The way people access and consume information is undergoing a fundamental transformation. While traditional search engines have largely focused on websites and published content, an increasingly significant part of the internet now lives across social media platforms, online communities, and video content. As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, the ability to access information that is not just accurate but also current is becoming increasingly important.

Addressing this emerging gap is OpenChase, a real-time search infrastructure platform designed to connect AI systems with information from across the live internet, including websites, social media, and videos through a unified search API.

Founded by Anjan Umamaheswaran, OpenChase emerged from the experience of building Curiouscats, an information discovery platform that helps users follow topics and understand what’s happening across the world. What began as an effort to make information discovery easier gradually evolved into a larger technological opportunity: enabling AI systems to access what people are discussing, sharing, and experiencing in real time.

In an exclusive interview with Indian Startup Times, Anjan Umamaheswaran, Founder of OpenChase and Curiouscats, spoke about his entrepreneurial journey, the thinking behind OpenChase, the growing importance of real-time information, and how AI-powered search infrastructure could shape the next generation of intelligent applications.

From identifying gaps in traditional search to building technology for developers, enterprises, and AI agents, Anjan shared his vision of making OpenChase a reliable bridge between the real-time internet and the rapidly expanding AI ecosystem.

From 18 Years in Technology to Building His Second Startup

Beginning the conversation with his entrepreneurial journey, Anjan told Indian Startup Times that he has spent approximately 18 years working in the technology industry, with experiences spanning product development, business strategy, and building technology-led businesses.

He began his professional career at Motorola and later pursued his MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB). During his time at ISB, he was exposed to entrepreneurs and people building businesses across different industries, which encouraged him to explore entrepreneurship himself.

Following his MBA, he co-founded his first venture, Hype This, alongside two other co-founders. While the experience helped him understand product development, it also exposed him to the complexities of running a business.

Reflecting on that phase, Anjan shared that although he understood how to build products, he had much to learn about customer acquisition, monetisation, and business operations. Eventually, the venture was shut down, becoming an important learning experience in his entrepreneurial journey.

His next significant professional chapter began when the co-founders of Healthify brought him on board as the company’s first Product Manager for Monetisation.

Speaking about his nine-year journey at Healthify, he explained that the experience gave him an opportunity to build product teams, establish the company’s AI division in 2019, and take on business responsibilities over the years.

However, the idea that eventually became OpenChase began taking shape during his time at Healthify, when he encountered a recurring problem: keeping up with the latest developments in technology and the startup ecosystem.

The Problem That Led to Curiouscats and Eventually OpenChase

When asked what inspired him to build OpenChase, Anjan shared that the initial problem was surprisingly personal.

Keeping track of developments in technology required him to follow multiple newsletters, check X regularly, watch YouTube videos, and browse several news platforms. Despite consuming information from different sources, putting everything together to understand what was happening across the world remained difficult.

He began exploring whether AI systems could simplify this process.

This led to the creation of Curiouscats, a platform designed to follow topics across different countries and digital platforms, helping users discover the latest developments, understand how people were using emerging technologies, and track conversations from influential voices across the internet.

However, as the team interacted with users, it became clear that accessing information from traditional publications alone was no longer sufficient.

Anjan explained that people increasingly wanted to understand not just what publications were reporting, but what developers, creators, experts, and everyday users were actually saying about a particular subject.

He shared an example of the launch of Perplexity Computer. People were not simply looking for an explanation of what the product was; they wanted to understand its practical applications and how others were using it.

Much of that information was available through developers on X, discussions on Reddit, articles on Medium, and videos on YouTube. This realisation pushed the team to build its own search infrastructure, initially to strengthen Curiouscats.

As Anjan explained during the interview, the search layer eventually became a standalone product called OpenChase, with Curiouscats serving as its first customer. The opportunity became even clearer when companies approached the team seeking to understand what people across the internet were saying about their brands. He told Indian Startup Times that these conversations helped the team recognise a much larger opportunity beyond consumer information discovery.

Why Traditional Search Is No Longer Enough for AI

One of the most interesting aspects of the conversation was Anjan’s perspective on how the internet itself is changing.

According to him, a substantial share of online information is now being produced and consumed through social media platforms. He highlighted that research often places this share at approximately 60–70 per cent, underlining why social media can no longer be ignored as a source of information.

During the interview, he explained that traditional search engines and AI systems have historically prioritised verified publications and conventional web content. While these remain important sources of information, they do not necessarily capture the complete picture of what is happening online.

