Good Morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

Today, I want to tell you the story of two founders who feature in the latest episode of 90,000 Hours. 

They are not from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, or Delhi-NCR. But from Udupi and Nagpur. And their respective homecomings might give us a sense of where the tech landscape is headed next.

Our first founder is Rohith Bhat. 

Robosoft Technologies, his digital solutions company, is based in Karnataka’s coastal town of Udupi. It was acquired for a little over $100 million in 2021 by a Japanese firm. 

Rohith sees it as a full-circle moment because he worked in Japan in the early 1990s. In fact, seeing Japan’s thriving economy with powerhouses from Sony to Honda made him want to start something of his own. 

So, he took the plunge, moved to Mumbai, and started a small software company. 

Business was looking up in the first two years. But he soon had a realisation: his clients were based in California, Singapore, and Taiwan, and he was not required to meet with any of them in-person.

It did not really matter where he was. So, he decided it was best to go back home to Udupi. 

On the same coast as Mumbai, but nothing like it. 

He did not even have an office space initially. None of his team members joined him. He operated out of NIT Surathkal and hired from scratch.

He scaled Robosoft year by year. Bengaluru, just 350 kilometres away, was taking off in unimaginable ways. Retaining talent was tough, and so was convincing folks in Udupi that they were a serious company. 

These hiccups aside, Robosoft ended up a success story. 

Rohith is now on two other journeys: 99games, a mobile gaming studio, and Wrkwrk, which builds premium workspaces in emerging tech hubs. 

99games still runs out of Udupi. Wrkwrk is based in neighbouring Mangaluru. 

Bets taken by founders like Rohith are why the Mangaluru-Udupi region is fast becoming the chosen destination for GCCs, R&D centres, and startups. 

Mangaluru is now experiencing a reverse migration of talent. The city’s technology ecosystem comprises over 250 companies, including about 200 start-ups and 50 mid-sized firms. 

Further, Karnataka’s Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) is pushing for a distributed tech landscape with its Beyond Bengaluru initiative, with startups and companies being lured to set up away from its capital city. 

For the next story, I am taking you to Nagpur, a still-emerging tech hub. How do you become an early pioneer? How do you take a long-term, calculated bet? 

Sameer Bendre, the former COO of Persistent Systems, seems to have an answer.

After spending almost two decades at the IT services giant, Sameer returned to Nagpur, his hometown. This was not for a quiet life. He wanted to build a deep tech startup. 

Sameer is currently the executive director of Hyzero, which designs and manufactures hydrogen fuel cell systems.

He admits he could have built Hyzero from anywhere. But he is committed to doing this in Nagpur because he sees the city on the cusp of change. 

With the hydrogen ecosystem still in its nascent stages, Sameer believes Nagpur is the perfect place to make it grow. 

Sameer’s plan is long-term, and he wants to see it through. Just like Rohith. 

Both these stories are about the changing tech ecosystem in the country—and of how tech work is slowly, subtly shifting away from our biggest cities.

In December, my colleague Mrunmayee wrote about how tech hubs are cropping up in smaller cities scattered across southern India. 

Andhra Pradesh, particularly, seems to be a hub of activity. It beat the rest of the country and claimed 25% of all proposed investments in the first nine months of FY26. In Vishakhapatnam, a coastal town in the state, Cognizant is eyeing an 8000-seat facility, while Google is going to shell out $15 billion in building their first AI hub in India.

Acquisitions, start-ups, tech-hubs, it’s all happening—but just away from those towering, shimmering skyscrapers in big cities.

We want to know more about these stories for 90,000 Hours. Have you recently moved out of a big city? What made you move? What are you doing now? What are your future plans? `

Write to me at [email protected].

Best,
Vidhatri

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