Tarun Raisoni On Building And Exiting Two $270+ Million Companies And Now Providing A Suite Of AI-Driven Tech Solutions To Enterprises

Tarun Raisoni is one of the rare “tier zero” founders who has not only built, scaled, and financed world-class businesses but also navigated them through full-cycle acquisition exits. Not once, but twice. He carries an aura not just of success, but of sustained, repeatable excellence.

Tarun’s latest venture, Gruve, has secured funding from top-tier investors like Mayfield Fund and Cisco Investments.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Bootstrapping isn’t a limitation, it can be a launchpad. Rahi and ZPE scaled globally before raising a dollar.
• People and culture are the true scale enablers. Leadership must live the culture for it to cascade.
• Exits should serve both vision and team. Liquidity is not just about founders; it’s about rewarding long-time team members.
• Spotting trends early is a competitive advantage. Whether cloud, data centers, or AI, timing and insight matter.
• Outcome-based pricing is the future of enterprise tech services. Performance must justify spend in the age of ROI accountability.
• Strategic investors bring more than capital. The right partners offer domain expertise, credibility, and access, thus multiplying a startup’s execution potential far beyond just financial support.
• Founders don’t retire — they retool. After two major exits, Tarun chose to study, reflect, and re-enter the arena with a sharper lens and bolder vision, proving that passion, not profit, drives the best entrepreneurs.

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About Tarun Raisoni:

Tarun is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gruve Inc., focusing on Services and Software Development in AI, ML, and data. He was the CEO and Co-Founder at Rahi Systems from 2012 to 2022. Following the acquisition by Wesco, he served as SVP for Wesco Data Center Solutions.

As CEO, Tarun was consistently nominated for the Top 100 CEOs award by Comparably in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Rahi was bootstrapped, and at the time of acquisition by Wesco, had a run-rate revenue of more than $500M.

Tarun’s experience spans over 20 years in the Data Center Industry. He introduced several new and emerging technologies to customers, including Data Center Infrastructure, Software Defined Networking and Infrastructure, Security, Networking, and Management Products.

Tarun has invested in several startups at the seed stage, typically providing sufficient funding to help them bootstrap their way to success. He collaborates with startups to provide expertise, resources, and access to a global network, helping them take the next step.

Connect with Tarun Raisoni:

• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• Forbes
• MarketScreener

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Tarun Raisoni: Alejandro, thank you for inviting me.

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty, hello everyone, and welcome to the DealMaker Show. Today, we have one of those founders that I call “tier zero”—absolutely unbelievable and very hard to come across.

Alejandro Cremades: In this case, his journey and story are quite inspiring. We’re going to be talking about building, scaling, financing—his latest baby—and acquisitions. He’s done it not just once, but twice, across the full cycle. We’ll cover everything: building the team, why people are so important, how to build a culture around them to get them excited about the future you’re living into—all the good stuff. So brace yourself for a very inspiring conversation.

Alejandro Cremades: Without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Tarun Raisoni. Welcome to the show.

Tarun Raisoni: Thank you, Alejandro.

Alejandro Cremades: So, originally born in the U.S., but it sounds like your family moved to India and you grew up there. What was life like growing up for you?

Tarun Raisoni: It was actually pretty amazing growing up in India. I was surrounded by a lot of family, and we grew up in a small town. It was very nice to be really rooted in that family culture and into learning.

Tarun Raisoni: I really enjoyed my childhood in India.

Alejandro Cremades: How did you get into problem-solving? I know that in India there’s quite a bit of cultural pressure to either become a doctor or an engineer. I think things are changing, but it was similar in Spain—people were expected to become lawyers, bankers, or consultants. In India, it was doctors or engineers.

Alejandro Cremades: In your case, you ended up becoming an engineer out of all things.

Tarun Raisoni: Yeah, I ended up choosing the path my dad took. I grew up in an engineering family, surrounded by engineers, so I naturally gravitated toward that.

