Made in India: Meet the founders of Dashtoon

Blending the power of generative AI with the art of storytelling, Dashtoon is reimagining how visual content is created, consumed, and scaled. In this Q&A, Sanidhya Narain, Lalith Gudipati, and Soumyadeep Mukherjee, the co-founders of Dashtoon, take us through their journey of building a platform that empowers creators and captivates mobile-native audiences with bold, new formats.

Sanidhya Narain: Lalith and I saw a completely new format, audio series, go from non-existent to mainstream. It made us realise that while it may seem like there’s an overload of content today, users still face a shortage of engaging formats that fit their habits and attention spans. That gap between content abundance and content relevance stuck with us.

In 2022, while experimenting with generative AI, we met Soumyadeep who shared our vision, and joined us as co-founder and CTO. Together, we started Dashtoon, a platform to reinvent comics using AI by making high-quality visual storytelling fast, scalable, and creator-friendly. Then came Dashreels, our second big leap in AI storytelling, focused on what we call AI vertical dramas. With Dashtoon and Dashreels, we’re more committed than ever to creating a truly global consumer product rooted in creativity, technology, and storytelling.

Dashtoon founders: I don’t think there’s ever a single defining moment when you’re building a company. Different challenges show up at different stages, and each of them feels defining at the moment. What you learn over time is that there’s no final trophy—just constant problem-solving, course correction, and perseverance.

Especially when building with generative AI, you’re often creating things that have never existed before. That’s incredibly exciting, but also extremely challenging. You have to think from first principles all the time, and that means you’re constantly iterating, failing, learning, and adjusting. It’s humbling, unpredictable, and full of potential.

Dashtoon founders: We’ve been genuinely surprised and grateful for how supportive the Google Play team has been. Our journey began when Dashtoon was selected as the 'Best for Fun’ app in India and since then, Play has offered valuable insights on app performance, industry trends, and strategy, shaping how we built both product and content.

We also recently partnered with Google Play and IAMAI for the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit and hosted Comic Chronicles, which saw thousands of creator submissions and showcased AI-powered storytelling to a wider ecosystem. Play has been a strong catalyst for our growth, global partnerships, and deep ecosystem engagement.

Dashtoon founders: As digital entrepreneurs in India, we’ve often built within frameworks shaped by global standards. So for us, independence means breaking that pattern and asking: What do Indian users truly want? What stories do they want to tell and what formats resonate with them? With generative AI, we now have the freedom to create original content formats from scratch, not adapt existing ones. That’s real independence - writing our own playbook.

Dashtoon founders: It’s easy to get excited about a trend, but the real test is sticking around when it stops being glamorous. In spaces like generative AI, progress is unpredictable, and there’s rarely a clear roadmap. So unless you’re deeply curious about the problem you’re solving, it’s hard to survive the long run. Also, don’t wait for perfect timing. The tech will evolve, the market will shift, and you’ll keep learning. Just start building, testing, and talking to users.