IIMA Ventures

Calling all fintech startups & founders, investors, and financial institutions for the upcoming RBIH Bank  Fintech Showcase 2026, a conduit to the institutions that form the bedrock of Indian finance. If you’re building solutions that can shape national systems, this is your invitation to move beyond the pitch deck and into the pilot stage. Join us for a series of focused conversations where innovation meets the machinery that serves millions of Indians. The program culminates in a focused pitch event, where shortlisted startups present directly to representatives from banks and financial institutions, in a curated environment designed for meaningful conversations and tangible outcomes. Date: 23 June, 2026. Apply now: https://lnkd.in/d3mMTsdM Follow us for more fintech opportunities and events!📌 #IIMAVentures #Fintech #Startups #Pitch #RBIH Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) | Sandeep Koujalgi | Dheeraj Bhojwani | Pratik Yagnik | Disha Pandit

India’s aerospace and defence ecosystem is seeing a clear shift from government-led innovation to startup-led execution. With private spacetech funding crossing new highs, defence tech investments hitting record levels, and startups building everything from launch systems to surveillance and advanced manufacturing, the sector is moving into a new growth cycle. The Aerospace & Defence Acceleration Fund, powered by IIMA Ventures and Jaivel Aerospace, is focused on supporting early-stage founders building for this next phase of aerospace and defence innovation in India. The fund brings together IIMA Ventures’ venture-building experience with Jaivel Aerospace’s global design and manufacturing exposure, with the aim of helping startups move from prototype to market-ready solutions. As India’s spacetech and defence ecosystem scales beyond launches into strategic infrastructure and deeptech manufacturing, this is an important time to build. Apply here: https://lnkd.in/dNRtDHKw #IIMAVentures #Fund #Space #Defence #Aerospace #Startups #Investment Vipul Patel | Supriya Sharma | Chintan Antani | Soniya Sadhnani, ACA, CFA | Gaurav Khemchandani | Priya Mishra | Aditya D.

Our portfolio startups are hiring. Our founders are looking for curious, driven people to join their teams. With open roles across cities, this is your opportunity to work with startups backed by IIMA Ventures. Know someone who’d be the right fit for this? Tag them in the comments! Swipe for details and apply: https://lnkd.in/dbZKRuyR #IIMAVentures #HiringAlert #Startups

“India’s launch market is a multi-decade infrastructure story, not a speculative tech bet,” Vipul Patel, Seed Partner at IIMA Ventures, shares his view in a recent Forbes India feature discussing Indian space tech’s coming-of-age moment. In six years, India has gone from zero private orbital attempts to having its first space unicorn on the eve of its first orbital launch attempt. Skyroot Aerospace, at its unicorn status, has witnessed backing from GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, BlackRock, and Ram Sriram, a board member of Alphabet. This indicates that the unicorn status definitely creates a price anchor in favour of Indian space tech players. Sovereign wealth funds and large asset managers globally and in India tend to move in clusters, and the probability of other global peers looking at AgniKul Cosmos or Pixxel’s next round increases. Historically, India’s deep-tech sectors have struggled to attract mainstream venture capital due to long development timelines. That is now changing. This year has proved to be an inflection point for spacetech in India. Version 2.0 is here, backed by private investments and Government support. If you’re curious about how to make the most of this opportunity, our recent playbook on Indian spacetech discusses what startups should build. Link in the comments. Read more - https://lnkd.in/dwn3riKm Priyanka Agarwal Chopra | Supriya Sharma | Priya Mishra | Gaurav Khemchandani | Shailaja Shukla Williams | Chintan Antani | Soniya Sadhnani, ACA, CFA | Aakriti Shah Kamdar | Aditya D.

Are you building vernacular, voice-based tools for business operations that could make it easier for more women entrepreneurs like Meena (a micro-entrepreneur) to scale in the language they are most comfortable with? With AI now in the picture, voice-based tools are rapidly helping close the translation gap, with startups building large language models designed for Indian languages and Indian use cases. Through the AI Accelerator for Women’s Economic Empowerment, backed by the Gates Foundation, we’re offering startups USD 50,000+ in funding, cloud credits worth up to USD 250,000, market access through last-mile partners, expert mentorship, and funding support for the selected cohort. Apply here: https://lnkd.in/dY2xVS5P Know a startup that should apply? Share this with them. #IIMAVentures #ApplicationsOpenNow #AI #Tech #Startups #Inclusion Supriya Sharma |Chintan Bakshi | Sandeep Koujalgi | Dheeraj Bhojwani | Shilpa Jain | Vaibhav Vashishtha | Ayush Shukla | Shivam Choubey | Adhwant Mishra | Manas Wats | Nikita Kukreja

We are hosting the Build with AI: App Roadshows in collaboration with Google for Developers on 16th May 2026, in Ahmedabad! If you are an app developer looking to deeply integrate AI, master hybrid monetization, and scale your user acquisition, this is for you. Move beyond basic concepts and get hands-on with Google experts to build, grow, and scale your business. Date: 16th May 2026 (Saturday) Time: 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM Location: IIM Ahmedabad Seats are limited for this exclusive event. Request your invite here: https://lnkd.in/dsqSVzCq #IIMAVentures #Google #AppDay #AI #IIMA #Roadshow #Startups Vipul Patel | Dheeraj Bhojwani | Manas Wats | Adhwant Mishra | Enisha Kalita | (VJ) Vijaykumar Jangamashetti ☁️| Rajat Bhatia

