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Krish Kupathil is the Founder of Mobiliya Technologies. When we spoke in 2013, the company was known as AgreeYa Mobility, an enterprise mobility and Mobile system integration company providing solutions for collaboration and communication products for mobile platforms. QuEST Global acquired Mobiliya in 2018.
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Sramana: Krish, let’s start with your personal story. Where are you from? What is the story to your personal journey?
Krish Kupathil: I was born and brought up in Delhi, India. I did my schooling and college in India. I started dabbling in software in 1987 and did some initial work in India. I got into software related businesses surrounding finance. I did some work out of Europe and Singapore before landing in the U.S. ten years ago. I was involved in a few startups in earlier years as well.
Sramana: What kind of startups did you get engaged with?
Krish Kupathil: I joined a company called FSMLabs. I joined it a bit late but my colleague there was the original founding member. I was a late founding member. This was in early 2002 and we did real-time Linux. We did a lot of work for the defense sector with things like missiles. That company was ultimately acquired by Intel.
My second startup was Azingo. That company was in the mobile space, and I was the third employee of that company. The Linux and Mobile Foundation was started by Motorola and the other big names in the mobile industry. We were one of the founding members of that group as well. We created a platform to sell to the mobile industry. It was a bit late because Android came in and took the steam away, however, Azingo was acquired by Motorola in 2010. I opted out of that position, and I did not join the acquisition team. There were about 18 of us who opted out of Azingo and the transfer to Motorola and we went off to start AgreeYa Mobility.
Sramana: This was in 2010, correct?
Krish Kupathil: Yes.
Sramana: What was your analysis of the market and what was the process of founding AgreeYa Mobility?
Krish Kupathil: in 2010 the mobile industry was in a lot of flux, including handsets. Apple had launched very successfully, and Android had just launched. Most of the industry was still trying to assess and was guessing whether Android would be successful. That is when Samsung stepped in and announced that they would adopt Android.
Our conversation continues here.
