for the user to use it or not that to you can't solve right so that can only be experienced so yeah I'm sure ah UX designers are already in that process ah but yeah I'll have to experience it first before yeah okay awesome thank you so much for your time Amit it was a pleasure Thank you. Thanks, Acheh.