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Eight months after raising $2 Mn in funding, AI-based social media platform Unikon.ai to pivot to D2C brand
Unikon.ai founder Aakash Anand claimed that building an AI company would need more capital and will take time to achieve sustainable growth
Inc42 sources reveal that Unikon.ai’s founder were looking for an early exit from the company
How much of AI is hype? The question has been going around for a few years now. At least, in the context of Unikon.ai, the answer is now clear.
The startup, founded by Aakash Anand in 2024, started out looking to capitalise on the generative AI or GenAI boom, but now after months of burning cash, Unikon.ai
Yes, a startup that wanted to build an AI-powered networking platform is now one of the thousands of D2C brands dotting the market.
Backed by the likes of Nikhil Kamath, Peyush Bansal, Vishesh Khurana and a number of noted angel investors, Unikon.ai’s failure shows just how difficult it is to actually build a product or platform that’s centred around AI.
Anand, a serial entrepreneur who had founded and exited Bella Vita Organic earlier, founded Unikon.ai along with former Zecpe CTO Sumit Jha and Palash Arneja.
The startup raised close to $3 Mn in funding soon after launch, with its pitch of a social media and networking platform powered by GenAI. But it would seem that scaling up an AI-powered LinkedIn alternative proved much costlier than expected, and after months of cash burn, Unikon.ai is ready for an altogether new innings.
Even as GenAI takes most industries by storm, building a startup in this space is about a lot more than just slapping the AI label on. Former and current employees told Inc42 that the company did not seem to have a clear plan when it comes to the GenAI aspect, and soon found itself building another LinkedIn-like platform.
And now that the startup is building a D2C brand, it’s worth understanding what sealed Unikon.ai’s AI fate.
Where Was The AI In Unikon.AI?
“They [Unikon.ai founders] always spoke about quick exits and told the company will be a billion dollar company and how every employee will make money,” a former employee told Inc42.
Like many new startups in the past two years, the startup banked heavily on the AI story and was looking to build a new-age social media and networking platform with 1:1 conversations between users and experts on diverse topics. Besides this, the app provided a personalised content feed for each user.
It’s unclear where exactly the GenAI component fit into this product. It’s entirely possible that this was Unikon.ai’s GTM product with AI features in the pipeline.
As we reported last year, the startup was building something called UniSeek, which helps users post all kinds of queries and seek assistance or even hire professionals. “The platform uses AI and ML-powered algorithms to match queries with the right individuals,” Anand had told us at the time.
He also claimed that the company was addressing the problem of access. “The platform allows anyone to set up rates based on the value of their time. Others on the platform can then reach out to them via video calls, audio calls, or messages, all of which are chargeable, to get their queries or advisory answers.”
He claimed the platform leveraged machine learning to match individuals with the right experts. Soon after raising funds, Unikon.ai went on a hiring spree, bringing 80-90 individuals on board to run the operations and products.
The fundraise had filled the founders and the management with optimism, but this does not always necessarily result in traction. At Unikon.ai, the biggest problem was related to the product itself.
Holes In The Unikon.AI Story
Building a social network is about building the social graph, the larger the graph, the more organic the user onboarding. The initial days are always a struggle, as seen in the case of even the most successful social media platforms.
As for revenue, individuals paid anywhere between INR 13 to INR 20,000 for one-on-one calls with experts. Unikon.ai earned a 10%-20% commission cut for facilitating these calls, similar to platforms such as Astrotalk or Wysa.
In fact, Unikon.ai specifically targeted categories such as startup ideas, astrology, mental wellbeing among others for its user base. All well and good, if the startup managed to add hundreds of experts to populate these categories.
But that’s where the story soured. One of the first challenges was attracting experts and professionals to the platform. At first, Unikon.ai had experts such as Akash Gupta (Zypp Electric cofounder), Amit Choudhury (Lenskart cofounder), Snehil Khanor (TrulyMadly founder) and besides its own investors such as Peyush Bansal.
Aakash Anand himself was an expert on the platform, but sources claim that these names were not enough to attract a mass audience. We were also told that a majority of the one-on-one sessions were related to building startups or pitching business ideas, and it was hard for the startup to attract other experts.
Sources claim adding more popular names and celebrity experts would have helped in increasing the daily call volume. “We got around 1,000 users to the platform on a daily basis, but the conversion rate was as low as 100,” added one source, adding that the startup tried to get more of their angel investors to join as experts, but did not succeed there either.
As a user retention and engagement tactic, Unikon.ai offered in-app credits to new users. A dedicated sales team would call users and urge them to set up a call with an expert based on their needs.
“The sales team had a target on their back, sometimes in a bid to achieve those numbers, they might even bring their family members, friends on the application,” another source added.
Besides, Inc42 has also learnt that around 20%-30% of the scheduled calls were cancelled either by the individual or the expert.
App crashes were also frequent which led to cancellations. Moreover, anyone on the platform could pose as an expert, and the app lacked any scrutiny or filter to onboard experts.
While the startup had an average retention rate of 33% across its top four categories, Inc42 has learnt many times second time calls were made free for existing users to retain them. This naturally hurt the startup’s revenue and profitability.