Tarun Raisoni: I did end up choosing different majors—chemical engineering first, then electrical for my master’s. It was fun to learn, and I can see the application of all that in my career journey as I moved along.

Alejandro Cremades: So you did your undergrad in India, but then it didn’t take long for you to come back to the U.S. When you arrived, the dot-com boom was in full swing. Walk us through what you were seeing, what happened, and how that shifted your career path.

Tarun Raisoni: Yeah, I came to the U.S. in 1999, and there was a huge dot-com boom happening. After a couple of weeks, I realized I really needed to put my heart and mind behind this because it was clearly the future.

Tarun Raisoni: I ended up switching my major at USC to electrical engineering. I finished my master’s and then joined Cisco.

Tarun Raisoni: That was the starting point of my career. At that time, Cisco was one of the largest companies in the world. Networking was front and center for every business.

Tarun Raisoni: It was an amazing journey—10 years at Cisco. I learned a lot about business, culture, and enterprise scale. It was phenomenal to be part of that.

Alejandro Cremades: After being there so long, what made you think, “Maybe I should turn the page and go to a place like Emerson”? Ten years—it’s almost like becoming a lifer. Why Emerson?

Tarun Raisoni: That’s a very good question. Cisco isn’t just one company—it’s like an industry of 50 to 200 companies. I started as a software engineer but transitioned into pre-sales systems engineering and then into sales.

Tarun Raisoni: It was an interesting journey. I agree that 10 years seems like a long time, but it’s also the time it takes to really learn and build something in your career. Then Emerson came along and offered me a role in the data center business, managing what we now call hyperscale customers—back then, Web 2.0 customers—in the Bay Area. The opportunity was very compelling.

Tarun Raisoni: I got a chance to work with companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Amazon. It was hard to refuse that kind of opportunity, and it helped me build my career.

Alejandro Cremades: Let’s talk about the moment you realized you wanted to take ownership of your own future. After all those years being an employee, switching to entrepreneurship can be frightening—especially when all you’ve known is the 9-to-5. When did you start thinking, “Maybe I want to do something on my own”?

Tarun Raisoni: Yeah, even when I was working, I never really believed in the 9-to-5. I realized that if I didn’t believe in it, I needed to do something on my own.

Tarun Raisoni: It happened that I was having lunch with one of my clients, and he mentioned a specific gap in the industry that no one was solving. A lightbulb went off in my head, and I thought—this is the opportunity.

Tarun Raisoni: That’s when we started Rahi Systems. That was my first entrepreneurial journey, and it was a lot of fun building it up.

Alejandro Cremades: With Rahi Systems, just so people understand—what was the business model? How were you making money?

Tarun Raisoni: Rahi was started with the idea of helping clients build data centers globally. We focused on how to help clients scale data center builds in multiple countries, while providing consistent service, supply chain, and products across all those locations.

Tarun Raisoni: That was our main focus as a platform. The idea was simple—if you’re going to build a data center, you’re going to do it across the globe, not just in one country or city. When we started in 2012, cloud was still very nascent.

Tarun Raisoni: In fact, Google Cloud didn’t even exist in its entirety back then. So it was an interesting time to kick this off.

Tarun Raisoni: We were fortunate that cloud and data center buildouts took off. We were able to ride that wave of growth as our customers grew.

Alejandro Cremades: I know that for you, people are critical. As a first-time founder, you surrounded yourself with an incredible team. Why are people so important—especially in hyper-growth companies?

Tarun Raisoni: In technology companies—or companies that service tech—I firmly believe people are the most important asset.

Tarun Raisoni: And that includes your team, your company, your partners, your customers. Business is about people—how you bring them together and how you execute.

Tarun Raisoni: At Rahi, we started with about seven or eight people in the first year. By the end of our 10-year journey, we had nearly 1,200 employees globally.

