Startup Ki Pathsala is building Bengal’s youth-startup pipeline — one campus at a time

If you want to understand where Bengal’s next wave of founders will come from, don’t look only at co-working spaces and pitch nights. 

Look at the classrooms.

Over the last year, Startup ki Pathsala™ (an initiative under TECHaarohan Bharat Foundation) has been quietly doing something that Kolkata and Bengal need more of: systematic, on-campus entrepreneurship enablement — taking students from “I have an idea” to “I can validate, pitch, build, and find support.”

And the most encouraging part? This isn’t restricted to one “elite” campus. The movement spans Kolkata, New Town, and North Bengal, with structured rounds, real mentors, and a growing partner ecosystem.

What Startup Ki Pathsala actually does 

Startup ki Pathsala runs hands-on entrepreneurship programming through platforms like:

• Startup Premier League – Kolkata Campus 2025 (multi-round idea discovery + pitching)
• Campus Innovators – Cohort 2026 (a longer, cohort-based journey for student founders)

The model is designed around real founder behavior: clarity on problem selection, buyer discovery, distribution, cashflow thinking, and pitch readiness — reinforced through workshops and juried campus rounds.

The campus footprint

What makes this initiative stand out is the breadth of institutional participation. Startup ki Pathsala and Startup Premier League have engaged across multiple Kolkata/Bengal campuses, including:

• St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata
• JIS University, Agarpara 
• University of Engineering & Management (UEM) / IEM, New Town
• Netaji Subhash Engineering College (NSEC) 
• NSHM Knowledge Campus
• Praxis Business School 
• Bengal Institute of Business Studies (BIBS) 
• Vedanta College Kolkata 
• Camellia Group of Institutions / Camellia Institute of Technology
• B.P. Poddar Institute of Management & Technology 
• Vedanta College, Kolkata
• Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College (JGEC) and more….

This spread matters because ecosystems don’t become “hotbeds” through one-off events. They become hotbeds when many campuses simultaneously start producing founders who speak the same language of validation, iteration, and execution.

Outcomes: what “success” looks like in these rounds

Across campus rounds, Startup ki Pathsala has consistently emphasized selection + structured next steps, not just participation certificates.

For example:

• Cohort selection formats where student teams pitch, get evaluated by external judges, and then a smaller set enters the next phase .
• Grand Finale shortlisting from Discovery Rounds across colleges 
• Early funding support / commitments for selected student groups in later rounds 

The goal is clear: convert student energy into fundable (or at least buildable) ventures.

The mentor bench

A strong youth entrepreneurship pipeline is only as good as the feedback loop around it. Startup ki Pathsala is building that loop by bringing in experienced practitioners, including:

• Ganesh Balakrishnan 
• Madhurjya Banerjee 
• Subhayu Bagchi 
• CA Ritika R Tantia 
• Prasanna Alagesan 
• Arun Kumar Mukherjee 

This matters because students don’t need more “startup quotes.” They need:

• what to build first
• who the buyer is
• how distribution works in India
• how to think about cash
• how to pitch with clarity

Why this is important for Kolkata & Bengal right now

Kolkata has always had talent. What’s often been missing is a predictable pathway: from campus ideas → to mentorship → to validation → to early credibility → to incubation/funding.

Startup ki Pathsala is attempting to build exactly that pathway — at scale — and crucially, with colleges as the starting line.

If this keeps expanding, Bengal’s next startup wave may not come from “a few founders who moved to Bangalore.”

It may come from students who never had to leave to start.