Coming from the small town of Alwar in Rajasthan, Karmesh Gupta began his story with a job at the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Rajasthan Royals.
Coming from the small town of Alwar in Rajasthan, Karmesh Gupta began his story with a job at the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Rajasthan Royals. At the time, the certified ethical hacker was still in college. He then went on to work with a couple of technology firms before going his own way with a ‘world’s first innovation’. After two failed attempts and sheer resilience, Gupta hit the jackpot on the third attempt with a business that reached 25 countries in just 15 months.
Unlike the quintessential IIT-IIM educated tech entrepreneurs, Karmesh Gupta studied at the LNM Institute of Information Technology. In October 2014, he started his first venture HttpCart Technologies with his cousin Praveen Gupta. The duo launched the first ever Free WiFi by an Indian private firm the next year in Jaipur. The business model relied on hyperlocal video and image ads for revenue. Despite gaining over 10 clients initially, the business, first such in the country, did not live up to their expectations. Soon, they faced a huge loss and had to shutter down the business.
The duo refused to close their company and chose a new direction, foraying into the IT services industry. That venture too failed but the Gupta cousins refused to budge. Success came in 2017 as they launched a new product under the same brand name ‘WiJungle’, an all-in-one cybersecurity tool. They gained big with clients like different government ministries and agencies and prominent hotel brands. In just three months of sales they hit profitability with high margins and low burn rate.
The bootstrapped the company with an initial investment of just Rs 11 lakh. Finally in 2022, Gupta's firm raised a seed funding from global venture capitalist firm SOSV. Karmesh is the CEO while Praveen is the CTO of the company. As per their latest valuation, the firm is worth around Rs 183 crore ($22 million).
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 "Meet hacker who once worked for IPL team Rajasthan Royals, he failed twice before Rs 183 crore…")
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