BENGALURU, Oct 09: BITS Pilani Startup Hub, Bengaluru, hosted the inaugural Startup Accelerator Demo Day today, 9th October 2026, bringing together founders, investors, industry leaders, alumni entrepreneurs, and key stakeholders from Bengaluru’s startup ecosystem.

Prof. Suman Kundu, Director, BITS Pilani K. K. Birla Goa Campus, graced the event with his esteemed presence. Other dignitaries included Mr. Nitin Pai, Chief Strategy Officer, Tata Elxsi; Mr. Avnish Sabharwal from Vedanta Ventures; Mr. Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director & Founder, Arkam Ventures, and Mr. Rohit Agarwal, Senior Director, Palo Alto Networks.

A key highlight of the event was the showcase of 12 technology-led startups, providing founders an opportunity to pitch their ventures, engage with investors, and explore potential partnerships and growth opportunities.

The event commenced with an overview of the Hub by Prof. Mridula Goel, Founding Lead, BITS Pilani Startup Hub, who highlighted its vision of building an alumni-powered platform that enables entrepreneurs to access mentorship, industry and customer connections, talent, infrastructure, and investor networks.

Speaking during the event, Prof. Suman Kundu, Director, BITS Pilani K. K. Birla Goa Campus said, “BITS Pilani is known for its founders. Our students and alumni have created 17 unicorns and 140 deeptech startups. Given our alumni strength in Bengaluru, we have strategized to support founders through well-designed accelerator programs owned by an alumni founder. Today, we launched two programs: Keystone – Deeptech Accelerator with Vibhav Joshi, Director, Innaccel, and Healthcare Accelerator with Swathi Kulkarni, MD, Konovo & Founder, Elda Health.”

A key highlight of the Demo Day was the startup pitch showcase, where founders presented their ventures to an audience comprising investors, industry leaders, venture capitalists, BITS alumni founders, and ecosystem partners. The formal programme was followed by Founders × Investors: Connect & Converse, enabling participating startups to engage directly with investors and other stakeholders.

Organisation	Details
OmniX Labs	One-stop solution for Research, Prototyping and Learning for 5G/6G and Future Networks.
Anvitra AI	Anvitra brings institutional grade market research and decision intelligence platform to Indian investors investing in US.
CognifyEV	The AI Operating System for reliable and accurate agentic workflows in the electrical and electronics industry.
Poshis Global	Poshis Global is redefining how consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase beauty and skincare products with aice, an AI-first platform powered by intelligent personalization.
RecQu AI	RecQu.ai is an AI Native Data & Intelligence platform focusing on Healthcare Data.
Swavid Edutech	SwaVid is an AI native learning platform that identifies and eliminates learning debt before it compounds.
Ringg AI	An enterprise AI agent platform that automates business conversations across voice, WhatsApp, chat, and web, helping companies handle sales, support, onboarding, collections, and other high-volume workflows.
MathFlo	The world's first hallucination-free visual AI tutor for STEM.
Niravi Inc.	Niravi is building an agentic content environment for creators.
Deepshorts	Deepshorts.ai, an AI-powered content production platform that researches topics, generates multimedia assets, and assembles them into ready-to-edit videos and visual stories.
Supermaya	AI-native video production system for micro-dramas.
KineticAge	A senior wellness and preventive-care platform providing doctor-led physiotherapy, strength training, nutrition, mental wellness, and geriatric care through personalized at-home programs.

Speaking during the event, Prof. Mridula Goel, Founding Lead, BITS Pilani Startup Hub, said, “The excitement in creating something of their own is what drives founders. By setting up the BITS Pilani Startup Hub in Bengaluru this January I also experience that every day. The support from the BITS leadership for innovative initiatives helped me to achieve this.”

The Demo Day also spotlighted the Hub’s 12-week, on-site acceleration programme, which provides founders with alumni-led mentorship, strategic guidance, investor interactions, and fundraising support. As part of its continued expansion, the Hub is also launching a six-month acceleration track for select hard-tech startups, aimed at supporting technology ventures that require deeper product development, industry engagement, and scale-up support.

Commenting on the initiative, Mr. Rajesh Kumar Kotta (BITS Pilani, 1994–98 batch), Founder & CEO, HustleHub, said, “We want to build great enterprises, and show the world that India is not less than any other.”

The event also featured a panel discussion on “Founder to Funded: Navigating the Investor Journey,” bringing together leading voices from the investment and technology ecosystem to discuss fundraising, investor engagement, venture building, and the evolving landscape for technology startups.

Moderated by Mr. Rohit Agarwal, Senior Director, AI Gateway, Palo Alto Networks, the panel discussion featured:

·Mr. Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director, Arkam Ventures

·Mr. Rachit Parekh, Partner, Accel

·Mr. Kushal Bhagia, Founder, All In Capital

·Mr Rahul Seth , Founder Industrial 47

The inaugural Demo Day marked a major milestone in the Hub’s journey to create a strong bridge between the BITS Pilani entrepreneurial community, while providing founders with access to the networks and resources required to accelerate their growth.