Aakrit Vaish is the co-founder and CEO of Haptik, who pioneered the wave of conversational AI starting back in 2013. Today, Haptik is one of the world's largest companies in the space with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Singapore, and clients that include names such as KFC, Starhub, Zurich Insurance, Ola Cabs, Hotstar, Oyo Rooms, Kotak Life. In April 2019, Reliance Industries acquired the majority shareholding in the company in a $100 million transaction, making Haptik one of the highest valued AI companies globally. Outside of Haptik, Aakrit is an investor in startups in the areas of consumer/consumer tech and B2B SaaS. Notable investments include Unacademy (valued at >$200 million), Pepper Content, Park&, Flat White Capital, Third Wave Coffee, Ayoconnect, Boxhub, Dataweave, Haikujam (Ligthtbox backed), Flatchat (sold to Commonfloor in 2014), Tookitaki, Dil Mil, Ayopop, iON Energy, Talent Litmus, among others. Prior to Haptik,Aakrit was an early member of the team at Flurry, one of the world's largest mobile analytics and advertising platforms, acquired by Yahoo in 2014. Aakrit received his BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign and was named as a contender to the Forbes India 30 under 30 list in 2015.