Covid helps Indian boy create a multi-million dollar research start-up in US

While Covid has largely been harmful for the humanity and economy, there are some instances where it has proved a blessing in disguise.
Raahish Kalaria, 25, went to US for graduation after completing his schooling in Gujarat. In the second year of his study he teamed with a college buddy Aneesh to create a start-up in US where companies can spread their messages through social media posts made by the students. But market got topsy turvy during the days of Covid lockdown and they stopped getting many clients. However, at the same time, since they had a reach to over 60,000 students across America, few companies approached them to get Covid related surveys done from those students.
According to Raahish, “this created a spark in our minds. Researches based on regular survey methods have several flaws like time consumed to reach huge audience, risk of fake replies and loopholes in analytical data. We made a plan of creating a high-tech research platform that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help companies conduct authentic market research via Snapchat and TikTok-style video feedback from consumers. We worked on it relentlessly during Covid times. In January ’21 we launched ‘Knit’, a platform empowering brands to conduct high-quality, automated research quickly and accurately. The AI technique analyses factors like sentiments, emotions, ethnicity and voice tones to get authentic information. We have also created an affiliation of over 5 million respondents of varied demographics, age and social backgrounds who are ready to respond anytime. In fact, the whole process from companies raising a survey query, getting responses of thousands of matching audience, transcription, analysis, graphical representation and a lot of other things are usually completed in as less as 4 hours. Companies are finding the results lot more authentic and useful than traditional methods and are approaching us for more assignments.”
In just 2 years from inception ‘Knit’ has received a funding of £3 million from US based venture funds. With over 50 top clients, including the likes of JBL, NASCAR, WNBA, Cargill the company will be completing this year with a business close to £1 million and has a projection to double it in 2023.
According to Raahish’s mother Harsha Kalaria who stays in India, “it has not been an easy journey as Raahish has to be on the move all the time. Raahish has already traveled 38 cities across 14 states of US in last two years.”
Raahish’s company currently employs 24 people and targets to double the strength in 1 year.