Proximity Works: Interview With Founder, Chairman, And CEO Hardik Jagda 

By Amit Chowdhry • Oct 6, 2025

Proximity Works is a company that provides AI-based custom software development services, focusing on solving complex engineering and performance challenges for growth-stage and enterprise companies in sports, media, and entertainment. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Proximity Works founder, chairman, and CEO Hardik Jagda to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Hardik Jagda’s Background

Hardik Jagda

Could you tell me more about your background? Jagda said:

“I was born and raised in Mumbai, where I assumed financial responsibilities at home from an early age. I didn’t have a safety net — but I had curiosity, work ethic, and a deep need to figure things out on my own. Textbooks didn’t always stick. So, I turned to books by people who had actually built things — founders, operators, technologists. I learned by doing, by reading obsessively, and by failing forward.”

“Before launching Proximity, I worked at six different startups — not chasing titles, but trying to soak up as much as I could. I knew I eventually wanted to build something of my own, but I also knew I couldn’t take that leap until I had the financial runway to go all in. Every side hustle, failed project, and long night shaped how I think about building today.”

“That mindset — of ownership, learning in public, and solving hard problems with people you trust — is what ultimately led to Proximity.”

Formation Of The Company

Proximity team

How did the idea for the company come together? Jagda shared:

“Before Proximity, I was the first senior engineering hire at multiple startups, usually right after they hit product-market fit.”

“That 0 to 1 phase is exciting, but what really fascinated me was what came next:”

Scaling

How do you scale something that works, without breaking what made it special? Jagda explained:

“That became my sweet spot: helping teams go from 1 to 100 with speed, precision, and performance intact.”

“That’s what led to Proximity. We started in 2019 as a performance and scale engineering partner, helping companies grow without breaking their systems.”

“We first dipped into AI in 2021 with a product called Thread. It didn’t work.”

“However, the failure taught us how to build smarter — and, more importantly, how to listen more closely to what the market actually needed.”

“That learning curve led us to Metavision, which we launched earlier this year — a platform built for real-time AI content creation in sports and media.”

“Today, Proximity has evolved into a group of companies across AI consulting, SaaS, design, storytelling, and venture — but the core is still the same:”

“Take what works. Scale it. And help ambitious teams do the same.”

Favorite Memory

What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far?

Jagda reflected:

“There are too many to count. But the moments I never forget are the ones that shift your trajectory.

Our first client was a global sports media powerhouse with tens of millions of fans.

We weren’t a household name yet, but we operated like one.

From day one, we treated that opportunity like we were built for it.

And we delivered like we’d done it a hundred times before.

“That win didn’t just validate us. It accelerated everything.”

Hiring our first Proxonaut.

Bringing on my Co-Founder.

Expanding from one company to a group of companies.

And landing in the Bay Area — not by accident, but by design.

I came here because this is the Olympics of tech. I wanted to compete against the best.

But some of the most meaningful memories aren’t about milestones.

They’re from offsites. When the team gets together IRL, when you feel the energy in the room, the ambition in the conversations, and realize — this isn’t just work. This is alignment, momentum, and shared purpose.

It’s a rollercoaster. But when you’re building with the right people, even the chaos becomes part of the story.”

Core Products

What are the company’s core products and features? Jagda explained:

“Proximity started as a performance engineering firm for CTO Offices — today, it’s a group of companies built to help ambitious teams scale with speed, clarity, and storytelling. Here’s how the ecosystem breaks down:

Proximity Tech (2019)

Our core consulting business focuses on AI Innovation.

We work with some of the biggest names in sports, media, and streaming to build AI Innovation Units — helping them move from idea to pilot to revenue in 90–180 days. It’s not just AI strategy — we build, ship, and scale alongside our partners.

Studio Proximity (2020) Our design and UI/UX studio.

We partner with startups and large enterprises to build high-conversion digital experiences — from branding and marketing sites to enterprise UX and complete product overhauls. Design is never just visual. It’s engineered to perform.

Colarity

Our AI product company.

