IIIT-H Alumnus Parminder Singh traces his astronomical rise in the world of hard-core tech and the roller-coaster journey that informs his world view.
Startup founder Parminder Singh’s story flows like his favorite adrenaline-packed video game; with punches of danger, humour, love, tragedy and triumph. Growing up in the border town of Firozpur, nurtured by IIIT Hyderabad’s pioneering vision, and unicorn dreams from India to Silicon Valley, these are vignettes from his colourful life.
His stripes earned at Tachyon Technologies, Rediff and Flipkart, Parminder tested the entrepreneurial waters with Hansel.io, that leapfrogged his credentials as an astute startup founder. Post its acquisition by US-based NetcoreCloud in 2020, he moved to Scaler Academy to set up the Edtech’s flagship program in the United States. In 2023, he co-founded Redscope AI, with two innovative products that are redefining conversion rate optimization through Agentic AI and real-time personalization.
A mentor on Berkeley’s entrepreneurship program and CIE- IIITH’s Avishkar Accelerator panel, Parminder is slated to join a specialty AI team in SucSeed, a Hyderabad-based angel network and venture capital fund. The newsmaker was recently featured in premier platforms like Venture Beat and Entrepreneur.com.
Rolling tanks, spinning dreams and a keyed fuel tank
An adventurer wrapped up in erudition and enterprise, Parminder’s fearless spirit possibly stems from growing up in Firozpur, a small town on the Pakistani border. “Armored tanks would roll past my house every time there was a border skirmish”, he smiles.
His love of tech and problem solving was inherited from his mother, a school lecturer. His father, a civil engineer, gifted him his first computer in sixth grade, a life-defining moment for the youngster. Swept up into the virtual world of video games, he soon began writing small games for himself. Recognizing early potential, he was enrolled into Aptech computers that formalized fun with learning languages.
A bad Math score in sixth grade shook him up. A terrifying lecture and the removal of all privileges, was followed by the appointment of a government school tutor who would spark his love for math. “In ninth grade, my Punjabi parents began weighing options in engineering or medicine, the golden ticket to Canada and USA”, he laughs. “But the regular spiel about great education and pay packages never excited me”.
Seeing his determination, he was enrolled into a top tier tuition in Chandigarh. Moving to the glitzy city with its pluralistic charms was enthralling for the 13-year-old, until a disturbing incident reoriented his perspective. Someone had keyed his brand new motorbike and that devastated him. My mother jolted me out of my misery when she pointed out that this is the time of life to study and consolidate your foundation. The tone and delivery was impactful! “While most hostel mates were heading out to parties, movies and pubs, my world became immersed in physics and math. Meanwhile, the company I kept were aiming for the IITs and that is the energy that drove me”.
IIIT-H sketches a computer vision
Parminder joined civil engineering at IIT Roorkee but his heart was set on computer science. When he returned home, it shook up his parents. His father’s investigative fervour would lead him to Ankur Handa, a Firozpur resident and ECE student from IIIT Hyderabad’s early batch who was “gaga about the institute.” What sealed the deal was when Ankur pointed out that while most engineering colleges are consumers of technology, in IIIT-H they are creating technology.
“I am thankful for that leap of faith because IIIT-Hyderabad’s faculty converted ambition into an achievable roadmap. My love of gaming and programming drew me towards Prof. CV Jawahar. I was mesmerized by his teaching style and as his teaching assistant, we worked on several interesting projects. I also hosted a QT class, outside the TA requirement, for juniors. Prof. P J Narayanan was a rare visionary who allowed me the opportunity to explore the CV Labs. Even today, when Prof PJN visits the Bay Area, an alumni meeting organically falls into place. Such is the personal equation we share”.
How IIIT-H informed the future trajectory
“When you hit the ground, you see where the rubber meets the road”. Parminder points out that the technical education and amazing ecosystem of IIIT-H’s top-quality faculty and batch mates shaped the work he does today. He embraced the geek aspect of the Institute from day one. Working on systems like Linux was a stepping stone to working on integrating clusters. “We were creating systems on the go; the Felicity website, a web-based system for uploading projects for Prof. CV Jawahar and an Adobe competitor that was a revolution back in the day.”
At Dr. Abhijeet Mitra’s biology lab, Parminder and friends configured the network of machines and internal protocols for PhD scholars to work on huge rDNA computations. He enjoyed tinkering with technology. He would format his laptop every 24 hours, with different variants of Linux and spend time with friends at a coffee shop while the system got installed.
