'Black & Indian, Like Cartoon': Indian-Origin Startup Founders Face Racist Trolls After Raising $61 Million Funding

Two Indian-origin startup founders have become victims of a shocking incident of unprovoked online trolling and racist abuse. The trolling started after the duo posted a video on social media platform X, proudly announcing that their startup had secured $61 million in Series A funding led by Redpoint Ventures.

Varun Vummadi and Esha Manideep's San Francisco-based startup, named Giga, builds voice-based AI agents for companies needing customer support. Giga's AI agents have already started working with American delivery company DoorDash. While sharing the news of the funding on X, the IIT Kharagpur graduates had posted, "The world’s leading companies like DoorDash trust Giga to supercharge customer experience with AI."

However, what they didn't expect was racist trolls targeting them for their appearance, origin and accent. Reacting to their post, a man tweeted, "Look how ugly they are", while another said, “Ewwwwww go change your skin colour.” One person posted, “If you raise $61 million maybe hire attractive people for the demo.” Vicious remarks like “Looks like you guys never shower” were also commented under their post.

Shocking comments shaming them for their Indian origin also poured in on social media. A netizen wrote, "He so black and round and Indian, feels like a cartoon." Another said, “Indians...no thanks.” Other disgraceful comments included, “Indians are ugly in general but you sir lol.” Several people also asked them to leave San Francisco, with one saying, “You two...ugly so*s of b****** need to leave San Francisco." Another person commented, “Deport.”

Trolling them for their accent, an X user said, “Can anyone translate to English?"

Several people also came out in support of the two, with one saying, “When people can’t compete in brilliance, they attack appearance. That’s not humor that’s insecurity.”

An X user quipped, “Watch them become millionaires while your groyper ass slaves away for a $12/h job.”

Notably, CEO Varun Vummadi and CTO Esha Manideep featured in the ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ list in 2024. They had been offered “incredible” jobs with high salaries after  their graduation. However, they rejected the opportunities to pursue their passion towards solving challenging problems in machine learning.

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