Be the least intelligent person in the room - Varun Bhanot, CEO, MAGIC AI
UKTN | The Podcast
UKTN
5.0 • 6 Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Varun Bhanot, co-founder and CEO of Magic AI discusses the journey of growing one of the UK’s most successful AI firms, how the AI-enabled mirror his company devised is disrupting the fitness industry, what he learned from the 149 rejections he got when pitching the business and why his team consists are what he calls ‘interpreneurs'. Bhanot also explains how he juggles a young family with running his business and the role crop circles played in his marriage.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Great talent always need a great manager, a bit like a Premier League football team that have, |
| 0:09.0 | you know, world-class talent. Or they need a world-class manager to be able to like really spear |
| 0:14.1 | and guide that talent. You know, I had the spreadsheet of investors, I think it was 150, and if you go through it, |
| 0:24.1 | it's all red, red, red, red, red, every single line, and then you get to 149, 150, and |
| 0:29.2 | they were the two funds who said yes to us. |
| 0:34.9 | I think we're going to see more innovation, is not just in exercise, but it's going to be in health. |
| 0:40.4 | So data-driven health. |
| 0:42.0 | And I think that's where I see the future of this product. |
| 0:59.8 | And now a message from our podcast sponsor, HSBC Innovation Banking. |
| 1:06.8 | You're not ordinary, no nine to five meetings about meetings or compulsory corporate team building for you. |
| 1:11.6 | Your business is extraordinary and you need an extraordinary bank. From pre-seed to IPO and beyond, HSBC Innovation Banking offers VC back tech and life science |
| 1:18.6 | businesses custom solutions, co-created by actual industry experts and delivered by a dedicated team |
| 1:25.6 | you can call whenever you need. Discover extraordinary at |
| 1:29.4 | HSBC Innovationbanking.co.com.com. Hello and welcome to the UKTM podcast, a weekly chat with the |
| 1:39.5 | movers and shakers of the UK tech industry and the destination for all things UK tech related. |
| 1:45.2 | I am your host, Jane Wakefield, and today I'm joined by Veron Banot, the founder of Magic AI. |
| 1:51.9 | Welcome. |
| 1:52.7 | Great to see you again, Jane. |
| 1:53.7 | Great to be on this. |
| 1:54.7 | Now, before we get started into the company, let's find out a little bit about you. |
| 1:59.6 | I did a little bit of research before I came on. |
| 2:01.7 | Oh, no. So you're a London boy born and raised in the East End. You went to the London School of |
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