I move away a little and wait for her. The big man gives me an angry frown, but I choose to ignore him completely. I know that Asmitha is going to come to me. After all, I’m the youngest entrepreneur in the entire lot whose LinkedIn bio says ‘AI enthusiast’.

Asmitha flashes a curt smile at the big man as she turns towards me and chimes, ‘Nirvaan! It’s good to see you after all these years. I’m so glad you’re interested in AILENA.’

‘It’s good to see you too, Asmitha! Although, I must admit that it’s kind of ironic how in spite of being batchmates here at IIT-D, we barely ever interacted back then, and yet here we are, about to talk funding. I know you’ve come to the event to secure an investment from me.’ I smile.

‘How can you be so sure?’ She looks shocked.

‘As with the matters of the heart, when you know, you know!’ I wink playfully and extract a laugh from her. ‘When I’m interested in something, I don’t go for long, impractical conversations. I’m rather keen to know more about the product. And I believe that one can understand a product better only when they use it themselves once,’ I continue.

‘But we’re only going for a soft beta launch tomorrow. The final product will not be released for a while!’ she protests.

‘Sign me up for the beta launch then,’ I say politely but assertively.

‘I’d love to, Nirvaan, but we’ve programmed AILENA to pick up just two people after analysing all the user data,’ she explains.

‘Make me one of the two people and then find me a match! The other spot is still open to thousands of users who might sign up, isn’t it?’ I bait her.

‘But this is like rigging a fair game, Nirvaan!’ she resists.

‘Everything is fair in love and war. You should understand this better than anyone else since you’re in the business of love.’ I don’t give up.

‘You’re putting me in a tough spot.’

‘You’re the creator, Asmitha. Whom are you answerable to? No one! Also, keep this confidential.’ I try to lure her once more.

‘I’m answerable to AILENA. She’s my creation, yes. But she’s been built with values and principles.’ Clearly, she still wasn’t convinced.

‘You just have to reprogram things a little bit. Come on!’ I push her, hoping to see her answer change.

‘How much will you put in?’ she asks.

‘Five million,’ I blurt out the first figure that comes to mind. ‘And this is just me being your angel investor. I’ll help you secure another round of funding from a VC firm back in Silicon Valley within a year.’

‘No sir, I’m sorry, but I can’t take this offer,’ she says politely in a really low voice.