Plaksha Showcases 35 Startups at Progressive Punjab Investors’ Summit 2026; Calls for Indust–y–Academia Co-Creation in State Growth Story

(MENAFN- The Mavericks) Mohali, March 16th 2026: Plaksha University today showcased 35 startups, emphasising its growing startup ecosystem at the Progressive Punjab Inves’ors’ Summit 2026 hosted at the univ’rsity’s campus at Mohali. The showcase highlighted how student and alumni founders are building technology ventures and contributing to t’e state’s innovation cosystem.

A technology university founded by over 130 business leaders and en repreneurs through a unique collective philanthropy model, th’ university’s Incubation Center currently supports 23 alumni startups and more than 15 active student startup ideas. AI and deep-tech ventures, under the Info Edge Centre for Entrepreneurship, account for over 60% of startups from the Plaksha ecosystem. Collectively, startups from the community have raised over 25 crore in external funding so far. The university campus is a hub where engineering research, student entrepreneurship and industry collaboration come together to build technology ventures emerging from Punjab.

Commenting on this vision, Neeraj Aggarwal, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Plaksha University and Senior Partner & Managing Director at Boston Consulting Group said, “In tod’y’s fast-moving world, universities have to not only support innovative ideas and research but also become platforms for them to turn into ventures which solve real world problems. Our goal is to enable student founders, researchers and industry partners to build deep-tech ventures that can emerge from Punjab and scale globa”ly.”

Emphasising on the importance of industry-academia collaboration, Prof. Rudra Pratap, Founding Vice-Chancellor, Plaksha University, said, “Technology universities must create pathways where research and innovation move from the lab to the market. At Plaksha, we are building an ecosystem where students can experiment, build companies and collaborate with industry to solve real-world p”oblems.”

Among recent examples, alumni-led funded startup Marbles Health, is delivering clinically licensed portable neuromodulation for scalable brain and mental healthcare. Its founders Ramya Yellapragada and Lakshay Sahni have been featured in Forbes India 30 Under 30 (2026). Thinklude, founded by BTech students Prerit Rathi and Pranjal Rastogi (BTech Class of 2026), and AgriGuru founded by Sanchit Gupta (BTech Class of 2028), have secured funding. Student ventures AgriGuru and Swipester also reached the Top 10 at the TiE U Chapter Finale. Among the student ideas supported by Plaksha is the development of an autonomous vehicle by Team Kalki that can land on Mars and do a certain set of actions.

Plaksha’s approach combines engineering education, research infrastructure and structured support for founders to help students and alumni translate ideas into technology ventures. The university is also working with research institutions and industry partners to create a platform for AI and deep-tech venture creation, enabling startups to test technologies, run pilots and access early customers.



About Plaksha University
Founded by a global community of more than 100 technology and business leaders, Plaksha envisions reimagining technology education and research for India and the world. With strong partnerships with UC Berkeley, Purdue, UC San Diego, Cornell University, Penn Engineering, IIT Kanpur and IISc Bengaluru, Plaksha aims to nurture and empower a generation of catalytic leaders and create an ecosystem of research and innovation. The university collapses the traditional boundaries of engineering and promotes interdisciplinary learning by combining technology, design and entrepreneurship.

Plaksha is guided by an eminent academic board including Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering, University of Pennsylvania; Prof. S Shankar Sastry, Thomas Siebel Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Venkatesh Narayanamurthi, former Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Sriram Rajamani, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Research India; Julia Ross, Dean of Engineering, Virginia Tech; Krishna Palepu, Ross Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; Sanjay Sarma, Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering, MIT; and business leaders such as Neeraj Aggarwal, Senior Partner & Managing Director at Boston Consulting Group; Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman, Bharti Enterprises; Hitesh Oberoi, Co-promoter &; CEO, Info Edge (Naukri.com); Alok Mittal, Cofounder and Executive Chairman, Indifi Technologies Pvt Ltd; Manas Human, Co- Founder, Nagarro; Prashanth Prakash, Partner, Accel; Subrata Mitra, Partner, Accel; Ritesh Malik, Founder and CEO, Innov8; Dalip Pathak, Special Limited Partner, Warburg Pincus LLC; Srikanth Velamakanni, Cofounder and Group CEO, Fractal; Pramod Bhasin, Chairman, Clix Capital among others. Corporate donors include companies like Bharti Airtel Foundation, Axis Bank, Indorama Ventures, Havells, Harish and Bina Shah Foundation, Binny Bansal, Co-founder Flipkart and founder Xto10x. HT Parekh Foundation, Mphasis, Info Edge, and Motilal Oswal. The global community of business leaders who founded Plaksha can be seen here.

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