Driving Force

How Jay Vijayan—a politician’s son, geology student and former Tesla techie—built Tekion, a billion-dollar company that will make its india foray next year

- MANU BALACHANDRAN

If it wasn’t for his politician father, Jay Vijayan could have possibly been dabbling in Tamil Nadu’s political arena today. Instead, the 48-year-old has built one the world’s latest unicorns, California- headquartered Tekion Corp.

In the 1990s, Jay’s father K Vijayan, a long-time leader of the Indian National Congress in Tamil Nadu, tore away his son’s candidature form for the local councilor elections to goad him into taking a salaried job. “He tore away my application form,” Jay tells Forbes India over a Zoom call from California. “I was young… we wanted to change things and everybody told me that I will win by default since my father was a leader. But he pushed me to pursue a regular job.”

Today, he looks back at his father’s decision with gratitude. “He certainly did the right thing,” emphasises Jay.

In October, Tekion became a unicorn after it raised $150 million in a Series C financing round. A cloud technology company that Jay founded in 2016, Tekion offers a software as a service (SaaS) platform for the automotive industry that helps connect customers, car manufacturers, and dealers on its cloud-based platform, helping create seamless experiences from buying a car to managing its inventory and spare parts.

“There is a trust issue in the industry,” says Jay. “Customers don’t trust dealerships. Dealerships don’t trust the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). And OEMs don’t trust dealers. If the OEM and the dealer can provide transparency to the customer and the best experience, then it’s a win-win situation. That’s what we are solving with Tekion.”