Reinitiating the conversation on SpaceTech, with ample reasons to do so! The indicative map below showcases startups from India building across the upstream, midstream, and downstream segments, with our portfolio present in each, building the next wave of innovation being sent to space. Here is the evidence: - GalaxEye launched an OptoSAR satellite - PierSight has already conducted an in-orbit demonstration of Varuna and is gearing up for a launch in 2026 - olee.space has demonstrated a 20 km, 10 Gbps wireless laser communication system - Pixxel already has 6 Firefly satellites operational, and has inked a contract with NASA The private sector has grown disproportionately, from one startup in 2014 to 300+ in 2026. Institutional support from IN-SPACe, supplemented by private investments exceeding $800M, has turned what was previously a mirage into reality. And now, we have the first spacetech unicorn: Skyroot Aerospace. Startups are building across the value chain, from on-demand launch vehicles, multi-sensor satellites, and green propulsion satellite buses to green propellants, LEO PNT, and even lunar habitats. At IIMA Ventures, we have backed 11 SpaceTech startups and supported them in their early stages. We are now sharing everything we know about the sector through a playbook highlighting what startups should build. Access it here: https://lnkd.in/dhXd92H6 #IIMAVentures #SpaceTech #Startups #Playbook #GalaxEye #PierSight #OleeSpace #Pixxel Supriya Sharma | Vipul Patel | Priya Mishra | Gaurav Khemchandani | Shailaja Shukla Williams | Chintan Antani | Soniya Sadhnani, ACA, CFA | Aakriti Shah Kamdar | Aditya D.

The Venture Growth Sprints in partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank brought together early-stage founders from cities across India, giving them structure, access, and honest conversations about what it actually takes to grow. Last week was the culmination of that journey. A demo day in front of 20+ active investors and incubation leaders. Unicorn India Ventures, GVFL, Caspian, York IE, Indian Angel Network, The Chennai Angels, Chandigarh Angels Network, Campus Angels Network, JITO INCUBATION & INNOVATION FOUNDATION, India Accelerator, Exitfund, Divisa Family Office, JECRC University, School of Management and Entrepreneurship, IIT Jodhpur, and Innovation Mission Punjab in one room, engaging with founders who had put in the work to get here. The pitches were the easy part to describe. What's harder to capture is the feedback that made a founder rethink something, the conversations that continued long after the session ended, and the quiet confidence that comes from simply having been in that room. The Venture Growth Sprints across the eight cities (Coimbatore, Surat, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Navi Mumbai, Indore, Jodhpur & Jaipur) were designed to bridge the gap between a good founder and the right investor is often just access. Last week felt like a small step toward closing that gap. For the 14 founders, the real work starts now. We're glad we got to be part of it. #IIMAVentures #Pitch #VentureGrowthSprint #Entrepreneurs #Investors #Startups Vipul Patel | Chintan Bakshi | Abhimanyu Saxena | Shantanu Thanvi | Vaibhav Vashishtha | Shilpa Jain | Ayush Shukla

Last week, we hosted the AI Day for Startups in collaboration with Google for Developers, bringing together founders, engineers, operators, and builders working at the edge of AI innovation. The conversations focused on one clear shift: moving AI from experimentation to real-world execution. From product strategy to infrastructure decisions, the sessions explored what it takes to build AI-first startups that can scale reliably and at depth. Discussions and technical deep dives covered agentic AI workflows, multimodal capabilities, sovereign and localised AI models, and physical AI bringing intelligence to hardware systems. What stood out most was the quality of exchange between founders and practitioners building across India’s AI ecosystem, each approaching the next phase of AI adoption with sharper technical ambition and stronger execution focus. Were you part of the AI Day? Comment below! #IIMAVentures #AIDay #GoogleforDevlopers #AI #Startups Vipul Patel | Dheeraj Bhojwani | Manas Wats | Adhwant Mishra | Enisha Kalita | (VJ) Vijaykumar Jangamashetti ☁️

People and culture have been at the heart of what we do at IIMA Ventures. Not as a talking point, but as something we've lived through, session after session, with the founders we work with. It usually starts the same way. A founder walks in with a product problem. Or a growth problem. Or a fundraising problem. But as the conversation unfolds, the real gap emerges. And almost every time, it comes down to people. How decisions get made. What's said in the room and what isn't. The culture that's quietly taking shape, whether anyone planned it or not. We kept seeing this across bootcamps, portfolio conversations, and the quieter one-on-one moments that happen on the sidelines. Products change. Business models pivot. But the people problems? Those don't go away on their own. That's what led us to build the People and Culture Accelerator. Over four years, working closely with close to 50 startups, we kept coming back to the same question. How do you build an organisation, not just a product, from day one? Prof. Neharika Vohra has been with us through every edition, bringing case study sessions that don't just teach. They surface things founders didn't know they needed to talk about. The People and Culture Sprints took that same conversation to more cities. Shorter, more focused but the same honesty. Founders talking to founders, going beyond pitch decks, funding rounds, and product-market fit, into the stuff that actually keeps them up at night. And through all of it, one gap kept coming back. Founders know culture matters. Everyone tells them so. But almost nothing exists on how it actually forms. Most research only looks at culture once a company has already scaled. By then, it's too late to change much. That gap is what led Supriya Sharma and Prof. Neharika Vohra to write this. “How Startup Cultures Form: Founder Imprint, Early Choices, and a Toolkit for Shaping Culture” looks at how culture takes shape in startups, the early choices that define it, and how founders can build culture intentionally as they scale. It also includes practical diagnostic toolkits for founders and startup leaders. If you're building a team right now, this one's worth your time. Access here: https://lnkd.in/dVU8-FKX SSRN | Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Priyanka Agarwal Chopra | Vipul Patel | Bhakti Jhaveri Dhanak, PHRi, SPHRi | Ankur Sohanpal | Sreshtha Majumdar