&
Delhi → Los Angeles  ·  UCLA '26

Nalin Jayaswal.

Building institutions, communities,
and AI products between India and LA.

The & connects them.

Now Kolam Studio · Bruin Finance Society · UCLA '26 · figuring out what comes next
01

Two worlds.
One person.

Entrepreneur tech CEO father, leadership NLP coach mother
Econ & Cognitive Science
VC analyst & product builder
Delhi ↔ Los Angeles
Conrad Award winner
Head Boy, Amity International School
Published researcher (CSR policy, Dr. James Truncer)
LSE Summer Fellow, 2024

My dad is an entrepreneur and tech CEO. My mom is a leadership and NLP coach. I grew up at that intersection — the builder and the understander, the system and the person inside it. I didn't choose to be an ampersand. It was what was modeled at the dinner table every night.

"I stopped fighting the duality and achieved a stable, happy equilibrium."

At UCLA, I built Bruin Finance Society from scratch because every finance club took 10 people from 1,000 applicants and called it meritocracy. I disagreed. Two thousand members later, hundreds of students have gotten their first finance role through something that didn't exist before we made it.

In India, I'm on the founding team of Kolam Studio — a venture studio backing early-stage founders in Bharat. Kolam is a traditional Indian art form: geometric patterns drawn from dots, connecting them with flowing lines. It's the most honest metaphor I've found for what I actually do.

It started earlier than UCLA. In high school in Delhi, I built Farm+ — an Arduino-based smart irrigation device to reduce water waste — and founded Sampatti, a financial literacy gazette, because neither thing existed and both felt necessary. The pattern was already there.

I've evaluated 50+ AI startups as a VC analyst, shipped an AI product as VP of Product at Native Labs, and consulted for businesses ranging from LA nonprofits to UC campuses. The through-line is always the same: find the interesting problem at the intersection, then go deep.

02 — Work

Things I've Built

01
Kolam Studio ↗
Founding Team

Bharat-focused venture studio taking founders from idea to early validation. Running sprint programs, founder sourcing, and investor readiness for India's next wave of builders. Focus: citizen services, MSME SaaS, deep tech.

India's founder ecosystem is a decade early — and that's the point.

Venture StudioIndiaEarly Stage
2025 →
02
Bruin Finance Society ↗
Co-President & Co-Founder

Built UCLA's largest open-access finance organization from 0 to 2,000+ members — without institutional backing, a budget, or a staff. Structured a full training pipeline covering consulting, VC, and IB. Hundreds of students got their first finance role through something that didn't exist before. Also runs a dedicated VC team within BFS — aspiring investors who source UCLA and LA-area student startups, conduct due diligence, and write investment memos on a weekly cadence. Early-stage deal flow before it reaches traditional VC.

2,000+ members · weekly VC deal flow · zero to institution

CommunityFinanceUCLA
2022 →
03
Native Labs ↗
VP of Product

Built the end-to-end product — AI-powered group chat to auto-extracted tasks to real-time dashboards — for SMBs achieving 50% faster execution and 3x better insights. Native Labs is an incubatee of Kolam Studio — built inside the same venture studio infrastructure I helped design alongside Jasminder Singh Gulati, one of India's top angel investors. Led product thesis on the AI of UX: a living command center with glassmorphic UI rooted in cognitive science and affective computing. Led a cross-functional team of 3 developers from prototype to production.

From studio to product — built the infrastructure, then used it.

AI / ProductAgenticGTM
2024
04
LvlUp Ventures
VC Analyst

Evaluated 50+ AI startups across deal flow. Wrote investment memos, managed pipeline, and sat in on founder meetings. Built the pattern recognition for early-stage investing that textbooks don't teach.

50+ startups evaluated · judgment over theory

VCAIDeal Flow
2023 – 24
05
Sarthy Venture Partners
LP Associate

Worked across 5 live US VC mandates. Built outbound LP pipelines and investor outreach campaigns from scratch. Learned the fundraising side of the table alongside the investing side — both matter.

VCLP RelationsFundraising
2023 – 24
06
Pet Peeves
Founder

Early social entrepreneurship startup built during high school. Won the Conrad Award — a national innovation prize — for putting a real product in front of real people for the first time. The lesson about building from conviction before you have permission stuck.

