The Bay Area’s coffee shops are buzzing again, but this time, it’s not just with Valley-based entrepreneurs. More and more Indian SaaS founders are becoming familiar faces in San Francisco’s startup haunts, shuffling between pitch meetings, customer catch-ups, and AI meetups.
For a long time, Indian founders believed they could build for the world, from India. That belief is now rapidly evolving.
Founders like Arvind Parthiban of SuperOps, Vijay Rayapati of Atomicwork, Soham Ganatra of Composio, Vignesh Girishankar of RocketLane, Siva Rajamani of Everstage, and Vengat Krishnaraj of Klenty are among those packing their bags, some permanently, others for extended stays.
The common thread is clear: the gravitational pull of artificial intelligence is too strong to resist.
“If you’re in the Bay Area, you’re faster to get to know what’s the latest that’s happening,” says Siva Rajamani, co-founder of Everstage. “You can take decisions for your company much earlier than what you would sitting in India.”
Beyond Sales: The product and tech migration
The founder exodus isn’t just about chasing customers or raising money anymore. Traditionally, go-to-market (GTM) leaders or sales-driven CEOs would temporarily relocate to the US to open doors and build pipelines. But the playbook has changed.
“Now, even product and engineering founders are moving,” says Vignesh Girishankar, co-founder of RocketLane, who has already made the shift. “It’s no longer just about GTM. The epicenter of AI is moving so fast, the traditional ways of consuming technology, blogs, events, are too slow. You need to be at the heart of it.”
Soham Ganatra, co-founder of Composio, believes this proximity is critical when your early customers are B2B startups based within the same square mile in San Francisco.
“I can walk into their offices, work with them directly, figure out how they behave, and ensure they’re truly happy. That’s what drives our product decisions,” he said during a panel discussion at the Accel AI Summit in Bengaluru on June 4.
AI is reshaping the playbook
What’s driving this urgency is the relentless pace of AI development.
The timeline to build, iterate, and scale has shrunk dramatically. “What used to take three months to build, I’ve seen people build in three days now with AI,” says an investor tracking the space.
“Most SaaS founders are clueless about how their go-to-market is getting disrupted by AI. I told them they have to disrupt themselves before AI disrupts them.”
Earlier, Indian SaaS companies thrived on inbound marketing, SEO, and affordable digital acquisition strategies. But now, as Google and AI-powered summaries gobble up visibility, those routes are no longer reliable. As one founder bluntly puts it, “The old playbook is broken. You can’t build the same way anymore.”
Vijay Rayapati, Founder of Atomicwork, who is relocating to the US within weeks, echoes this shift.
“The density of people, talent, ideas, I can’t even explain. In 2 days at the Khosla CEO Summit, I could meet Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Parag Agrawal, Ali Ghodsi and spent time with Vinod Khosla. It’s impossible to get this kind of access and density anywhere else outside of the Bay," he told Moneycontrol.
Rayapati believes the competitive edge now comes from building relationships with AI infrastructure and model companies early. “Early beta access could give us a short-term advantage. You have to be close to your customer and to the AI ecosystem.”
A Global Company needs global presence
Arvind Parthiban, founder of SuperOps, who has seen this transition unfold firsthand, says the classic India advantage, building faster and cheaper with engineers based in India—has eroded.
“We don’t have that edge anymore. Every company, anywhere in the world, can build with limited resources sitting in a garage,” he said.
For him, structuring companies globally is now the norm. “Engineering can be in India. SMB sales, inside sales, and operations can be in India. But product management, GTM, marketing—all these have to be in the US. This is what a modern global company looks like,”according to Parthiban.
He also acknowledges the shift in his own thinking. “Earlier, I used to believe we could just build from India. I don’t think that way anymore. The landscape has changed.”
Investors aren’t pushing, but they are watching
Is this founder migration being forced by investors? Not necessarily. Thiyagarajan Maruthavanan, Managing Partner at Upekkha, an AI and SaaS-focused accelerator fund, said it’s more about go-to-market realities than investor pressure. “Is it something that investors are pushing them to? It’s not that. It’s more about the GTM choices and what’s required to win,” he said.
That said, founders confirm that many investors, especially in the Bay Area, now prefer them to be on the ground.
Siva Rajamani points out that being in the US also opens more doors for fundraising. “If you raise your seed round in India and want to raise your next round from the US, your options open up if you’re based out of the Bay Area,” he said.
Rayapati also feels that Indian investors are still catching up to this mindset.
“Israeli investors actively encourage their founders to move to the US. Indian investors are nice and don't push hard enough yet," he added.
Different paths, one destination
Founders are adopting different go-to-market (GTM) strategies in this AI era. For some, the AI product-led growth (PLG) model means the product speaks for itself and can go viral without heavy sales effort. In those cases, being in the US is helpful but not always essential.
“AI PLG products create magic moments that lead to word of mouth,” said Maruthavanan. “Founders building this way often travel to the US to learn the craft, but some can build successfully from India.”
Others are playing the classic enterprise sales game, which requires deep relationships and trust-building—things that are much harder to do remotely. Vijay of Atomicwork is anchoring in the US to pursue this strategy.
Then there’s the emerging AI services play, where traditional service founders are layering AI capabilities on top of existing relationships. This, too, often leans on networks built over years, many of which are centered in the US.
Relocation is now a strategic move
For Siva Rajamani, moving to the US was always on the cards. “For most SaaS founders, moving to the US was an eventuality. It wasn’t about money, it was about timing,” he says. With AI accelerating market shifts monthly, Rajamani believes it now makes sense to move as early as possible.
“The market is moving so fast that if you miss a quarter of learning, you’re probably outpaced by someone who didn’t,” he added.
Still, this migration doesn’t mean abandoning India. Founders are structuring their teams carefully, often following the Israeli model—keeping around 10 percent of their team in the US, while the rest, especially engineering, stays in India.
“You can’t afford to lose the India team connection,” Rayapati cautions.
“Founders who move to the US should make sure they go back to India often if they don't have a co-founder in India. Otherwise, the team can lose sight of the vision and what you are thinking as a CEO," he said.
A few stay back
Not everyone is convinced that geography is destiny. Sanket Shah, founder of InVideo, has chosen to build from India. “If I can build a strong, original-thinking culture here, I don’t need to go to the US,” he says. “Everything I need to learn is available online—AI research papers, courses, YouTube. It’s all there.”
For Shah, it boils down to intent and execution. “It’s not about where you are. It’s about whether you’re creating real value. When you hit the right delta of value, things work—whether you’re sitting in India or anywhere else.”
Yet for a growing number of Indian SaaS founders, proximity now feels like power, especially in the high-stakes, high-speed race to master AI.
In this new era, building for the world may still be possible from India, but building with the world—at its very pace—often demands being where the action is. And right now, that’s the Valley!
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