Nikhil Kamath and Kishore Biyani partner to set up launchpad for startups
The Foundery is being set up as part accelerator, part school, and part venture studio for early-stage startups. Selected participants will retain up to a 25% equity in the businesses they help create.
Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath and Future Group’s CEO Kishore Biyani on Monday launched The Foundery—a part school, part accelerator, and part venture studio for early-stage startups.
During the course of the program, selected participants will work alongside The Foundery team and mentors to turn ideas into investment-ready ventures. Selected individuals will retain up to a 25% equity in the business they help create and successful ventures will receive seed funding of up to Rs 4 crore with continued strategic support after the program.
“This isn’t a classroom or an incubator,” said Kishore Biyani. “It’s a live business-building environment where entrepreneurs learn by creating, testing, failing, and evolving. We’re forging founders through experience, not theory.”
Each cohort will participate in the 90-day program, which will culminate in a Demo Day, where participants can pitch their ventures to a curated investor network.
Some of the prominent mentors for this program will include Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Titan Capital’s Kunal Bahl, AI entrepreneur and investor Aakrit Vaish, media and consumer investor Haresh Shawla, and others.
“Most of what we call education was built for a world that doesn’t exist anymore. It teaches people to fit in when progress comes from those who don’t. MBAs create managers. We need people who can build, break, fail, and rebuild. The Foundery is for them—the ones who’d rather make their own path than follow someone else’s,” said Nikhil Kamath.
The Foundery noted that the program will look to select aspiring entrepreneurs, made-career professionals, and early-stage founders. The selection process for the program is designed to identify potential with applicants made to go through articulation rounds, problem-solving challenges, and interviews assessing creativity, resilience, and founder mindset, the firm said.
Edited by Megha Reddy