Prof. Ramesh Loganathan’s entrepreneurship program was a game changer in his third year. Partnering with Sanket Sharma to digitize medical records in Hyderabad was an ambitious first adventure. With Google and the local chaiwallah as twin information sources, they crisscrossed the city on their second-hand bike, visiting path labs and technicians to understand the data pipeline.
Bhangra beats and soulful poetry
Parminder enjoyed basketball games in IIIT-H’s non-judgmental environment. He reveals that as a big fan of Bhangra, he participated in many dancing competitions. “I loved the campus vibe so much that I spent most summers at the institute, sitting in the coffee shop with Gauri the shop owner, reading English literature or writing poetry”. When Harpreet Kaur, a Masters student entered his life as girlfriend and future wife, she became the muse for his poetry. He fondly recalls Prof. Harjinder Singh’s generosity in inspiring him with his own poetry and feedback.
Hitting the high notes after IIIT-H
Parminder joined Tachyon Technologies, a Bangalore-based startup, and was astounded by the visionary zeal of its founders. They were working on hardcore tech projects in AI and ML for Rediff.com. “It was a wonderful phase and I was winning multiple awards as a Speedcoder”, he adds. His next move to Flipkart introduced him to Sachin and Binny Bansal, who in 2012, were the face of mobility. “Product manager Varun Ramamurthy and I were working on very interesting mobile projects including a Spotify-style music platform, Flipkart eBooks, and their principal e-commerce app”.
Sweet success and powering through tragedy
A significant conversation with Varun Ramamurthy over coffee would signal the next chapter in Parminder’s story. Their decision to exit Flipkart and launch their entrepreneurial journey was a tough call.
A few unsuccessful startups later, they hit gold with Hansel.io. Their digital adoption platform for mobiles, empowered product managers to modify app experiences without writing code. It won them a slew of awards, including NASSCOM’s League of Ten. When PayTM came on board, the high volume traffic crashed their server. “At Flipkart, we were iterating on the go, and here we were learning and setting up multiple servers and auto-scaling. PayTM, Ola, Yatra and every unicorn was working with us and we were fielding calls from overseas clients in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia”. Your Story pegged them as the most promising rising startup in India and Gartner’s Cool Vendor Quadrant covered their journey in an exclusive feature.
In 2016, Parminder’s life came crashing down when his newborn infant passed away. “It took me over six months to pull myself back together”, he recalls. As work picked up, one proud moment was launching Hansel.io’s first office in the US in 2019. The next was the acquisition by NetcoreCloud in 2020. In December 2021, Anshuman Singh, co-founder of Scaler and his IIIT-H junior invited Parminder to join as Vice President Engineering and Growth to set up their US operation. “Once I had got the company to a certain stage, I was ready to get back to tech”, states the innovator.
Redscope AI gives your website a brain
Parminder realized that while building software is relatively easy, the hard part is landing a good go-to-market (GTM) strategy. The raison d etre for RedScope is to make websites agentic by giving it a mind. As you browse, the website is dynamically gauging and suggesting a demo or creating customized content for you, explains Parminder who recently gave a talk on durable agentic infrastructure at the AI Council.
Keep Calm and Carpe Diem
When ‘away from keyboard’, Parminder’s personal time is joyfully filled with chess, board games, dance and Taekwondo workouts with his eight-year-old daughter Navleen Kaur in his home gym. Saturday mornings are devoted to whipping up breakfast for family, chatting, reading stories and watching videos.
A photograph of the Pale Blue Dot on his desk reminds him of our insignificance in the grander scheme of the universe. As a Sikh, the valiant story of Guru Gobind Singh in the battle of Chamkaur Sahib demonstrates that when you lose the fear of death, you lose fear itself and then there is literally nothing to stop you. His infant daughter’s passing made him realize that you are running on gifted time. You need to stop worrying and enjoy life.
Every now and then, Parminder selects a project, way out of his comfort zone. “The one thing that gives me joy is to create something which can help somebody in achieving their goals. That is what I love about life now”.
Deepa Shailendra is a freelance writer for interior design publications; an irreverent blogger, consultant editor and author of two coffee table books. A social entrepreneur who believes that we are the harbingers of the transformation and can bring the change to better our world.