Startup Mahak
umbh, the nation’s biggest celebration of the startup ecosystem, commenced today, at Bharat Mandapam, setting the stage for three days of collaboration, inspiration, and transformative discussions. The event saw an inaugural address highlighting the significance of startups in the overall pie of the Indian economy.
The event is spearheaded by the collaborative efforts of ASSOCHAM, nasscom, Bootstrap Incubation & Advisory Foundation, TiE, and Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA) and supported by Invest India, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY). Startup Mahakumbh promises a showcase of unparalleled innovation, highlighting transformative products and revolutionary business models by its key presenter Government e Marketplace, pavilion leads including Zerodha and National Bank For Agriculture And Rural Development (NABARD), and support from states including Bihar, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Kerala. Powered by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), Zomato and Export Credit Guaran
tee Corporation of India (ECGC), Startup Mahakumbh also has the state of Uttar Pradesh as a state partner for the event.
Post the inauguration, day one witnessed a diverse range of activities and sessions across 10 pavilions including AI + SaaS, D2C/Consumer brands, Agritech, Fintech, Deep Tech, Biotech & Pharma, Incubators, Climate Tech, E-sports, and B2B Manufacturing.
The Incubator Pavilion hosted an in-depth roundtable session on leveraging Government and Public sectors for Innovations and Entrepreneurs chaired by Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director AIM, and co-chaired by Poyni Bhatt, Former CEO of SINE-IITB witnessing remarkable participation from 17 departments that host 100s of incubators with over 1000s of startups, emphasizing the importance of initiatives aimed at supporting incubators.
During the session, Poyni Bhatt, Former CEO of SINE-IITB, and Lead Incubator/Accelerator track stated, “The idea behind this mega Startup Mahakumbh is to have a space where ecosystem pioneers can come together to actively discuss the growth of startups and incubators as there is a need to unite government figures to address the challenges faced by them and support in seamless procurement.”
“This is a first-of-its-kind roundtable witnessing over a dozen departments in the Government around innovation with the vision of integrating with Startups for their departments & angel investors all over the country highlighting the future of accelerating the tier II & III cities,” said Prashanth Prakash, Founding Partner Accel
Shri Sanjiv, Joint Secretary, DPIIT stated, “Manufacturing is going to be the next push sector by the government as there are currently 50 active incubators in the making. India unlike the US does not actively promote incubators however, we aim to change that. DPIIT has already started to include incubators in their premiere institutions and similar steps will be undertaken for other sectors as well. Startup Mahakumbh is a big example of one such step and its success will be a collaboration of government and private sector’s equal participation."
Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, AIM also highlighted the need for streamlined procurement processes, especially as startups engage with different government departments. He further emphasized the need to create a bridge between the startups and incubators to accelerate the growth further.
The Pavilion also conducted a detailed session on Angel Networks in Tier II and III towns- Access to capital for early-stage startups Incubators/startups chaired by Suresh Narasimha, Managing Partner Co-Create Ventures, and Co-lead, Incubator/Accelerator Track and Karthik Kittu, Chief of Staff to Chairman, Startup Karnataka, and Co-lead, Incubator/Accelerator Track highlighting the role of incubators in creating infrastructure and facilitating connections between startups, venture capitalists and angel investors.
During the session, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Co-founder and Executive Vice Chairman, Info Edge highlighted the untapped potential of tier II and III cities for entrepreneurship and called for innovative solutions and collaboration between the stakeholders.
Additionally, a masterclass was organized on “Setting up an incubator or accelerator pavilion” witnessed dynamic insights from Supriya Sharma, Partner, Insights at IIMA Ventures. The masterclass indexed the core ideas surrounding the purpose of an incubator, emphasizing its role in enhancing the success rates of startups.
Startup Mahakumbh onboards top unicorns in the sponsors list, with Games 24X7, Oyo, and Infoedge as Unicorn Gold sponsors, Dream11, Flipkart, Infra Market, Moglix, Nykaa as Unicorn Silver sponsors, BharatPe and Razorpay as Unicorn Bronze sponsors. The list of AIF sponsors includes Accel, Rukam Capital and Peak XV in the gold category, Aavishkar Group, Elevation Capital, Iron Pillar in the silver sponsorship category and Avendus Capital, Chiratae Ventures, Fireside Ventures, IvyCap Ventures and Sorin Investments in the bronze category of AIF sponsors.
The event will also connect Indian startups with event partners including Dalmia Bharat & Google (
silver partners), Acko, Captain Fresh, Mobile Premier League (MPL), Jetsynthesis, Tally (bronze partners), IAN & Blume Ventures (session partners), IDFC First Bank (Bank partner), MM Active & India Mobile Congress (IMC) (Event partners) and Indian School of Business (ISB) (Academic partner).