Today, public conversations, expert opinions, product reviews, demonstrations, and real-world experiences increasingly take place on social platforms. Anjan pointed out that in India, platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook play a significant role in shaping conversations, while platforms such as TikTok have a major presence in other markets.

He also highlighted how the growing volume of AI-generated content is making information discovery even more challenging. With content becoming easier to produce, the internet is expanding rapidly. The challenge, therefore, is no longer simply finding information but making sense of an enormous and constantly changing information landscape. As he shared during the conversation, building a search engine capable of understanding this shift is an important part of solving the problem.

OpenChase: Connecting AI with the Live Internet

Explaining the product in practical terms, Anjan told Indian Startup Times that OpenChase is designed to help AI systems access information from multiple platforms through a unified search infrastructure.

Traditional search engines may provide links to relevant websites, but understanding what people are discussing across different social platforms often requires users to conduct several additional searches.

OpenChase aims to bring these sources together.

Anjan explained that a user searching for information about a recently released AI model, for example, would traditionally need to visit multiple platforms to understand how developers and other users are applying it.

With OpenChase, the same search can surface hundreds of relevant results from more than ten social media platforms. He illustrated another use case involving a developer building a travel website. The developer might want to determine whether to use the latest AI model or a more affordable alternative for a chatbot.

Rather than independently researching different platforms, the developer can use an AI agent connected to OpenChase to access real-time discussions, experiences, and feedback that can help inform the decision.

The platform also provides APIs and integrations for developers building their own applications and AI-powered systems. Anjan shared that the larger objective is to make information from the live internet, including social media and publications, accessible to AI agents with minimal delay.

Why Real-Time Information Could Change the Future of AI

One of the strongest ideas that emerged during the interaction was Anjan’s perspective that AI systems already understand the past, but increasingly need access to the present. He explained that large language models are trained on enormous amounts of information, but their underlying knowledge is tied to the data available during their training.

While this knowledge is useful for understanding established concepts, it becomes less sufficient when users ask questions about current developments, emerging technologies, changing public opinion, or ongoing events.

During the interview, he shared an example of a developer trying to decide between two recently introduced AI tools.

The developer may already have access to technical documentation and official announcements, but what could make the decision more informed is understanding the experiences of people who have actually used those tools.

OpenChase can help surface discussions from X, Medium, and other platforms, allowing an AI agent to examine real-world feedback rather than relying exclusively on official descriptions.

Anjan highlighted that this approach can also be particularly useful for journalists, researchers, and professionals who regularly need to collect information from multiple sources.

He even connected this use case to our own work as journalists, explaining how technology reporters often move between publications, social media platforms, and YouTube reviews to understand a subject comprehensively.

His vision is to make this research process significantly more seamless by bringing relevant information together in one place.

Building Technology for Developers, Enterprises, and Governments

While developers and individual users represent important audiences for OpenChase, Anjan revealed that enterprise and government applications are among the areas generating significant interest for the company.

During the interaction, he explained that enterprises have multiple teams, including analysts, growth professionals, and customer experience departments, that depend on information and signals emerging from social media.

For example, a company may want to understand how customers are discussing its brand, whether negative conversations are increasing, or whether complaints are emerging from a particular geographical location.

Traditionally, businesses may use several tools or develop their own systems to monitor these conversations. However, combining information from multiple platforms can be expensive and technically challenging.

OpenChase aims to simplify this process through continuous searches that can monitor specific topics and conversations at frequent intervals.

Anjan shared that the platform is exploring applications where enterprises and governments can track relevant information in near real time.

He also highlighted the importance of having comprehensive results. For businesses, understanding whether there were 20 negative posts, 100 negative posts, or 1,000 positive posts about a brand can influence how they respond to customer sentiment.

For him, the opportunity lies in turning information scattered across the internet into actionable intelligence for organisations.

The Technical Challenge: Preparing for Scale

Building a search infrastructure that can access information across websites, social media, and video platforms is a complex technological challenge.

When asked about the biggest technical hurdles, Anjan explained that much of the challenge comes down to computing capacity, system efficiency, and designing infrastructure that can scale without compromising speed or affordability.

He shared that the team has developed proprietary systems over approximately one and a half years through its work on Curiouscats and subsequently OpenChase.

Curiouscats had already helped the team understand how to handle significant search activity. Anjan recalled that there were days when the platform received approximately 100,000 read requests, translating into around 10,000–20,000 searches across the world.

However, scaling that infrastructure to significantly larger volumes requires continuous optimisation.

He also shared an early indication of developer interest: following the launch of OpenChase’s APIs and MCPs to a small group of developers, approximately ten developers had already purchased more than 40,000 credits.