Tarun Raisoni: What I learned was that authentic leadership, transparency, building a strong cultural foundation, staying customer-focused, and driving that culture with the team is key to scaling. People are your foundation.

Alejandro Cremades: And what about culture? Getting everyone to dance to the same tune and stay excited about the future is essential. How do you think about culture—at Rahi and now in your other ventures?

Tarun Raisoni: Absolutely. Culture is the most important fabric that brings people together. The values of the company culture must be designed to help resolve conflicts that typically arise between people.

Tarun Raisoni: A simple example: one of our values is “customer first.” Why? Because it helps us prioritize our day and our work—making sure we deliver for the customer first, then handle internal tasks. Values like that are crucial.

Tarun Raisoni: At Rahi, we stitched these values into everything. I followed that approach in my second company, and I’m doing it again in my third. It’s critical.

Tarun Raisoni: Culture flows top-down. Leadership must embody the culture and values. Only then will the entire organization follow suit.

Tarun Raisoni: Empowerment, however, flows bottom-up. You have to empower people at every level, starting with individual contributors. That’s what drives momentum.

Alejandro Cremades: While pushing Rahi, you also co-founded another company in parallel—ZPE Systems. How did that come together? You were already super busy—why complicate your life with a second venture?

Tarun Raisoni: ZPE Systems was born from the idea that data centers needed more software automation.

Tarun Raisoni: I was working with two brilliant engineers at Emerson. Over a meal, the idea came up—we needed to build software automation for data centers.

Tarun Raisoni: With my background, I absolutely believed in it. I was happy to write the first few checks to support the initiative and take it to market.

Tarun Raisoni: Every business needs customers. Fortunately, I found the right co-founders, and we were able to scale ZPE. It gave us great exposure to building world-class software.

Alejandro Cremades: With both Rahi and ZPE Systems, you didn’t raise any money. You bootstrapped both companies for over a decade. I’m sure investors came knocking. Why choose bootstrapping over raising capital?

Tarun Raisoni: Actually, I would have loved to raise money. But the problem was—no one was ready to give us any. We wanted to execute the idea, so we bootstrapped.

Tarun Raisoni: After bootstrapping, the business just kept growing—40 to 50% year-over-year.

Tarun Raisoni: Along the way, I was lucky to have great talent join us. At that point, raising money didn’t even cross our minds. Our focus was on how to scale.

Tarun Raisoni: It’s not that I didn’t want to raise capital. When we started, we were a services company—and most Valley VCs are focused on product-based businesses, and rightly so.

Tarun Raisoni: So we couldn’t raise money. We just decided to bootstrap and build.

Alejandro Cremades: Now, you bootstrapped all the way to the end on both. And eventually, both got acquired—you know, we got Rahi acquired by Wesco for $270 million, and also CP acquired by LeGrant for $295 million.

Alejandro Cremades: I mean, absolutely unbelievable. Doing it once—as they say, once you’re lucky, twice you’re good. So tell us, how did both of those acquisitions come together? And also, timing—when you were growing like crazy, like you were saying, why do an exit on both companies?

Tarun Raisoni: Yeah, it’s an interesting timeline. When you bootstrap a company and grow it to a certain scale, after a certain point, we realized that we needed a bigger platform in order to really service and support customers.

Tarun Raisoni: Also, we firmly believed in equity sharing with our team. So we had a lot of employees that were with us from day one, that were on this 10-year path, and a liquidity event was very desirable for them.

Tarun Raisoni: So both aspects came into play—which is, how do we make this a bigger platform and how do we generate some liquidity so that our team members can enjoy the benefit of building this platform to that scale.

Tarun Raisoni: In both companies, we were very lucky that we found the right partners, the right platform, the right acquisition, and the right ability for employees to enjoy the outcome of that.

Tarun Raisoni: So those were the primary reasons why both the exits happened.

