Backed By Alumni - NITW

A gathering of NIT Warangal entrepreneurs focused on building stronger connections, mentorship, and long-term support within the alumni founder community.

March 6, 2026 · 6:00 PM

Shifu Ventures, HSR Layout

24 attendees

Hosted by

Sri Maneru · Shifu Ventures

What Stood Out

The parts worth remembering.

ALUMNI NETWORK

Strengthening connections between NITW founders and alumni to improve discoverability.

FUNDING FRAMEWORK

Expanding the existing ₹50L student project fund through alumni-backed capital.

MARKET ACCESS

Leveraging the alumni network for customer introductions and industry partnerships.

LEARNING FROM FAILURES

A “stepping stone” approach to analyzing setbacks and sharing founder lessons.

Speakers

Who took the stage.

Dr. V.A. Sastry

Pioneering IT Veteran, ReIQ, MUSA

One of the earliest non-promoter board members of Infosys. Co-founder of RelQ and currently leading MUSA Software Engineering. Has mentored generations of entrepreneurs.

Sathish Visanagiri

Founder & CEO, Reckonsys

An exceptional teacher to many entrepreneurs. One of the first people who believed in Sri and wrote the first cheque for Almabase. Amazing mentor for founders on technical feasibility and MVP.

Pavan Thatha

Founder & CEO, ShieldSquare

Built ShieldSquare, a global leader in bot mitigation, and led its acquisition by Radware. IIT Bombay gold medalist and long-time mentor to many NITW founders.

In the Room

The people who showed up.

24 Attendees

Amaresh Marripudi

Product at Swiggy

Product professional at Swiggy working across AI, machine learning, and data-driven experimentation. Focused on building scalable product systems and data platforms.

Aniruddha Khanwilkar

Co-Founder at Curious Men Films

Co-Founder of Curious Men Films, a Shifu Ventures portfolio company. Directing 'Against All Odds' documentary for Shifu Foundation.

Anupam Singh

Co-Founder & CEO at AapKaPainter

Disrupting the home painting and renovation industry with technology-driven solutions. Raised $5M+ from Pidilite Ventures and others.

Divya Banda

Founder at CloneMyTrips

Founder of CloneMyTrips — an AI-powered travel planning platform that turns social media inspiration into bookable trips.

Ish Jindal

Co-Founder & CEO at Tars

Building conversational AI chatbots that automate customer interactions for enterprises. 18,500+ bot creators on the platform.

Manasij Ganguli

Co-Founder & CEO at ZapScale

2x SaaS founder — exited ThreadSol, now building ZapScale. TEDx speaker and author of 'The Economy Class Founder'.

Manish Mishra

Co-Founder at Pazcare

Co-founder at Pazcare, building modern insurance and benefits infrastructure for employers. Focused on simplifying employee healthcare, insurance, and financial wellbeing for growing companies.

Manu Menon

Founder at Skillster

After a decade shaping strategies globally across a dozen countries, now building Skillster. EDHEC Business School scholar with distinction (top 1%).

Manu Singh

Operations Consultant at Shifu Foundation

Seasoned non-profit and operations professional. Brings extensive experience scaling social impact programs, now helping build Shifu Foundation.

Mausmi Ambastha

Executive Director at Shifu Foundation

2x founder — co-built and exited ThreadSol (acquired 2019), now building ZapScale, a B2B SaaS Customer Success platform.

Medha Sravani

Strategic Video Consultant

Works with businesses to grow through strategic video content and storytelling. Previously at Amazon, with an MBA from IIM Bangalore.

Navneet Gupta

Founder & CTO

Founder of Intuition Intelligence. Currently at DocuSign, Bengaluru. 15+ years building and scaling technology products.

Piyush Joshi

Investment Team at BlueHill VC

Part of BlueHill VC's investment team, a SEBI-registered fund focused on deep-tech and early-stage startups. Previously at Tracxn and Startup India.

Prateek Sethi

Co-Founder & COO at Shifu Ventures

Started entrepreneuring at 17. Co-building Shifu Ventures with Sri — a B2B SaaS venture studio backing early-stage founders.

Rakesh Sarma

Co-Founder at Quantacus

AI-powered marketing feed optimization. Previously Director of Decision Science at Vedantu and Data Scientist at Flipkart.

Ritesh Varma

Co-Founder at Curious Men Films

Co-Founder of Curious Men Films, a Shifu Ventures portfolio company. Directing 'Against All Odds' documentary for Shifu Foundation.

Rohit Agarwal

Lead CSM at Clari

Customer Success leader at Clari. Previously at Clari Copilot (Wingman) and Almabase. 6+ years driving adoption and growth in enterprise B2B SaaS.

Saurabh

Founder at Seerum AI

Previously built and exited PlaySphere.ai (acquired by a Dubai-based GPU infra company). Now building the intelligence layer for prediction markets.

Sesha Phani

Founder at Invest Street

Founder of Invest Street (SEBI-registered investment adviser). Ex-Goldman Sachs VP, Derivatives Research. 10+ years developing investment strategies.

Sohit Kumar

Engineering Leader at Zamp

Engineering Leader at Zamp. Previously Head of Engineering at Toplyne, and stints at Goldman Sachs and Oracle. A decade building data platforms and scalable systems.

Som

Founder at Disha AI

Building Disha AI, an AI-powered voice automation platform helping small and medium businesses engage with sales leads instantly.

Sri Maneru

Co-Founder & CEO at Shifu Ventures

Spent the last decade building Almabase (B2B SaaS). Now building Shifu Ventures, a venture firm focused on supporting early-stage founders.

Sridhar Sirugudi

Pravega Ventures

IIM Calcutta alum and CFA. Investing in early-stage startups at Pravega Ventures, Bengaluru.

Yagnasri Alla

Engineering Leader at Groww

Seasoned Engineering Leader currently at Groww, one of India's leading investment platforms.

Gallery

From the evening.