When I moved to Bengaluru two years ago, my sister gifted me a book, "Unboxing Bengaluru" written by Malini Goyal and Prashanth Prakash, which talks about the unique professional serendipity this city offers. It describes how people randomly connect, often in a coffee shop, to spark great conversations or even kickstart a startup. This is a testament to how, when you put yourself out there, the world becomes a smaller, more collaborative place.

Since launching my law firm, RitPath, it feels like the city is also "unboxing" for me. Like meeting Jatin Chaudhary (Founder of eChai Ventures), a remarkable man who understands and harnesses the power of community, much like we lawyers rely on our seniors to navigate our profession.

As part of Echai, I got to attend the incredible event hosted by IKP EDEN, which marked the grand wrap-up of #Women’s DeepTechWeek. I witnessed the innovative side of Bengaluru where groundbreaking and futuristic startups are aggressively emerging.

The BioXcelerate winners of this event were nothing short of brilliant, showcasing how India's startup ecosystem is no longer just about B2C; it’s about DeepTech, and women are leading the charge.

From a bunch of amazing startups, these stood out to me the most, given my professional experience in sustainability and personal experience with health:

1. Biosouk Life Sciences LLP provides an affordable, portable paper-based test that detects antibiotic effectiveness for one of the most common types of UTIs caused by E. coli bacteria.

2. ArkaShine Innovations builds portable hardware devices armed with AI and ML to provide accurate and customized recommendations for soil treatment and crop selection.

3. Nuki Lens provides accessible and affordable epigenetic testing in India. This testing provides insight into changing gene expression due to lifestyle and environment.

4. Algaevity provides a sustainable, toxin-free bio-device to kill mosquitoes in 1-2 hours while improving air quality through algae-based CO2 absorption.

5. Sorteco Innovation built an AI-driven, non-invasive diagnostic tool that detects early-stage Parkinson’s disease.

These startups, along with Earth&Organics , Padival BioSolutions, Vi-Scan Diagnostics, Crop Domain, and AMbRotos Discoveries Pvt. Ltd., are truly at the helm of this innovation, proving that the next wave of change will be led by AI,  deep science and empowered women.

As these startups pave the way for a healthier, technology-driven and more sustainable future, legal and regulatory clarity has become critical in enabling responsible and ethical innovation for the benefit of all.

Ps: It was an honour to present the award to one of the winners of this Program - Dr. Shilika Lilaramani, Vi-Scan Diagnostics

September 17th was about celebration. Jatin Chaudhary, co-founder of eChai, and I were in Mumbai with a few friends from the community for the DevX IPO listing. It felt like one of those moments that belonged to more than just a company. For many of us, it was a milestone for the larger ecosystem.

The very next evening the setting shifted to the Times of India building in Fort, where eChai and Brand Capital were hosting a session on how founders are building and scaling consumer brands. Jatin was supposed to moderate, but he had to return to Ahmedabad same day, and he asked me to step in. That is how I found myself on stage with leading d2c investor and founder, Arjun Vaidya and Abhishek Daga.

Arjun built Dr. Vaidya’s into one of India’s most recognizable Ayurvedic D2C brands and now co-leads V3 Ventures. When I asked how his perspective had changed, he said, “What I thought was right as a founder isn’t always right as an investor.” It was a simple line, but it stayed with me.

Abhishek spoke about building Nasher Miles into a ₹100 crore luggage brand while staying profitable. He talked about the risks of relying too much on Meta ads, the differences between online and offline pricing, and the advantage of being early on marketplaces. At one point he said, “An advantage is an advantage. Don’t debate it, use it.”

The audience added its own depth. Founders asked questions about logistics, supply chains, last-mile delivery, and how to balance burn with profit. These were not abstract discussions. They came from people who had already tested the easy answers and were now searching for new ones.

