Founder Interview: Pooja Mathur

Editor's Note

In this edition, we sit down with Pooja Mathur, who has worked across all three sides of the startup ecosystem, as a founder, an operator, and now an investor,  to explore how that rare vantage point shapes her mission to bridge the Australia-India corridor. From building an e-commerce brand rooted in Indian tradition to backing climate tech through Indian capital, Pooja shares what it really takes to build presence, trust and conviction across two markets at once.

The Founder & the Idea

International Experience Across Multiple Regions

Pooja began her career as an investment banker in India, where she spent just over a decade helping startups with investor narratives, business models, financial models, and facilitating fundraising or M&A exits. This work helped her to work across multiple regions including the US and Europe as well. 

Her move to Australia came about from a conversation with her husband and their curiosity to build something outside of India for the next phase of their careers. Pooja’s observation of Australia is that the country has tremendous talent and potential, but lacks scale compared to the US, India, or Europe “you're working with 26 million people rather than billion-dollar markets.” Her connection more recently to Australia outside of work has meaningfully deepened with the birth of her first child. 

Three Sides of the Startup Ecosystem

Pooja is part of a rare cohort who has worked in all three major roles within startups. As a founder starting two businesses of her own, as an operator in startups and most recently as an investor at Scale Up Media Fund for News Corp in Australia. 

What she's learned from India is the hustle, the building mentality, and the constant fight to keep the lights on. She’s now bringing that energy pursuing three ventures in parallel: 

1. AI-Native Operations Consulting: Helping startups transform their operations into AI-native infrastructure through sprint-based work, automating workflows, and building agents into their pipelines. She's currently working with three startups on this.

2. E-Commerce Brand: Running Tazzy Tots, a product line called Tazzy Mat, a multifunctional playmat inspired by Indian postpartum traditions but designed with organic, premium materials.

3. Climate Tech Investment Thesis: Building a family office and bringing Indian high networth investors to deploy capital into Australian startups, specifically focused on climate tech. 

Why the Australia-India Bridge?

The Gap No One Was Solving

When Pooja was on parental leave, she started working on her investment thesis to bring Indian high networth investors and private capital to Australian climate tech startups. Through conversations with Australian climate tech founders, she discovered a critical gap: while founders knew India was an amazing market and platform, they had no playbook, no clear steps to follow, and struggled with market access, implementing pilots, and finding the right partners. 

In her view, this is what makes the Australia-India bridge so valuable, especially compared to the obvious but expensive and competitive next step of the US market.

The Reality of Building in India

The Physical Presence Problem

For Pooja the biggest operational challenge with working in India is for her e-commerce brand's manufacturing. India requires a fundamentally different approach than remote operations but she acknowledges that the timezones are far better between Australia and India compared to the US and India.  

Overall she finds sometimes in person presence is essential when WhatsApp and calls sometimes don't cut it. Unlike in China where she notes companies such as Alibaba have automated the manufacturing process end-to-end. Whereas in India everything starts with a pilot and scales gradually, and where you need to be there in person for the buildup.

Building the Support System

She also has an employee based in her Mumbai office navigating the operations and manufacturing piece. This has been crucial and a significant help for the coordination layer and maintaining momentum. Additionally she’s able to leverage family support, her Mother who is also a business owner and based in India can step in and can also help coordinate and execute tasks. One tip Pooja shared is to learn local lingo, as she’s found that sometimes you can get a better deal compared to when she has only communicated in English.

Casual Communication, Serious Craftsmanship

The biggest positive surprise for Pooja has been the quality of work from Indian manufacturers. Pooja’s experience is that there's a lot of thought put into the product and significant innovation at a fast pace.While Indian manufacturers may not be the most formal in terms of communication, when it comes to actually getting the job done, she saw a very high degree of professionalism.

Relationship First, Quality Follows

What really stands out to Pooja is the contrast with other overseas manufacturers, who are often synonymous with faulty or low-quality products. With Indian manufacturers her view is that “the quality consistently matches the price point, you'll never be shortchanged”. The key is building that connection and partnership first. Once that relationship is established, she's been rest assured of receiving quality goods.

Founder Advice

Counting Peers on One Hand

There are two key things she wishes someone had told her before starting 

1. Loneliness. Not many people are tackling bridging the Australia-India corridor. While she's glad to have met the Chai and Capital team!, she notes that you can count others in the market on her fingertips. 

2. The Validation Challenge: A flow on impact of experiencing loneliness is feeling like she has to constantly prove that this opportunity isn't just a theory in her head. How Pooja has countered questions on the opportunity is her high degree of optimism and conviction, this keeps her going even when the journey feels isolating.

Get on the Plane, Find your Person

For founders working in India, Pooja advises two key areas: 

1. Travel. Her recommendation is to make that trip to India, at a minimum you’ll come back with great stories. More importantly she finds that once you're there in person, you'll see the opportunity and potential, and that's when things really start to click.

2. Find a Trusted Local Partner.  Pooja acknowledges this is tougher and easier said than done, but investing the time in finding a partner who understands India is important to reveal the knowledge and navigation layers. 

Her core message is that you shouldn’t try to figure out India through a web search alone, as what you see online is very different from how it actually works. Find trusted people who understand the ecosystem and can guide you. “There are lots of Indians in Australia, just find someone, talk to them, and understand the ecosystem”

Two Underrrated Bets: Climate Tech and Consumer

Pooja shared two areas she thinks are underrated about India right now, Climate Tech and the Consumer Sector. 

Within Climate tech she sees big opportunities in agricultural technology and renewable energy, especially with 1.8B people to feed and limited natural resources, “there's huge potential to bring modern tech to the forefront, for better produce, and improving output”.

And within the consumer because of the rise of the middle class rapidly increasing with more disposable income she sees the sectors of weddings, baby care products and pet care growing in demand. “These niches are no longer niches, they're becoming whole categories in themselves.”

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Pooja's journey shows that building across Australia and India is not just about spotting a gap, but about having the conviction to bridge it alone until others follow. From learning to be physically present for manufacturing relationships to backing India's next wave of climate tech and consumer opportunities, her approach reflects a founder who treats presence, patience and trust as the real currency of cross-border business. As she continues pursuing her three ventures in parallel, Pooja is proving that the Australia-India corridor isn't just an underexplored opportunity, it's one worth showing up for, again and again.

See you on Thursday for our weekly brew on Indian startup and tech news!

Chai and Capital