Founders are raising millions to pull you back to real life
As AI rounds break records, a quiet pack of founders is funding the opposite bet: getting people off their screens and into the same room. India should watch closely.
The News
While the AI fundraising machine keeps setting records, a small group of founders is deliberately building in the other direction. TechCrunch's latest Equity discussion flagged what it called the "together tech" wave as one of the most intriguing startup bets of 2026, and the money is starting to follow.
The clearest signal is Board, a new venture from Brynn Putnam, the founder of connected-fitness firm Mirror. Board has raised 20 million dollars to build in-person games and social experiences, wagering that people will pay to gather face to face rather than stare at another feed. Around it sits a scrappier scene of cyberdeck makers, crafting whimsical do-it-yourself computers designed, half-jokingly, to make users put the phone down and touch grass.
The contrast with the headline numbers is stark. Anthropic has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, and Alphabet has been raising on the order of 80 billion dollars to fund its AI ambitions. Even outside pure AI, capital is flowing to hard problems: ex-Meta chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer has assembled a 250 million dollar climate fund, and rocket-engine startup Impulse has pulled in 500 million dollars, with a pitch built around spending on people rather than models.
Why It Matters
The interesting part is that this does not read as pure backlash. The pitch behind "together tech" is that loneliness and screen fatigue are durable consumer problems, and that an entire generation will pay a premium for experiences a model cannot replicate.
There is precedent for contrarian bets paying off when one theme swallows all the oxygen. When social audio briefly looked like the future in 2021, the durable winners turned out to be businesses solving older, more human needs rather than the loudest platform of the moment. If almost every cheque is chasing the same frontier model thesis, the genuinely mispriced opportunities may be the ones sitting just outside it.
For investors, the signal is a hedge: a way of saying not everything will be won by whoever spends the most on compute.
Indian Angle
India is, on paper, the worst possible market for a "touch grass" thesis. Cheap data and some of the world's lowest mobile tariffs pulled hundreds of millions of first-time users straight onto their screens over the past decade, and domestic venture funding today leans heavily towards AI, with names such as Sarvam and Krutrim soaking up attention and capital.
Yet the regulatory wind has just shifted in a way founders should notice. India's Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, passed in 2025, banned real-money online games, knocking the floor out from under a category that had drawn enormous funding. That ban creates a vacuum precisely where "together tech" plays: board-game cafes, gaming lounges and experiential venues that are already a visible trend across Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi now face less digital competition for the same entertainment rupee.
For Indian operators and angel investors, the read is simple. The offline-social category in India is not a Western import; it is a domestic consumer opportunity with a freshly cleared regulatory runway. The harder question is talent. With every well-funded lab hunting Indian AI engineers, founders building patient, margin-thin experience businesses will have to compete for builders against the very fundraising machine they are quietly betting against.
FAQ
What is "together tech"?
It is a loose label for startups building products that bring people together in person rather than online. The flagship example is Board, founded by Mirror's Brynn Putnam, which has raised 20 million dollars to create real-world games and social experiences as a deliberate counterpoint to AI-first ventures.
How big is the bet compared with AI rounds?
Modest, for now. Board's 20 million dollars sits against Alphabet raising roughly 80 billion dollars for AI and Anthropic filing confidentially to go public. The thesis is about durable consumer demand and mispriced opportunity, not out-raising the frontier labs.
Why is this relevant to India specifically?
India's 2025 Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act banned real-money online games, weakening a heavily funded digital category. That clears space for offline-social formats such as board-game cafes and experiential venues already growing in Indian metros.
Where can I read the original coverage?
The trend was discussed on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, which framed "together tech" as one of 2026's most intriguing startup bets. The link to the full episode is in the attribution below.
This story was reported by TechCrunch. Read the full original coverage at TechCrunch.