An Indian founder is constructing a dual-engine AI business designed to travel across borders. The first surface is already live in two markets.
Asia is not short of AI announcements. It is short of operators who can commercialise at scale and who already have customers in more than one country. Vishal Jariwala is one of the rare exceptions. He is Founder and Chairman of Adsnex, and Architect of AIFI (Artificial Intelligence Forum of India). His playbook is deliberately cross-border. The first 2,000 paying customers are split across India and the MENA region. The capital conversations are equally split.
Jariwala’s profile sits at an unusual intersection. Over two decades in applied AI, performance marketing and grassroots Indian consumer behaviour. A working marriage to Dipti Patle, who runs Smiligners, a profitable, fully bootstrapped venture that supplies cash flow, customer base and operating muscle to the AI stack. A public-policy literacy most global AI operators lack. For any investor that has been waiting for an India-origin AI founder who does not need to burn capital to acquire the first thousand customers, this is the profile.
Adsnex: One Surface For $600 Billion In Ad Spend
Adsnex is being built as the world’s first AI-native Advertising Operating System. It compresses 7 to 12 fragmented tools, the same ones draining roughly $50,000 per year from typical advertising teams, into a single surface. On that surface, marketers create, manage, optimize and automate campaigns across Meta, Google and a broadening integration set that includes Amazon, TikTok, Snap, Taboola, LinkedIn, OTT Ads, E-commerce Ads and Quick Commerce Ads. Agentic AI workflows, a token-driven engine and an ads-specific large language model on the roadmap form the technical moat.
The market is as Asian as it is global. Global digital advertising spend crosses $600 billion annually. Close to 50 million SMBs worldwide each spend about $2,000 on paid media, a serviceable addressable market of roughly $100 billion. Adsnex’s 2,000 paying customers across India and MENA represent approximately $4 million in early annualized revenue. The target users are SMBs, performance marketers and agencies who can no longer afford the tool-sprawl tax.
The ₹10 Crore Pre-Seed
Adsnex is raising ₹10 crore (approximately $1.1 million) in a pre-seed round at a pre-money valuation of ₹40 to 50 crore, meaning 16 to 20 percent dilution. The use of funds is precise: MVP launch, platform integrations, enterprise and API layer, agentic AI v2 and the data pipeline for the ads-specific LLM. Smiligners has committed as an early investor and joint development partner, routing approximately 400 paying customers into closed beta. Strategic investors and family offices across India and MENA are already in conversation. With MVP due in weeks, the round is moving quickly.
“One founder. Four fronts. Adtech, Skills, Jobs, AI Solutions.”
AIFI: A National AI Skilling Operating System
India’s ₹10,372 crore AI Mission has the budget. AIFI has the blueprint. AIFI (AI For Impact), an initiative of Smiligners, is a government-ready national AI skilling framework aligned with IndiaAI Mission and PMKVY 4.0’s target of 50 lakh young Indians by 2026. Its 98 NSQF-aligned courses span three tracks. Part A for job seekers, women, homemakers, rural youth and persons with disabilities. Part B for civil services, railways, defence, judiciary, healthcare and education. Part C for MSMEs, startups and employers.
The library reflects deliberate inclusion. ‘Ghar Se Career’ for homemakers. ‘AI for SHG Leaders and Lakhpati Didis’. ‘AI for Senior Bureaucrats’ at LBSNAA. ‘AI in Cyber Crime Investigation’. Dedicated programmes for ISRO and DRDO scientists. AIFI is in active discussions with NASSCOM and is pursuing NSDC approvals so as many courses as possible can be delivered free of cost. A public and private placement ecosystem is being architected alongside, because Jariwala argues the real national challenge is not skilling, it is placement.
Sector AI: The Quiet Enterprise Play
Beyond Adsnex and AIFI, sector-specific AI solutions are being productised across banking, insurance, universities, government, smart cities, retail, e-commerce, manufacturing, automotive, logistics, video and content, media, healthcare, real estate, hospitality, agriculture, legal, HR and telecom. Each one is built to automate work, lift sales and compound productivity. Enterprise pilot conversations are already live.
Why Asia’s Allocators Should Watch
Adsnex is the commercial engine. AIFI is the national canvas. Sector AI is the enterprise expansion. Together they give Asian allocators something uncommon: an India-origin AI founder who has already acquired cross-border revenue, has a cash-flowing anchor through Smiligners, and has a public-private distribution advantage that competitors cannot replicate. With early traction compounding and investor interest rising, this is exactly the kind of blueprint that rewards early conviction.
Connect with Vishal Jariwala on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalrjariwala/
Explore Adsnex, the AI-native Advertising Operating System: https://adsnex.io
