There is a certain intensity about Vamshi that becomes clear within the first few minutes of conversation — not the frantic kind that burns out quickly, but the deep, steady flame of someone who has been building things his entire life.
Avalon Artificial Intelligence, the UK-based deep-tech company he has spent the past four years developing, didn’t arrive as an idea sketched on a napkin. It grew slowly, almost inevitably, from the way he sees the world: systems, patterns, inefficiencies waiting to be transformed into something smarter.
Where the journey really began
Vamshi grew up in India in the middle of a family business. Customer service, negotiations and operational problem-solving were daily life. He watched his parents nurture relationships, build trust, and understand need before offering solutions. At school he was drawn to physics and computer science, excelling not because he chased grades but because the logic clicked.
When he arrived in the UK for his master’s degree, these two parts of his identity — the business observer and the engineer — fused naturally. He began noticing everything that didn’t quite make sense. Police officers knocking door-to-door for CCTV footage. Hours of video being reviewed manually. Access cards used in ways they weren’t meant to be. Buildings full of cameras, yet very little intelligence attached to them.
“It kept bothering me,” he says. “We already have the hardware. Why not give it a brain?”
That question never left him.
Building Avalon the slow, deliberate way
Avalon Artificial Intelligence didn’t start with rapid scaling or flashy announcements. It started with four people working quietly, methodically, and often late into the night. The team has now grown to eight, with a ninth joining soon, but the pace has always been intentional. No unnecessary overheads. No hiring for the sake of vanity metrics. Just consistent refinement of a technology stack that now processes huge volumes of video across hundreds of cameras nationwide.
Everything Avalon builds runs locally rather than in the cloud — a philosophy shaped by customer expectations in the UK. Better privacy, lower latency, and fewer unnecessary costs. Behind the scenes sits Avalon’s most unusual asset: a fully owned “demo house,” a real property used as a live testing ground.
“Becoming a landlord wasn’t in the plan,” he laughs, “but it made sense. We needed somewhere we could break things, fix them, and test in real-world conditions. A demo home.”
Meanwhile, the R&D engine never stops turning. Avalon’s work in WiFi Channel State Information is detecting intrusions without cameras at all and hints at the next evolution of home intelligence. And their upcoming SLAM capabilities point toward devices that can understand space with extraordinary precision.
Why the UK felt like home
For Vamshi, the UK isn’t just the place where Avalon was founded; it’s the place where something clicked. He admires the culture of innovation, the practicality of customers, the willingness to pay for genuine value. After seven years he is settled — familiar with Yorkshire’s walking routes, fond of home-cooked Indian food, and firmly in favour of long beach walks interrupted by ice cream.
He loves that people in the UK take fitness seriously. He lives quietly: long workdays, gym sessions, the occasional cinema night, and a fairly traditional approach to dating, guided by his family’s involvement in an arranged-marriage process he embraces with both sincerity and humour.
The visa chapter and what it taught him
If entrepreneurship is a roller coaster, immigration is the loop-the-loop in the middle. The transition from the Startup visa to the Innovator Founder visa stretched over seven months which was long enough to test the resolve of any founder.
“It’s like you’re driving at high speed while constantly checking if the fuel tank is empty,” he says.
But that difficult period also revealed something else: the extraordinary support of Innovator International.
The mentors who shaped the journey
Before Avalon received its Startup endorsement, Richard sent Vamshi an email he still remembers vividly. Honest, firm, and surprisingly personal, it urged caution — a reminder that deep-tech founders often rush too fast, burn too much, and forget that the journey is long.
“That email changed a lot for me,” he reflects. “Sir Richard, you were right.”
Then came Karen. Structured, insightful, and endlessly patient, she became a mentor in the truest sense, guiding him through business planning, helping him understand investor expectations, and grounding him when the uncertainty of the visa backlog felt overwhelming.
“She’s a gem,” he says simply.
His first Innovator International event took place at The Shard where he pitched Avalon publicly for the first time. Expecting something intimidating, he found instead a room full of encouragement and genuine interest. Many of those introductions have since become long-term collaborators.
“It didn’t feel like a networking event. It felt like being welcomed. At the end of the event my phone was fit to bursting with new contacts and I've kept in touch with a lot of people I connected with that day. In fact, the Innovator events are never to be missed. If I am too busy to attend I will send someone in my place. It's a huge priority for me!”
The founder behind the tech
To understand Avalon, you need to understand how its founder works. Sixteen-hour days are normal. Public transport is a familiar companion. Work is not a burden but the thing he was built for. He follows an 8-8-8 rhythm when needed — eight hours of work, eight hours of life and rest, and eight more hours of learning, experimenting or connecting.
Passion has insulated him from burnout. He insists he has never truly felt tired.
Outside work he keeps life uncomplicated: close to his brother, attentive to his health, entirely absent from social media. And quietly optimistic about his developing connection with a doctor in India who may soon move to the UK.
Looking ahead
Avalon currently generates around £200,000 in recurring annual revenue — a meaningful step but far from the company’s final ambition. The next milestone is £1 million ARR, a point Vamshi sees not as a finish line but as validation. Beyond that, he envisions a global deep-tech company with a team large enough to innovate across multiple frontiers.
Investment offers have already arrived, though he remains cautious. “If the right investor helps us reach a billion-pound turnover, I’ll take it — but only with care.”
He compares entrepreneurship to learning to drive: master the basics, understand your surroundings, build confidence, and only then accelerate. Rushing doesn’t get you there faster, it just increases the probability of crashing.
His advice to the next wave of innovators
Keep costs low until revenue is real. Launch before you feel ready. Solve problems that genuinely reduce friction for customers. And don’t underestimate how much mentorship can alter your path.
“With Innovator International,” he says, “our journey moved ten times faster. Without them, our story would have been completely different.”
A founder still at the beginning
For all the progress, Vamshi still feels he’s in chapter one — the foundation stage of a much bigger story. He wants to redefine how the world thinks about property intelligence and home automation. He wants to build a company that lasts. And he wants to build it here in the UK, a place he now confidently, and proudly, calls home.
