Seed to Scale Summit & Awards 2026
The Decisions That Build Enduring Companies
One deliberately composed day in Bengaluru: 250 serious founders, defined by what they're working through, not their stage. Working Problem Sessions, matched 1:1 meetings, Build Sessions, AI Rooms, and Craft Clinics through the day — and the Seed to Scale Awards in the evening: 21 recognitions, one evidenced case each.
Summit registration is separate from the Awards. Enter the Awards here.
01
What it stands for
The Summit is not a day of panels, and not a day spent moving from room to room to sit and listen. It is a working environment where founders do, decide and connect. Five principles shape every choice — anything that does not serve them does not belong.
01
Hands-on
Founders work in the room, not watch from a seat — builds, teardowns and working sessions over talks.
02
Actionable
Everyone leaves with something they can use immediately: a decision made, a next step, a real connection.
03
Specific
Real problems, real numbers, real decisions — from people who have done it.
04
Contextual
Grounded in the Indian founder's reality in 2026, and matched to each founder's stage and situation.
05
Immersive through design
Designed to pull founders in and keep them present — off their phones and in the room.
02
What to expect
One day, deliberately composed. 250 serious founders and future founders, every seat reviewed: 50 future founders in their own tightly gated room, 150 new founders one to two years in, 50 scaling founders post-Series A, and 25 scaled founders and operators in the room as hosts and mentors, not attendees. The day is built from hands-on formats — Working Problem Sessions, matched 1:1 meetings, Build Sessions, AI Rooms, and Craft Clinics — because founders come here to do, decide and connect, not to watch. As the sun sets over the Poolside Lawn, the evening belongs to the Awards: 21 recognitions, one evidenced case each, decided by a rotating Jury Council and revealed only when the envelope opens.
Working Problem Sessions
Small, curated rooms, one per problem. Ten to fifteen founders and one operator who has solved it. Each founder brings a real number or decision; the operator facilitates, not lectures.
1:1 Meetings
Matched from the STS platform and selected by founders. Scaled founders, experienced operators and ecosystem players meet young early-stage founders.
Build Sessions
A two-hour build on a real problem, in the open. Partners put up tools and credits for the winners.
AI Rooms
A senior builder works through the AI problems you bring: agents, evals, cost, defensibility. Vendor-neutral, no product pitches.
Craft Clinics
Through the day, hands-on sessions with the best operator in a domain — growth, hiring, brand & design, UI/UX, marketing, storytelling.
The Awards ceremony
21 sealed envelopes on the Poolside Lawn at sundown, one evidenced case each, and every winner becomes a published case.
The room
250 people. Deliberately composed.
Serious founders and future founders, actively building — defined by what they're working through, not their stage. Year one is deliberately small and highly curated: the right rooms and the right people, not maximum attendance. Access is never sold.
50
future founders — tightly gated, in their own room
150
new founders, one to two years in
50
scaling founders, post-Series A
25
scaled founders & operators — hosts and mentors, not attendees
75
OC, partnerships & team
03
The shape of the day
18 Nov 2026 · The Leela Palace, Bengaluru · all timings IST
Morning
The opening standard
The Year-One theme, set by one of the most consequential builders India has produced.
Through the day
Working Problem Sessions & 1:1 Meetings
Two waves of small, curated problem rooms and platform-matched 1:1s. Who's in your room depends on what you're working through.
Through the day
AI Rooms & Craft Clinics
Senior builders on the AI problems you bring, and hands-on clinics with the best operator in each craft — growth, hiring, brand, storytelling.
Afternoon
The Build Session & the Dispatch
A two-hour build on a real problem with partner credits for the winners, then the anonymised patterns from every room, shared with everyone.
Evening
The Awards & the dinners
21 sealed envelopes at sundown. Then dinner, and a few tables you can't buy your way onto.
The hour-by-hour program — rooms, waves, anchors, and your personal schedule — unlocks in the delegate app once your seat is approved.
04
Who's in the room
We don't publish the speaker list. The operators running the rooms have built the companies you use every day — approved delegates see every name, and who's in their Working Problem Session, inside the app.