We recently launched Metavision, a multimodal AI platform that turns long-form sports and media footage into short-form, monetizable content in minutes, not hours.

It automates highlight generation, thumbnail creation, and social-ready clips — driving fan engagement at scale while saving up to 80% on editing time and costs.

No editors. No integrations. Just speed, scale, and storytelling.

42PX Events

Our community arm is dedicated to curating spaces where designers, technologists, founders, and operators can connect deeply.

We’ve hosted events across LA, SF, Dubai, Bangalore, and Mumbai — including co-hosted events with a16z during a16z Tech Week.

42PX Media

AI-powered media production and storytelling.

We help founders and startups craft content and narratives that attract customers, investors, and partners — because a strong media presence is now a competitive edge. We combine AI tooling with strategic storytelling to help you build influence at scale.

Proximity Ventures – Our investment arm.

We don’t just write checks — we plug our portfolio into the Proximity ecosystem, encompassing engineering, design, media, and AI. We especially love working with experienced founders — individuals building genuine businesses with long-term intentions.

Proximity Foundation (2024)

Our nonprofit arm focused on education and access.

We support underserved and high-risk groups — especially women and children — by teaching coding, design, financial literacy, fitness, and nutrition. The goal isn’t traditional education. It’s transformation through practical knowledge.

Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently (and how did you overcome those challenges)?

Yes — but I see them more as design constraints than roadblocks.

The pace of change in AI is exhilarating. But that’s also the challenge.

New tools launch every week. New expectations get set just as fast. And companies are under pressure to “do AI” — even when they’re not sure what that actually means for their business.

The real work is in cutting through the noise.

At Proximity, we’ve had to pivot fast, experiment relentlessly, and focus on real-world AI applications — not just shiny demos.

That’s why we’ve built out AI Innovation Units for our clients. We help them:

  • Identify a high-impact, repeatable workflow
  • Build a focused AI pilot in weeks
  • Validate business impact fast
  • Scale what works, kill what doesn’t

We’re not reacting to AI hype.

We’re helping our clients build AI muscles — the kind that compound over time.”

Evolution Of The Company’s Technology

How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Jagda noted:

“When we launched in 2019, our focus was on deep technical execution — solving complex engineering problems related to performance, scale, and user experience.

But as the world changed, we did too.

In 2021, we started experimenting with applied AI. Our early prototypes didn’t work as we had hoped, but they taught us how to build smarter and ship faster.

That led to Metavision, our first public AI product, launched through Colarity. It’s now helping sports and media companies automate content workflows that used to take hours in minutes.

More broadly, Proximity evolved from a tech partner into a builder ecosystem. We now operate across:

  • AI consulting and product development
  • AI-powered content creation
  • UX, design, and rebranding
  • Media, marketing, and storytelling
  • Strategic capital and community through ventures
  • Social impact via the Proximity Foundation

But through every evolution, the mindset stayed the same:

Move fast. Solve real problems. Scale what works.

Significant Milestones

What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Jagda cited:

“We’ve had milestone moments in product, partnerships, geography, and impact. A few stand out:

  • Landing our first client — a global sports media powerhouse with tens of millions of fans — and delivering work that set the tone for everything that followed.
  • Scaling our presence across the U.S., UAE, and India, giving us a truly global operating footprint.
  • Launching Metavision, our AI content automation platform, and watching it cut a 6-hour content workflow down to 15 minutes for top-tier clients.
  • Building AI Innovation Units inside some of the world’s most recognized brands — helping them adopt AI in a way that’s fast, lean, and revenue-focused.
  • Launching Proximity Ventures, so we could not only back founders with capital, but support them with our whole ecosystem: engineering, design, media, and go-to-market.
  • Establishing the Proximity Foundation to invest in underserved communities with the same intensity we bring to our client work, focusing on practical education and breaking systemic cycles.

Each milestone wasn’t just a win — it was a signal we were scaling the right way.”

Customer Success Stories

When asking Jagda about customer success stories, he highlighted:

“We’ve had the privilege of working with some of the biggest names in sports, media, and streaming — often behind the scenes, but with very real impact.