As per sources, while the registered user count was 1 Lakh, the daily active user base ranged between 1,000 and 1,500 users.
As Unikon.ai founder Anand admits in his post on Linkedin, scaling up the platform would have required INR 2 Cr of cash burn per month. This was not proving to be a sustainable model after all.
In a subsequent email to Unikon.ai’s investors, Anand said the startup has already spent around INR 14 Cr out of the INR 24 Cr raised till date, and has INR 10 Cr in reserves which would go towards building the D2C brand.
“Your stake in the company remains unchanged,” Anand told investors in the letter, a copy of which was seen by Inc42.
Product Experiments Fail, Employees Laid Off
Eventually, this situation would lead to layoffs, but even before that there was a lot of chaos and confusion within the ranks. “They didn’t know what they were doing. Everything was last minute and they tried to do multiple things at once,” said one of the sources to Inc42.
Post Diwali last year, for instance, the management pushed for the launch of micro apps for mental wellbeing and astrology.
“Teams worked on building these categories within the main app for months, but suddenly everything was changed. The app’s UI was revamped, and the updates were delayed, and we don’t know if they will even see the light of the day,” added another former employee.
Following these experiments, Unikon.ai laid off employees just before a major update push, which showed that the company was not seriously thinking about scaling up.
Close to 50% of the workforce was laid off on February 28 2025, multiple people told Inc42 on the condition of anonymity.
Employees from sales, product, marketing, tech, design, among others were adversely affected in this restructuring exercise. As per sources, employees were given salary for the month of February, and were helped with job counselling.
The layoffs came almost eight months after the startup raised $2 Mn in funding Dholakia Ventures; OfBusiness cofounders Nitin Jain and Vasant Sridhar; Gaurav Khatri of Noise; besides the likes of Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath, Shiprocket’s Khurana and others.
In response to Inc42’s detailed questionnaire on the state of affairs, Unikon.ai said, “Restructuring is a normal part of any growing company. At Unikon.ai, less than 20% of the team was impacted as part of a routine performance review. We remain focused on building a stronger, more efficient organisation to drive long-term growth.”
Incidentally, the statement did not mention anything about a pivot to a D2C brand, even though Inc42 has explicitly questioned CEO Anand and the company on this aspect, based on information provided by sources.
Raising Funds For AI, But Building Yet Another D2C Brand
In his Linkedin post, CEO Anand said that the company is going back to its D2C roots, but sources we spoke to claim that this was already on the cards.
Sources alleged that some employees from Anand’s other company Wolfpack Labs were on Unikon.ai’s payroll, and many who have been laid off by Unikon.ai are now working at Wolfpack.
“Not only the founders, but there are other top management employees who were on Unikon.ai’s payroll until recently and were working on other brands that came under Wolfpack Labs,” said a source.
What exactly is Wolfpack Labs and how is it connected to the AI startup?
It goes back to 2021 when Aakash launched Bella Vita Organic along with Aashima Anand and Saahil Nayar. In the first year itself, it raised $10 Mn from Ananta Capital, which eventually ended up acquiring the brand.
It is pertinent to note that Aakash is listed as a partner on Ananta Capital’s website. It also needs to be highlighted that in December 2024, Ananta Capital infused INR 6.4 Cr in Unikon.ai, as per MCA filings.
Also in 2024, Aakash Anand launched Wolfpack Labs, a venture studio, where he infused INR 50 Cr in a personal capacity as a promoter/founder.
Wolfpack Labs invests between INR 25 Lakh and INR 1 Cr on average for an equity shareholding of up to 15%. This is closer to an early stage investor and unlike a typical venture studio which takes a hands-on approach to building businesses.
As per sources, Unikon.ai and Wolfpack Labs have offices in the same building in Gurugram, and Unikon.ai’s top management often oversees the business of Wolfpack Labs portfolio. Several impacted employees have also been moved to these brands.
“They might keep Unikon.ai as a side project moving forward,” a source told Inc42 last week, before Anand’s post on Linkedin about the pivot to a D2C brand.
Ultimately, the story of Unikon.ai is one that’s entirely expected in the world of AI, but one that’s surprising because of how quickly the story unravelled. The company might have added an AI to its name, but as many former employees told us, the use of OpenAI or other models was rather limited at Unikon.ai.
The hype around AI is very real, even if the products and solutions being built do not always stick close to the AI promise.
“There was no tech involved. The ‘AI’ was just a fancy suffix that the founders decided to go ahead to tap on the trend,” said one of the sources.
Another source said that founders realised that a technology company requires at least five to six years to built and scale up, but they didn’t seem to have the patience this required and sought an early exit.
Meanwhile, some of India’s most noted angel investors did not respond to Inc42’s queries. Ordinarily, these angel investors might have thought twice before backing a D2C brand with no product plan or roadmap.
“With INR 10 Cr in reserves out of the total INR 24 Cr raised, we’re now focused on building a disruptive D2C brand, leveraging my expertise in driving growth and profitability in a product led consumer business,” Anand said in his email to shareholders, but did not mention what product this brand would be developing.
For these angel investors — founders and CEOs of giants in their domain — and others, Unikon.ai is a wake-up call, particularly when it comes to falling for the AI hype.
Edited By Nikhil Subramaniam
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