For me, the evening tied back to my own journey. Before 58Miles, I came from traditional corporate apparel. That world moved differently. Scale came from supply relationships, offline networks, and operational depth. When I stepped into the world of new-age D2C brands, I realised how much of that experience I had to unlearn. Not everything translates. Some parts of that background help, the discipline of operations, the patience for supply chains, but other instincts can hold you back. The challenge is knowing which lessons to carry forward and which ones to leave behind.

That night in Fort reminded me again that unlearning is often the hardest part of growth. It is not always visible and it is not celebrated, but it shapes the way founders move forward.

Emergent Labs, co-founded by Mukund Jha (earlier of Dunzo) and Madhav Jha, has quickly become a platform for building AI-powered apps at speed. In just three months since launch, it reports more than a million builders, over 1.5 million apps created across 180 countries, and $15 million in recurring revenue. The idea is straightforward: help anyone move from an idea to production-ready software without long build cycles.

On September 24, Emergent announced a $23 million Series A led by Lightspeed, with participation from investors and operators linked to Google, Pinecone, Runway, and DeepMind. The update also shared examples of how people are using the platform, from a jewellery chain in Michigan automating repair quotes to small businesses digitizing operations and independent professionals starting new projects.

In this story, we’ve included Mukund Jha’s announcement along with a selection of reactions on X.

Some companies carry their founders’ fingerprints so clearly that it’s hard to separate the two. You see it in the way choices are made, in the culture that forms, even in the smallest rituals of daily work. What starts as instinct soon turns into the company’s operating system, personality becoming process.

Harsha Bhurani’s story makes this visible. By qualification she is a software engineer, but that was never the full story. What came most naturally was harder to measure: reading people, noticing subtleties, and making others feel seen. Early in her career, she made a quiet but pivotal choice, to carry that part of herself into her professional life.

In her work in leadership hiring at Cadila and Quess Corp, she wasn’t just filling positions. She was sensing alignment, surfacing the right kind of leadership energy, and building trust between people and organizations. Those instincts became habits. And when she eventually founded Hummingbird Consulting, they shaped the company from day one. Clients didn’t just get a service. They felt understood. And that trust became the foundation on which the business grew.

That imprint carries into the eChai Women Founders Initiative, where Harsha has become a steady anchor. She makes space for quieter voices, mentors peers at key junctures, and marks birthdays and anniversaries not as routine gestures but as signs of care. Small as they appear, these choices add up to a form of leadership that gives a community its durability.

This closeness between founder and business is both strength and weight. It gives growth a natural rhythm because the company moves like its founder. But it can also make change harder, because shifting direction feels like shifting identity. Strength and constraint come from the same place.

Maybe that’s the real puzzle here: not whether companies mirror their founders, but how much. And what happens, over time, when the mirror starts shaping both sides.

At eChai Ventures, we’ve started a new series called How I Met My Co-founder, a collection of real founder stories about the unpredictable, sometimes chaotic, but defining ways co-founders met.

This one comes from Zaiba Sarang, Co-Founder of iThink Logistics.

In her words:

“Let me take you back to where it all began, how I met my co-founders Bharat and Vipul. We were buddies who embarked on our entrepreneurial journey in 2011 with our SaaS venture, Depasser Infotech, where we dabbled in tech services.

Fast forward to 2016, the eCommerce scene picked up pace, and we decided to dive into that realm alongside our existing venture. But navigating the eCommerce landscape proved challenging, especially with the logistical hurdles we encountered. During this time, Vipul reached out to his friend Paresh, who had a wealth of experience in logistics, seeking advice on our predicament. The more we explored it, the more apparent it became that many others in the eCommerce space faced similar struggles.

That’s when Paresh brought Nikul into the fold, leveraging his expertise in logistics and finance. In 2017, the five of us came together to launch iThink Logistics. Each of us brought something unique, Vipul’s strategic acumen, my knack for communication, Bharat’s tech savviness, Paresh’s operational expertise, and Nikul’s financial wizardry. With a shared vision to transform eCommerce logistics, iThink Logistics was born.

Today, we proudly stand with over 10,000+ eCommerce brands, providing them with a one-stop solution for all their logistics needs.”