Your Startup’s
Global Neighborhood
Startups grow faster when founders are plugged into the right conversations. That’s what eChai makes happen — connecting founders across cities, stages, and markets.
Where eChai Happens
How Founders Plug Into eChai
Events, dinners, stories, and rituals — happening every week, in cities around the world.
Startups grow through people, momentum, and the right rooms.
eChai builds those rooms — across 25+ cities and 10+ countries — where founders connect, collaborate, and move forward together.
For Early-Stage Founders
It often starts with an evening meetup — founders gathering at a co-working space or café to talk through what they’re building. These weekly events, hosted with ecosystem partners across cities like Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, and San Francisco, have become a steady rhythm. From Urban Vault to iHub Gujarat to tucked-away startup corners of the Bay Area, these rooms are where context is shared, questions are welcomed, and momentum begins.
Many early-stage teams also find their footing at eChai’s Startup Demo Days — monthly sessions where founders pitch early, gather unfiltered feedback, and connect with investors and peers. Hosted in partnership with collaborators like CoKarma (Hyderabad), DevX (Mumbai), Provyz (Surat), GVFL (Ahmedabad), and Ideas to Impacts (Pune), these aren’t just pitch events — they’re launchpads.
To go deeper, there’s The Startup Code — a series of founder-led sessions hosted monthly in Pune, Ahmedabad, and online. These aren’t lecture circuits — they’re working sessions built around frameworks, real-world playbooks, and peer wisdom.
And when things don’t go as planned (which is most of the time), FailCode creates space for honest conversations. From Delhi to Jersey City to Bangalore, these small-group circles are where founders talk about missed bets, tricky pivots, and what they’d do differently — with zero stagecraft.
For Founders Growing and Scaling
As teams scale and challenges shift from survival to structure, eChai creates space for deeper, peer-driven conversations. ScaleUp Social brings together growth-stage founders navigating hiring, revenue, expansion, and operations. These are invite-only gatherings — small, off-the-record, and designed for founders to talk candidly with others moving through similar inflection points.
Sector focus becomes sharper too. eChai hosts regular founder gatherings across FinTech, D2C, ClimateTech, HealthTech, SaaS, DeepTech, EdTech, Mobility, and AI — creating context-rich environments where founders can go beyond introductions and talk shop with those building in the same trenches.
eChai’s Women Founders Initiative
eChai also runs ongoing programs that spotlight women-led businesses across the network. Through curated meetups, panels, and peer conversations, eChai’s Women Founders Initiative brings visibility and support to the founders who are building, scaling, and leading across sectors. These aren’t side tracks — they’re part of the core rhythm of how the community grows.
For Founders Building Across Borders
For founders on the move, Startup Touchdown offers soft landings in unfamiliar cities. These dinners and socials — hosted in places like San Francisco, Dubai, Singapore, and London — are not stage events. They're tables with context. Over food and first names, visiting founders get plugged into the pulse of a new city. We've done this with friends at Draper Startup House, Shunya Ekai, Monk’s Brew Club, and more — each time bringing together real conversations and new connections.
For Staying Plugged In Year-Round
Even when you’re not in the room, eChai keeps the rhythm going.
Stream captures what founders across the network are building, questioning, and sharing — a living pulse of lessons, updates, and perspectives.
The Reading Room curates the longform side — essays, frameworks, and deep dives that fuel clarity and reset thinking.
There’s also Startup Sports — the lighter side of connection. From cricket in Ahmedabad to pickleball nights in Bengaluru, these moments offer bonding that isn’t forced, and often spark ideas more naturally than any panel ever could.
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This is how eChai works.
Founders meet, share, and build with each other — across cities, stages, and stories.
The conversations keep going. The network keeps growing.
If you’re building, there’s a place here for you.
What’s New and Next at eChai
Every week, across different cities, founders come together — to share, test ideas, and move forward with a little more clarity than before. Here’s what’s been happening lately.
In Dubai, we hosted a Startup Touchdown panel at Shunya Ekai, where founders building across the UAE shared lessons on team structures, expansion, and early traction in the region.
In Palo Alto, the Startup Touchdown dinner at Rooh brought together global founders over shared meals and sharp conversations — around go-to-market, product depth, and fundraising in the Valley.
In Singapore, the AI x FinTech Social at Monk’s Brew Club gathered builders working across infrastructure, compliance, and AI-driven finance — exchanging insights on scaling responsibly in fast-moving categories.
Women Founders Sessions were hosted in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad — with founders and operators discussing growth, product evolution, and the day-to-day reality of building.
eChai Startup Demo Days are coming up this week — across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Vadodara, Rajkot, Udaipur, and more. Early-stage founders will pitch in front of peers and enablers, using the format to sharpen their story and open new doors.
In Ahmedabad, DevX won the eChai Startup Cricket Championship — a finals night that mixed sport, community, and celebration into one packed evening.
Sector-focused meetups continue to expand — with recent gatherings around HardwareTech in Ahmedabad, D2C in Surat, and SaaS in Pune. These rooms are shaped by the builders in them — practical, focused, and peer-driven.
FailCode circles are coming up early next month — with founders across cities stepping forward to share the bets that didn’t work, and what they’ve taken from them into what comes next.
Founders and Investors Who’ve Been Part of eChai
Across every eChai city — from Ahmedabad to Singapore, Bengaluru to San Francisco, Dubai to Tallinn — the rooms have brought together ambitious founders and operators building across sectors and scale. Many have raised institutional capital, launched products in new markets, or led breakout teams. Others are quietly building with conviction — focused, sharp, and deeply plugged into their craft. What brings them together is a shared drive to learn, contribute, and stay connected to a trusted circle of builders.
Investors, ecosystem enablers, and growth partners have been part of these conversations too — joining founder meetups, dinners, demo days, and closed working sessions across SaaS, FinTech, D2C, ClimateTech, and more. You’ll find many of their names and stories on the individual city pages — a growing archive of the people who’ve helped shape the eChai experience from the inside out.
The eChai Effect - In Their Words
Bhavin S Bhagat
Umesh Uttamchandani
Syed Nadeem Jafri
Shalin (Shawn) Parikh
Harsha Bhurani
Mehul Shah
Pankaj Bhimani
Shrijay Sheth
How Brands Grow with eChai
eChai Ventures partners with select brands as their Growth Partner — working together to explore new ideas, open doors, and build momentum across the startup ecosystem.
These collaborations come to life through curated events, founder-led conversations, and ongoing engagement across cities and sectors. Brands like Hearty Mart, 58miles, Redicine Medsol, LegalWiz.in, Hungrito, Hummingbird, DevX, IndiaBizForSale, Brands.live and many others have partnered with eChai to connect with the founder community in meaningful, context-rich ways.
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