India has produced roughly 132 companies that have crossed the $1 billion valuation mark, and seventeen of them trace their roots back to BITS Pilani. With BITSians founding more than 10% of the country’s unicorns, our campus stands as one of India’s premier entrepreneurial hubs. In this article, the English Press Club (EPC) takes a look at the startup culture of BITS Pilani and the contributions of two student organisations to it.
PIEDS: Pilani Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Society is BITS Pilani’s incubator, founded in 2004 as a Technology Business Incubator (TBI), and has since evolved into a larger body with a separate student team and management team. PIEDS is responsible for helping students secure grants and funds under various schemes run by the Indian Government, and has ties with private venture studios as well. Recently, they partnered with one such studio, noDevBuild, which is now helping the PIEDS startups expand their infrastructure and scale their products.
Ignite is PIEDS’s startup innovation competition, with previous editions held in Goa and Mumbai. Modelled after Y Combinator’s Startup School, Ignite compresses the journey of a product from a raw idea to a working Minimum Viable Product (MVP) into just three days of building, pitching, and meeting investors. BITSpreneur, one of PIEDS’ flagship events, in addition to being a part of their recruitment process, is designed to inculcate a fierce founder mentality among students. Batchmates are required to form teams and develop their own businesses from scratch that are capable of solving real-world problems. The event follows interested candidates making their own pitch decks, hold meetings with investors, and talk to venture studios.
The EPC sat down with Viren, a member of the PIEDS student team, to learn more about the workings of PIEDS and how it has contributed to the startup landscape on campus. Viren stated that in recent years, with the advent of social media and AI tools, most undergraduates wanted to launch their own ventures, getting inspired by the success stories they see online. He remarked that the ecosystem at BITS Pilani was exceptional for producing new solutions, mainly because of the flexibility it offered. The zero attendance policy had been a significant factor that allowed students to devote time to pursue entrepreneurial activities. According to Viren, a secondary factor was the peer group that came to Pilani. Most people were from a financially stable background, enabling them to experiment and take more risks. Freshmen and sophomores, in particular, have more risk-taking abilities as final-year placements remain a viable fallback option if early ideas fail.
Speaking about the Indian startup scene, Viren added that India required more consumer-focused businesses as compared to ones that were tech-oriented. These included quick commerce, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, and lifestyle. A prime example is Dihadi, a student-led endeavour created by three members of the PIEDS student team. Dihadi focuses on connecting daily wage workers with contractors through AI, and is India’s first Agentic AI platform for this problem.
Developing a startup on campus is, however, not very easy, and there are multiple problems that the student community faces. In recent years, with growth in artificial intelligence and marketing strategies, the challenges faced by young founders have also evolved. Compared to a decade ago, when formulating a product or app based on an idea was the major difficulty, today, the core issue is not creating but marketing and advertising a solution. Although maintaining CGPA and academic pressure are prominent hurdles faced by them, universities like ours are trying to mitigate this strain by ensuring ample time and resources are provided to such students. Centres for innovation like the Rakesh Kapoor Innovation Centre (RKIC) also offer a proper workplace for such students.
To get another perspective on campus entrepreneurship, the EPC spoke with Baibhab, the President of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL). Founded back in 2003 as one of Asia’s first student-run E-Cells, CEL’s main goal has always been simple: make entrepreneurship accessible and give students practical ways to build their ideas.
Baibhab shared that, while most students know CEL for their flagship events like Bedrock and Conquest, a lot of their work happens behind the scenes. They are currently working to set up one of the country’s first student-run venture funds. They also run Summer in a Startup, which connects students to internships at Y Combinator-backed companies, and lead local projects in Pilani like helping shopkeepers transition to digital payments and e-commerce.
For someone with just an idea, CEL acts as an initial guidance network. He explained that through their alumni and founder connections, they help with equity-free support and mentoring. So far, startups connected to CEL and Conquest have raised millions of dollars. Notable names include Atlan, Sarla Aviation (building flying taxis), Speedloop (cargo EVs), and Jeune Health. Their portfolio ranges from software to deep tech, biotech, and brain-computer interfaces. Baibhab noted that while earlier batches took higher risks, recent students lean a bit towards safe placement options like Quant, IT, or Electronics. However, he emphasised that university is actually the safest time to build. The worst outcome is taking a temporary hit on one’s CGPA, whereas quitting a job later in life carries much higher stakes.
On an ending note, he pointed out that with access to capital, mentorship, and support at an all-time high, there is truly no better time for BITSians to bet on themselves and build the future.