---
title: "Venkatesh Raju - Founder & CEO in Bengaluru | Tal"
description: "Meet Venkatesh Raju, Building Zame AI || ex Deccan AI, Cashfree Payments || NITC based in Bengaluru. AI stack includes claude code, claude, and cursor."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/venkatesh-p-1/share-image"
---

# Venkatesh Raju on Tal

## Headline

Building Zame AI \|\| ex Deccan AI, Cashfree Payments \|\| NITC

## About

As an Engineering Leader, I take the charge from day one, wearing diverse hats — from CTO to Product Manager, Engineering Lead to DevOps, focussing on scaling both the product and the team\. I build the product, scale the team and make critical decisions to drive business success\. Passionate about innovation, I actively recruit top talent, network at industry summits, and constantly seek ways to push the boundaries of what we could achieve\. With 7\+ years of experience in full\-stack development, AI, Machine Learning, microservices, and infrastructure, I’ve honed my ability to lead cross\-functional teams, build scalable solutions, and mentor the next generation of tech leaders\. I’m driven by the challenge of turning ideas into impactful products and am always looking for opportunities to grow, lead, and innovate\.

## Location

Bengaluru

## AI stack

claude code

claude

cursor

elevenlabs

langchain

RunPod

## Work experience

Founder & CEO at Zame AI, Jul 2025 \- Present · 1 yr 3 mos, Meet Zara — our always\-on AI recruiter, built to fix what’s broken in modern hiring\. Traditional recruiting takes too much time and misses too much talent\. Recruiters often spend over 13 hours sourcing for just one role and most of their day on screening calls — yet most candidates still turn out to be a poor fit\. Meanwhile, great people never even get a chance because there just aren’t enough hours in the day\. Zara changes that: 1\. Sources intelligently across resumes, job boards, LinkedIn, GitHub, and niche communities — building a curated talent network of over a million candidates \(and growing\)\. 2\. Screens candidates objectively and without bias through data\-driven evaluation of skills, experience, and qualifications to deliver highly accurate matches\. 3\. Communicates with candidates personally and at scale via email, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn 4\. Delivers real\-time analytics and hiring insights that help shorten time\-to\-fill, improve quality of hire, and optimise every step of the process\. 5\. Integrates seamlessly with all major recruitment tools and ATS systems for effortless setup and adoption\. Developed in collaboration with leading researchers at Swansea, Zara blends deep academic expertise with cutting\-edge AI innovation\. Empowering recruiters to focus less on repetitive tasks and more on what really matters: building relationships, assessing culture fit, and making great hires\.

Engineer at Zame AI, Apr 2025 \- Jul 2025 · 4 mos, Built AI agents for sales, recruitment & support

Travel at Career Break, Jan 2025 \- Mar 2025 · 3 mos, Into the mountatins

Founding Member at Deccan AI, Nov 2023 \- Feb 2025 · 1 yr 4 mos, On\-site, Technical founder/CTO\. Built tech outta thin air\. Grew n Scaled verticals across tech & product\. Soul AI \-> Deccan AI

Senior Software Development Engineer at Cashfree Payments, Apr 2021 \- Nov 2023 · 2 yrs 8 mos, Bengaluru Area, India

Product Engineer at Cashfree Payments, Jun 2019 \- Apr 2021 · 1 yr 11 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Software Development Intern at Cashfree \- Payment Gateway and Bank Transfer APIs, May 2018 \- Jul 2018 · 3 mos, Bengaluru Area, India

## Education

Computer Science and Engineering, National institute of technology Calicut

Startup School Live, Y Combinator

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/venkatesh-p-1)

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