Here’s one example:

A major sports platform came to us with a bottleneck. After every big match, their team was spending 6+ hours manually clipping highlights, syncing commentary, designing thumbnails, and publishing content across a dozen platforms.

It was high-effort, high-stakes work — and it wasn’t scalable.

We built Metavision, a real-time AI engine that automated the entire workflow. It watches the game, detects key moments, tags metadata, suggests thumbnails, and outputs social-ready content in under 15 minutes.

That changed everything:

  • Time-to-publish dropped by over 90%
  • Content output increased 5x
  • And the team finally got to focus on strategy instead of burnout

That’s what applied AI should do:

Save time. Increase velocity. Drive outcomes.

Are you able to discuss funding and/or revenue metrics?

We’ve been proudly bootstrapped since day one — no outside capital, just client revenue, grit, and relentless execution.

That decision gave us complete control over how we build — and who we build for.

It also pushed us to be profitable from the start, to move with discipline, and to treat every project like it mattered — because it did.

Today, we operate as a portfolio of revenue-generating businesses across consulting, SaaS, design, media, and events. We’re growing fast, expanding globally, and reinvesting heavily in both R&D and people.

We may consider external capital in the future, but for now, we’re focused on scaling with purpose.”

Total Addressable Market

What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Jagda assessed:

“We operate across multiple sectors, but the center of gravity is AI applied to sports, media, and enterprise content.

If you consider AI in sports and media automation alone, that is already a multi-billion-dollar market. Add in content operations, real-time personalization, and AI-assisted production, and the opportunity compounds fast.

However, we don’t think in terms of TAM slides. We think in use cases:

  • Where are teams burning time doing manual work?
  • Where can AI deliver speed, precision, or new revenue?
  • Where is strategy being held back by outdated systems?

We focus on solving real problems inside big industries — and scaling from there. That’s where the market gets interesting: not in theoretical size, but in practical value.”

Differentiation From The Competition

What differentiates the company from its competition? Jagda affirmed:

“A lot of companies talk about AI.

We ship it — fast, clean, and in-market.

What sets us apart is execution.

We don’t just hand clients a playbook — we build the team, the prototype, the pilot, and the path to ROI.

We sit inside the problem, move fast, and stay hands-on until it works.

We also don’t treat design, engineering, content, and business as separate tracks. At Proximity, they’re part of the same system — integrated from day one to move faster and scale smoothly.

And we’re not theory-heavy. We’ve already helped some of the most iconic names in sports and media reduce workflows from hours to minutes, and launch AI tools that actually ship, not sit in decks.

It’s not just about being smart. It’s about being useful. That’s the Proximity edge.”

Future Company Goals

What are some of the company’s future goals? Jagda emphasized:

“We’re building with long-term intent — not just to ride the wave, but to shape it. Our goal is to keep scaling Proximity as a global ecosystem of builders:

  • Helping ambitious companies integrate AI at speed
  • Launching our own category-defining AI products
  • Backing founders who are solving hard, meaningful problems
  • And investing in people and platforms that shift culture

We’re also deeply committed to using tech for good.

The Proximity Foundation is just getting started, and we want to take our work in education, access, and economic empowerment to the next level.

From AI infrastructure to impact at scale, everything we do ladders up to one mission: Build solutions that matter. Leave something that lasts.

Additional Thoughts

Any other topics you’d like to discuss? Jagda concluded:

“Over the past year, I’ve been speaking at conferences and private gatherings across the U.S.— sharing real-world AI case studies, founder lessons, and frameworks for rapid experimentation.”

“I don’t approach speaking as a performance. I treat it like an open-source strategy — sharing what’s working, what’s not, and what we’re learning in real-time while building across industries.”

“If you’re running an event or looking to explore collaboration opportunities, you can find more information on my personal site at hjagda.com.”

“And if you’re into AI, sports, media, or leadership, I post regularly on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter/X. Always up for meaningful conversations.”