Alejandro Cremades: Well, after both exits—bootstrapped—it’s all to the co-founders. I’m sure there was quite the celebration, but we’ll keep that private. I’m not going to ask what was the thing you always wanted to buy that you ended up buying—maybe we’ll leave that for a part two episode.

Alejandro Cremades: But one thing I want to ask is, as they say, once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.

Alejandro Cremades: And in this case, instead of retiring and enjoying life, you decided again to spot a trend—the craziness happening in the AI space—and bring to life another baby. That baby is called Groove. So walk us through how you were thinking about this problem, especially now as a successfully exited founder who knows what the full cycle looks like.

Alejandro Cremades: How did you go about taking action and deciding, “We’ve got to tackle this one”?

Tarun Raisoni: Yeah, so after the exit of Rahi happened, I started thinking about new areas. I actually ended up going back to Stanford to take a few courses in renewable energy and sustainability.

Tarun Raisoni: One thing that became very clear was data centers were going to need a lot of power, a lot of energy. And I started thinking to myself—how are you going to do this in a sustainable manner so that you can scale, but also make it cost-efficient?

Tarun Raisoni: So my first idea was—let’s go build a renewable energy company that can scale and support the energy demand that’s coming across all aspects of electrification and digitization in our lives.

Tarun Raisoni: After spending about six months learning through that and looking at everything—ChatGPT happened. This generative AI was also very interesting.

Tarun Raisoni: I took four months off. I spent a lot of time traveling, spending time with family, and also studying where the next wave of innovation was going to happen.

Tarun Raisoni: One thing I realized was that enterprises are going to want to adopt AI over the next five to ten years.

Tarun Raisoni: There’s a saying: there’s no company that doesn’t have data anymore. Every company is a data company. Every company is a technology company. I feel the same way—every company is going to be an AI company. But to become that AI company, enterprises are going to need a lot of help.

Tarun Raisoni: Enterprises are very good at what they do, but when it comes to building the technology stack, leveraging the technology stack—they need a lot of help. So this entire concept of how do we enable AI within an enterprise—how do we make an enterprise an AI powerhouse—that concept started evolving. And we started a new venture called Groove to really start building on that.

Alejandro Cremades: So tell us about Groove then. How are you guys monetizing? What’s the business model?

Tarun Raisoni: Groove’s monetization model is a little different and unique, I would say.

Tarun Raisoni: For enterprises that need to build this technology or need help in all aspects of their AI journey, we decided to build it on an outcome-based model.

Tarun Raisoni: In other words, our business model is—only when the customer gets results do we earn their business, we earn their trust, and we get paid. So it’s an outcome-based business model that we’ve pivoted toward in technology services.

Tarun Raisoni: To deliver this outcome-based model, we use a lot of AI in-house to build those technology services. Then we help these customers build an AI technology fabric within their business.

Tarun Raisoni: Think about a customer that wants to start using AI for one of their use cases—let’s say, “I want to build more revenue in my business.” How do we help them use AI to build more revenue in their business? How do we deliver an outcome? And only when that outcome is successful—when they see the revenue growth—is when we get paid.

Tarun Raisoni: So it’s a unique model that we’re innovating on, and we’re building a platform around it.

Alejandro Cremades: In this case, you guys have taken money from investors. You did the seed, and then a Series A was recently done too. But why not bootstrap, versus everything you’ve done before being bootstrapped? Why take money from outside investors now?

Tarun Raisoni: So Alejandro, bootstrapping is very hard, first of all—because you’re trying to manage organic cash flow and do all of that.

Tarun Raisoni: But there’s actually a lot of benefit to having investors. If I had investors in my first company, I wouldn’t have bootstrapped. I would have taken the money and had investors in the company.

Tarun Raisoni: In our case, we got very lucky—we got two really seasoned technology investors in Mayfield and Cisco Investments who approached us and said, “Hey, we like what you’re doing, and we want to see how we can invest.”

Tarun Raisoni: Both of these investors really understand what it takes to bring enterprise adoption of a technology to life.