Conrad Award winner · where it started

Conrad AwardFirst Company
2021 – 22
07
Bonnie Reiss Fellowship
Climate Action Fellow

Selected as one of a small cohort of fellows across the UC system to support the University of California's 2025 carbon neutrality goal. Designed and implemented a project for UCLA Health to measure, analyze, and reduce emissions across facilities. Synthesized findings into reports presented to campus sustainability leadership.

UC-wide · systems thinking applied to institutional change

SustainabilityConsultingUC System
2023 – 24
08
Consult Your Community
Analyst & Team Lead

Delivered growth strategy for a local apparel company — consumer research and marketing plan leading to 300% increase in social media engagement. Designed an ambassador and influencer strategy for a crypto-social media startup that was adopted into actual growth operations. Appointed to the National Task Force to review 30+ CYC chapters nationwide and plan the national conference.

300% social media growth · national task force

ConsultingStrategyGTM
2023 →
03 — Thinking

Current
Obsessions

A living thought board. Things I'm reading around, building around, or can't stop thinking about.

India's AI infrastructure moment
Browser-native AI workflows
Community as a moat
Taste as leverage
Systems that scale trust
Why great founders feel contradictory
AI-native institutions
Sufi music
The second-order effects of agentic AI
What India exports next
Founder as translator
Bharat's missing middle
The economics of open-access communities
Delhi as an underrated startup city
Slow productivity
Affective computing
The economics of trust
Irrigation and water systems
Financial literacy as infrastructure
04 — Beliefs

Things I
Actually Think

"Communities are startups with delayed monetization."

Every great community is building something — network, trust, shared identity. The revenue comes later, but the compounding starts on day one.

"Most founders are translators between worlds."

The real skill isn't the idea. It's seeing clearly across two contexts that don't usually talk — and building the bridge anyway.

"Taste compounds."

Good judgment, applied consistently over time, is a moat. Most people underestimate how far it carries.

"The best operators are part systems thinker, part therapist."

You can't fix a process without understanding why people break it. My parents modeled this every day without naming it.

"India needs institutions that shape AI, not just consume it."

The window is open. The talent is there. What's missing is the infrastructure of ambition — studios, journals, networks, ventures that operate at the frontier.

05 — Writing

Field
Notes

Not polished essays. Observations from the middle of building things.

Notes from building Native

On agentic AI, product operations, and what SMBs actually need in the early automation wave.

Mar 2026 In Progress
What evaluating 50 AI startups taught me

Pattern recognition, founder tells, and the questions worth asking before a term sheet.

Jan 2026 In Progress
Why communities matter more than ever

On institutional trust, access, and open-access as a philosophy for institution building.

Nov 2025 In Progress
Thoughts from Delhi and LA

On operating across two cities, two cultures, and what each teaches the other about speed.

Oct 2025 In Progress
06 — Next

What I'm
Looking For

High-agency environments where speed is the default

Places where ownership isn't negotiated — it's assumed. Where "let me check with the team" isn't the first answer.

Founder proximity

I learn fastest when I'm in the room. Early-stage, where decisions get made and unmade in the same conversation.

Real-world AI deployment, not demos

I want to build AI products that ship — not decks about AI products that might ship.

India ↔ US with serious ambition

Organizations operating across both ecosystems with a genuine thesis — not just a satellite office.

Early-stage chaos with taste

Builders who care about craft — even when, especially when, everything is on fire.

If this sounds like your team, I want to hear about it.

07 — Now

What I'm
Working On

Building

Running the sprint program in Delhi. Sourcing founders, building partnerships, supporting early-stage companies in the Bharat ecosystem.

Leading

Co-President. Running the Associates Program, hosting events, placing students into their first finance roles.

Finishing
UCLA — Class of '26

Last quarter. BA Economics + BSc Cognitive Science. Graduating June 2026. Four years of building something new every semester.

Figuring out
What's Next

Looking for the right first role after graduation — early-stage, high-ownership, at the intersection of AI, operations, and real-world impact. Graduating June 2026.

08 — Contact

Let's build
something real.

If you're working on something interesting — in India, in LA, in the space between — I want to hear about it.