The architect of India's digital rails
Jury Chair · opens the day with the Year-One standard
The founder who took one app to every pin code
Case-led plenary · consumer scale, decision by decision
A mission leader from India's space programme
Session operator · frontier engineering under real constraints
The operator behind 2B+ monthly UPI transactions
Session operator · payments and credit infrastructure
A physician-founder serving 340 hospitals in 11 languages
Session operator · building for Bharat, evidence first
One of India's most experienced early-stage investors
Convenor · closes the day with what comes next
Names revealed to confirmed delegates only.
05
The Build Session
A two-hour build on a real problem, in the open — founders build, not watch. Teams form on the day, partners put up tools and credits for the winners, and the strongest builds get continued support and introductions.
06
Partnerships
One rule across every tier: partners help founders build — no sales reps, no product pitches, no booths.
Tier 1
Big tech & AI
The frontier labs and infrastructure. The deepest engagement, the fewest partners — about four in year one.
What they do: Each sends a senior builder, not a manager: a vendor-neutral AI Room on the real problems founders bring, a two-hour Build Session with credits as the prize, founder-requested 1:1s, and tools and credits for everyone in the room.
Tier 2
Curated communities & labs
The best builder communities and research labs, each running one hands-on activation. More of them, lighter touch.
What they do: One hands-on activation each, in their own format.
Tier 3
Craft experts
The best individual operators across a founder's lifecycle, giving focused 1:1s and small clinics — matched to founders by need. The broadest set.
What they do: Focused 1:1s and small Craft Clinics, matched to founders by need.
Tier 1 · the frontier labs in conversation for year one
Tier 2 · one hands-on activation each
Lossfunk
Paras Chopra
An AI research teardown / mini-hackathon on frontier problems.
The Residency
A live Build Session, in their hacker-house format.
GrowthX
Abhishek Patil
A live growth teardown.
A robotics / deep-tech lab
e.g. Skild AI, Bengaluru
A session on building in the physical world.
A product & UX community
e.g. The Product Folks; studios like Obvious
A product/UX Craft Clinic.
South Park Commons India
Prateek Mehta
A “what to build” room for future founders.
Tier 3 · craft experts, matched to founders by need
Brand & design
- Codesign (Rajesh Dahiya, Mohor Ray) — India's most respected identity studio
- COLLINS (Brian Collins) — The most-awarded brand studio in the world
- Ek Type (Sarang Kulkarni) — World-class typography for India's languages
- Harish Sivaramakrishnan (CRED, ex-Google) — The benchmark for Indian consumer-product craft
Storytelling & narrative
- Roshan Abbas (Kommune) — India's best on founder storytelling & stage presence
- Andy Raskin — The global reference on the founder pitch narrative
Hiring & teams
- Longhouse (Anshuman Das) — India's go-to for senior leadership hires
- Purple Quarter (Roopa Kumar) — The definitive CTO search firm in India
- ghSMART (Geoff Smart) — The global gold standard on how to hire
Sales & GTM
- Winning by Design (Jacco van der Kooij) — Global standard for a repeatable revenue engine
- Abhinav Asthana (Postman) — Textbook developer-led → US-enterprise GTM from India
Legal, finance & ops
- Ikigai Law (Anirudh Rastogi) — Best boutique for tech/fintech & emerging regulation
- Spice Route Legal (Mathew Chacko) — Term sheets and data protection
- Qapita (Ravi Ravulaparthi) — Build your ESOP pool and cap table
- Treelife (Garima Mitra, Jitesh Agarwal) — The founder finance stack — MIS, runway, compliance
- Cooley (+ Cooley GO) — US incorporation / the Delaware flip and financing
PR & communications
- The PRactice (Nandita Lakshmanan) — Best startup PR in India, founder-led
- Karthik Srinivasan — India's best independent comms strategist
- Lulu Cheng Meservey (Rostra) — The global best on founder-led comms and launches
Investors
- Select operator-investors, help-first — 1:1 advice, no pitching, no judging — kept out of the founder-only rooms
Community
Join the Seed to Scale Founder Community
For Indian founders, operators, and investors building for India and the world, from first cheque to IPO.
ApplySummit application
Apply.
One bar: evidence you have built something real. 250 seats, reviewed personally — what you're working through and what you can contribute matter more than your title. Approval unlocks the delegate app — the full program, the names, your Working Problem Session, and your 1:1 meetings — and you can refer one person to attend with you.
This registers you for the Summit only. The Awards have their own entry and their own review — apply to the Awards separately.