Layak Singh

Advising and consulting Every sector below is one I have run a company in.

Advisory work, in areas where I have done the thing rather than read about it. A list of sectors on its own is a claim; each of these is tied to the company that earned it, so it can be checked against the journey.

Where the experience comes from

Seven sectors, six companies. Three of the seven reach DharmikVibes and two reach RODIC, which is the argument rather than a coincidence: this is one body of work seen from different angles, not seven separate claims.
Advisory sectors, and the company each one came from Insurance, health and financial services, from Artivatic.ai. AI, LLMs and agents, from Artivatic.ai and DharmikVibes and RODIC Consultants. Infrastructure: roads, bridges, highways, railways, power, agriculture and mining, from RODIC Consultants. Education, from iwanttutor, eStudyCorner. Travel and pilgrimage, from DharmikVibes. Religion and devotion, from DharmikVibes. Consumer and social, from DateIITians and Cogxio. The same pairing is written out below. Sector Where it comes from Insurance and health AI, LLMs, agents Infrastructure Education Travel Devotion Consumer and social DharmikVibes RODIC Consultants Artivatic.ai DateIITians Cogxio iwanttutor, eStudyCorner

A company that is finished A company that is still running

What I advise on

  • Strategy

    What the company is actually for, which of the five things on the roadmap matters, and what to stop doing. Mostly the second and third.

  • Technology strategy and AI systems

    Where AI actually belongs in a business that already works, and where it is being bolted on because someone asked for it. Model choice, build against buy, and the cost of running the thing once it is live.

  • LLMs and agents

    Applied, not theoretical: what an agent can be trusted with, what has to stay deterministic, and how to keep a system honest about the moment it degrades instead of quietly getting worse.

  • Growth

    Acquisition, retention and the metrics that matter. The first channel that works, what it costs, and the numbers that tell you whether the second one is worth opening.

  • Go-to-market

    Getting into regulated buyers, partnerships that survive the pilot, pricing that a customer can explain to their own finance team, and what to do when the thing you built is not the thing being bought.

  • Brand building

    A brand a customer will repeat to someone else, and a founder who can be found and read. Built from what the company actually does, not from a positioning exercise.

  • Team building and culture

    The habits a team of eight has that a team of eighty inherits whether you like it or not. Setting them on purpose while they are still cheap to set.

  • Hiring

    The founding team, the first twenty hires, and interviewing: what to test for at each stage, what to pay for, and which early hire is quietly deciding the culture.

  • Fundraising readiness

    Whether to raise at all, what the numbers have to look like before the conversation is worth having, and the data room and story that survive a diligence.

  • Technical due diligence

    Reading a company from its codebase, its architecture and its team, before an investment or an acquisition. I have been on both sides of this.

  • Education sector

    Institutions, ed-tech and student programmes. My first two companies were in education, and the sector has the same hard parts it had then: distribution, outcomes, and who pays.

  • Governance and digital programmes for NGOs

    Board and governance basics, a digital programme that fits the people who will run it, and the reporting a funder will actually read.

Advisory roles

  • Advisory roles with early-stage startups and NGOs

    Product, go-to-market and AI systems for founders; governance and digital programmes for non-profits.

For an advisory conversation, write to [email protected] or use the contact page, with the stage you are at and the decision in front of you.

Sector by sector

  • Insurance, health and financial services

    Artivatic.ai

    Building and selling underwriting, risk, fraud and claims decisions to insurers, brokers, reinsurers and health partners, in India and outside it. I know how these buyers procure, why pilots stall, and what a regulator will and will not accept.

    Written on this: What 8 Years in Indian Insurtech Taught Me About Where the Money Actually Moves

  • AI, LLMs and agents

    Artivatic.ai, DharmikVibes, RODIC Consultants

    Production machine learning from before it was fashionable, and the current agent stack from having to make decisions about it weekly. The same work runs in three places at once: as the product at Artivatic, as the spine of what we are building at DharmikVibes, and as advisory on AI, product and strategy at RODIC.

    Written on this: The AI-Powered Content & Knowledge System Blueprint for 2026

  • Infrastructure: roads, bridges, highways, railways, power, agriculture and mining

    RODIC Consultants

    Project intelligence and monitoring across roads, bridges, highways, railways, power, agriculture and mining, advising RODIC Consultants and RODIC Digital on AI, product and strategy. A very different discipline to consumer software: the feedback loop is years long and the data arrives from a site, not a browser.

    Written on this: Beyond Roads and Bridges: How Bharat’s Infrastructure Story Is Changing

  • Education

    iwanttutor, eStudyCorner

    Online tutoring and education products, including selling to parents in small Indian cities and to students outside the country.

  • Travel and pilgrimage

    DharmikVibes

    Pilgrimage travel: darshan bookings, stays near a temple, and the logistics between them, which is travel with a fixed calendar and a hard trust requirement.

  • Religion and devotion

    DharmikVibes

    Verifying practitioners, holding a ritual catalogue that is correct across traditions and languages, and settling money to thousands of small partners.

  • Consumer and social

    DateIITians, Cogxio

    Matching, ranking, closed and verified networks, and the specific problem of a product where the supply is other people.

How to start

[email protected]

Write with the problem, the stage you are at, and the decision you are trying to make. I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person, and if I am not I will usually know who is.

Ask for a time