Today on the Invest In Her Podcast, host Catherine Gray talks with Archita Mandal, founder and CEO of Upend Now, a transformative AI platform designed to bridge the gap between technology and creative storytelling. Archita works at the intersection of deep tech, media, and entertainment, building agentic AI solutions for the AdTech and FilmTech industries. A former Entrepreneur in Residence at NEC X, Stanford LEAD graduate, Grace Hopper speaker, award-winning filmmaker, and member of Women in Film Los Angeles and Women in Media, she brings a unique combination of technical expertise and artistic vision to her work. Her films have been distributed on Amazon Prime and Pocket Films, and her creative projects have garnered more than half a million views online.
In this episode, Archita shares her fascinating journey from a 17-year career in cloud security and product management to becoming a filmmaker and startup founder. She discusses how the challenges she experienced in both the technology and entertainment industries inspired the creation of Upend Now, an AI-powered platform that helps businesses, creators, and production teams rapidly develop creative briefs, scripts, storyboards, shot lists, and visual concepts. Catherine and Archita explore how AI can serve as a collaborative tool rather than a replacement for human creativity, dramatically reducing production costs and development time while helping technical founders communicate complex ideas more effectively. They also discuss entrepreneurship, innovation, customer validation, and the importance of bringing left-brain and right-brain thinkers together to create more impactful storytelling.