Tarun Raisoni: They not only bring financing—money is one aspect—but also their knowledge, mentorship, and network.

Tarun Raisoni: All these things are significantly more valuable, in my opinion, than just the money. So we got very lucky to find these two really seasoned investors to come in and invest in Groove.

Tarun Raisoni: And we’re on an exciting journey with them. Every day we talk to them, we come back with more energy on how we can go execute.

Alejandro Cremades: Where do you see this AI space heading? You seem to be very good at spotting trends—so where is this space as a whole going?

Tarun Raisoni: I think, first of all, AI is going to get democratized—really well. And that’s going to happen through software, hardware, models, and business use cases.

Tarun Raisoni: We’re on this very initial path where AI needs to get democratized across the board. And that will happen. And the more AI gets democratized, the more pervasive it will become.

Tarun Raisoni: Along the way, we’re going to have some failures. But failures are a necessary requirement for AI to become pervasive.

Tarun Raisoni: Think about 1997–1998 when the dot-com boom was happening. How many companies implemented websites and e-commerce portals? A lot of them failed.

Tarun Raisoni: We’re in that same cycle today with AI, where 75–80% of AI projects in enterprises go from pilot to failure.

Tarun Raisoni: There’s a pilot, but they don’t make it to the next phase. We’re in that journey right now. But AI is going to become pervasive. And businesses that embrace this early are really going to benefit because they’ll not only grow but also build the foundations—trust, governance, guardrails, safeguarding data.

Tarun Raisoni: This is going to be an amazing journey for enterprises, and we’re really here to help support that. We bring a lot of talent within our team to help them through that process.

Alejandro Cremades: Let’s double-click on this. Let’s say you go to sleep tonight, Tarun, and you wake up in a world where the vision of Groove is fully realized. What does that world look like?

Tarun Raisoni: Well, I think it’s a little hard to get to a fully realized vision, given where we are. But if I had to take a five or ten-year journey into this…

Tarun Raisoni: One, I see Groove having exceptional growth in our business—which, by the way, we are seeing today.

Tarun Raisoni: We’re seeing amazing triple-digit growth today, on a very strong base. To me, the fully realized vision is not just exceptional growth, but also showcasing tremendous outcomes to our customers.

Tarun Raisoni: Our customers will be far more competitively advantaged in their industries compared to their competition.

Tarun Raisoni: And we want to be that differentiator in their business—to be able to say, “Yes, we used Groove, which delivered an outcome-based business model that helped us truly transform our business.”

Alejandro Cremades: Let’s talk about the past, but with a lens of reflection. You’ve now been a founder of multiple companies. I’d like to put you into a time machine and bring you back in time.

Alejandro Cremades: Let’s say I bring you back to that moment where you’re coming out of corporate, thinking of starting something on your own, and you’re able to show up right there with that younger self.

Alejandro Cremades: You’re able to give that younger Tarun one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why, given what you know now?

Tarun Raisoni: It’s interesting you ask that. One thing I always told myself as an entrepreneur was—no regrets on any decisions. That was my motto.

Tarun Raisoni: I think if I went back to my younger self, the one piece of advice I’d give is: be more bold. Be more bold.

Tarun Raisoni: Take more risks.

Alejandro Cremades: I love that.

Tarun Raisoni: And that’s something I still tell myself today.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow. That’s powerful. Well, Tarun, for the people listening who’d love to reach out and say hi, what’s the best way for them to do so?

Tarun Raisoni: I’m on LinkedIn. Reach out to me on LinkedIn—I respond to all my messages. I’ll make myself available through email, a phone call, or a conference call if required.

Tarun Raisoni: I firmly believe in the power of the network.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. Well, Tarun, thank you so much for being on the DealMaker Show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us.

Tarun Raisoni: Alejandro, thank you so much for having me here. It was really a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for your questions—they really made me reflect more on my journey. I really appreciate it. I truly enjoyed this time with you.

*****

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