For a young technology startup, this creates an important operational challenge: preparing the infrastructure to accommodate growing demand while maintaining low latency and keeping computing costs manageable.

Anjan explained that the team’s immediate focus is on ensuring reliability, preparing for increasing search volumes, and building systems that can support much larger usage in the future.

The Next Search Revolution: AI Agents as the Primary Users

Looking at the future of the search industry, Anjan expressed strong conviction that the next phase of growth will be driven by AI agents rather than traditional human searches. During the interview, he predicted that more than 90–95 per cent of searches over the next few years could potentially originate through AI interfaces and agents.

He explained that unlike human users, who typically conduct a few searches at a time, AI agents can initiate multiple searches simultaneously to complete a particular task. As AI adoption increases across individual applications and enterprise workflows, the overall demand for search infrastructure could grow significantly.

For OpenChase, this presents an opportunity to become an important part of the infrastructure powering the next generation of AI applications. Anjan described the company’s long-term vision as becoming one of the most reliable connectors of the real-time internet to AI agents.

He further emphasised the importance of remaining unbiased, allowing AI systems to access a broad range of relevant information before making decisions or generating responses. For him, the objective is not simply to provide another search engine but to help AI systems understand the world as it is unfolding.

Responsible Access, Privacy, and the Importance of Transparency

As real-time search expands across social platforms and digital communities, questions around data access, privacy, copyright, and platform policies become increasingly important.

Addressing these concerns, Anjan clarified during the interview that OpenChase accesses only publicly available information.

He explained that the platform does not access private or personal information. Its role is to discover relevant public content and organise it so that users and AI systems can find it more easily.

He also clarified that OpenChase does not reproduce the original content. Instead, it directs users to the relevant links, whether they are articles, social media posts, or videos. Anjan explained that the platform essentially groups related information from different sources, making it easier to understand the broader conversation surrounding a particular topic. He also highlighted an interesting opportunity for independent creators.

Today, valuable content produced by smaller creators can often struggle to reach the right audience because it does not have the visibility of content published by larger accounts. By making relevant public information easier to discover, OpenChase aims to help surface useful content based on its relevance rather than simply the popularity of its creator.

Building, Learning, and Adapting: Anjan’s Advice to Founders

As the conversation moved towards entrepreneurship, Anjan shared three principles that have guided his experience of building OpenChase: Build, Learn, and Adapt.

He explained that founders should avoid spending excessive time debating an idea without putting it into the market. With modern AI-powered development tools making product creation faster and more accessible, entrepreneurs have an opportunity to build, test, and understand what works through actual user feedback.

His second principle is to keep learning. Anjan pointed out that OpenChase itself emerged because the team was willing to listen to customers using Curiouscats.

He recalled how two enterprise customers approached the team after seeing what Curiouscats could do, asking whether similar capabilities could be developed to understand conversations surrounding their brands.

That feedback helped the team identify an opportunity that eventually became OpenChase. He also shared an interesting example of how closely the company engages with its users. On Curiouscats, paid users and highly engaged readers can find an option to connect directly with the founder through his personal WhatsApp number.

For Anjan, this kind of direct interaction helps the team understand customer needs and discover opportunities that may otherwise remain unnoticed. His third principle is adaptability.

He believes founders must understand where their markets are heading and be willing to adjust their strategies accordingly. In an environment where technology and customer behaviour are changing rapidly, the ability to adapt can become a defining factor in a startup’s journey. As he summarised his advice during the interview: build, learn, and adapt.

The Road Ahead: Making the Real-Time Internet Accessible to AI

As AI continues to move beyond conventional chat interfaces towards autonomous agents capable of performing complex tasks, the infrastructure supporting these systems will become increasingly important.

For OpenChase, the opportunity lies in becoming a reliable information layer that allows AI agents to access the latest conversations, developments, opinions, and experiences from across the internet. The company’s journey from Curiouscats to OpenChase reflects how identifying a relatively simple user problem can uncover a much larger infrastructure opportunity.

Speaking with Indian Startup Times, Anjan made it clear that the company is still in its early stages, with significant opportunities to improve, scale, and expand its capabilities. However, the larger vision is already taking shape: enabling AI systems to move beyond static knowledge and gain access to the information that is shaping the world in real time.

As the next generation of AI applications emerges, the ability to connect intelligent systems with the live internet could become one of the most important foundations of the evolving digital ecosystem.

For Anjan Umamaheswaran and the team at OpenChase, the ambition is to build that connection and make sure the world’s AI agents are never limited to knowing only what happened yesterday.

By : Vanshika Tayal