Cofounder at Kokum Labs who builds software that holds up
I build backend systems that hold up in production: pricing engines, approval flows, payment reconciliation. I am cofounder at Kokum Labs, a fintech firm.
(the drawings are the best part, keep scrolling)
a house, some birds, a very large sun
what I do now
kokum labs
I cofounded Kokum Labs because I want to go deep into fintech.
The first is merchant onboarding: getting verified by a payment gateway still means a document back-and-forth that stalls for weeks. We are building an agent that handles it. The second is agent pay. AI agents can now decide to buy something, but there are no rails for them to actually transact on. We are building those.
An agent that removes the document back-and-forth in merchant verification for payment gateways.
Payment infrastructure that lets AI agents transact.
things I made
Backend systems where being wrong is expensive. These show how I think about a problem, not just which tools I know.
Replaced spreadsheet-driven costing and offer creation at Encon with a real backend service. Pricing rules live in the system instead of in a workbook someone forgot to update, and every offer goes through the same validated path.
Cut offer turnaround by 70% and manual errors by 75%. In daily use by the commercial team.
Tracks requests for quotation through the whole commercial pipeline, from intake and costing through to approval and response, so nothing stalls silently and everyone can see where a quote actually is.
Running in production at Encon.
User-facing UI features for KDE Sheets, the spreadsheet application in the KDE suite. Built during Google Summer of Code, with feature design and code review by the upstream maintainers.
A web application for OneBusAway, the open-source real-time transit information system.
who is behind all this
I am a backend engineer. Most of what I have built lives out of sight: pricing engines, approval flows, payment reconciliation. It is the machinery underneath a business, where being wrong is expensive and being unpredictable is worse.
My favourite kind of work is taking something error-prone and manual and making it deterministic. At Encon I replaced spreadsheet-driven costing with real systems, and watched offer turnaround drop by 70% and manual errors by 75%. I own the whole lifecycle: architecture, deployment, monitoring, and the 2am pages.
In August 2026, I left Encon to cofound Kokum Labs. We are working on two problems in payments. The first is merchant onboarding, where an agent removes the document back-and-forth in merchant verification. The second is agent pay, the payment infrastructure AI agents need to transact.
Between 2018 and 2025 I built and ran a tourism business: a portfolio of Airbnb properties and a walking tour agency. Years of hosting people is the reason I build the way I do now: sustainably, honestly, and with a lot of care for the humans on the other side of the system.
Away from the terminal I read, box, play football, and wishlist Airbnbs. Right now I am reading Vijaya Maria.
70%
Faster offer turnaround
75%
Fewer manual errors
2014
Google Summer of Code
B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering
National Institute of Technology Durgapur, India
Aug 2011 to May 2015
the gallery ↓
every hat, so far ↓
Arabs who settled along the Konkan coast married local women, and their descendants became the Navayathis, a community of traders, and very good sailors.
The Economic Times
featured for resilience
“What we did was to survive.”
“Well, that is enough.”
what is in the pencil case
how I got here
Aug 2026 to Present
Kokum Labs · Panjim, Goa, India (remote)
Jan 2026 to Aug 2026
Encon Thermal Engineering Pvt. Ltd. · Panjim, India
Aug 2018 to Dec 2025
Airbnb portfolio & walking tour agency · Shantiniketan, India
Jan 2016 to Jul 2018
BillDesk · Mumbai, India
Offer in hand on graduating; the joining date at BillDesk was January 2016.
May 2014 to Sep 2014
KDE · Remote
the bit where you say hello
If you are building in payments, or working on agents that need to pay for things, I would like to hear about it. I answer within two business days. Email me, or get on a Google Meet with me.
or get on a Google Meet with me
Grab a slot