Navigating the AI-fuelled capital spectrum: ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 to chart the startup roadmap

“We have created a map of everything IT services companies do and view each line of business as an opportunity for a new AI-native company,” a Venture Capitalist (VC), told The Economic Times recently And he is not the only one; dozens of other VCs have echoed his sentiments in the past few months.

Even the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is eyeing artificial intelligence-led ventures. The Japanese investor SoftBank, for example, is eyeing buyout deals in India to push AI-led IT and BPO transformation.

Why is this happening? That too at a time when the funding scenario in India does not look all that great, given there has been a funding drop of almost 32 per cent this year, compared to last year?


What are the early bets? What about the growth levers? Is it about businesses that are AI native or the ones that have incorporated AI into their operations? Is the AI investment landscape in India at its inflection point? Questions galore, and the ecosystem is curious to get answers!

The fourth edition of the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025, on August 22 in Bengaluru, has all the answers and beyond. With a central theme of ‘From Research Labs to Revenue Models: The Billion-Dollar Blueprint for Scaling Indian AI Startups,’ the summit will have more than 50 speakers, deciphering the future trajectory of the startup ecosystem in India, across more than 12 power-packed sessions.

But before that, the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, DK Shivakumar, will deliver the inaugural address and unveil the Economic Times Top Soonicorns and Minicorns of Karnataka 2025|Priority Sectors report, created in collaboration with our Research Partner, Tracxn.

Keeping in view the importance of investments in the startup landscape, the Summit will have a special keynote address by Sameer Nath, Chief Investment Officer, PE & VC, 360 ONE Asset. He will share his perspective on identifying and nurturing high-potential ventures across the Indian startup ecosystem.

And it is only fitting that India’s largest soonicorn summit will also start with a session outlining this terrain.

Chasing hype or backing disruption?
In a hyper-charged atmosphere, where AI is at the centre stage of each conversation among founders and industry leaders, it becomes paramount to separate signals from the noise.

This first session, titled ‘AI Investments in India—Chasing Hype or Backing Real Disruption’, is set to answer some of the most pivotal questions in the present investment scenario.

At a time when every startup claims to be AI-driven, it is important to mark a line between AI-native businesses and the ones that have incorporated AI into their operations.

The panellists Rutvik Doshi, Managing Director and General Partner, Athera Venture Partners; Manav Garg, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Together Fund; Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures; and Sanjay Swamy, Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Prime Venture Partners; decrypt the questions and put forth solutions that will go a long way in strengthening the ecosystem.

A single 30-minute session, however, could not have tackled all the questions. Artificial Intelligence as a catalyst is something that needs to be deciphered into its entirety, as India has ambitions to compete in the global GenAI race.

In another enlightening session, titled ‘AI as a Catalyst: Early Bets & Growth Levers’, Harshjit Sethi, Managing Director, Peak XV Partners, and Ritesh Banglani, Partner, Stellaris Venture Partners, will walk us through the evolving funding and investment landscape in India as AI takes the pivotal position and becomes a driving force for the venture capitalists.

With the funding conundrum solved, the next significant step in strengthening businesses is to achieve sustained growth. How do we do that?

The billion-dollar question
Innovation is only one part of building a cutting-edge AI business. Global competitiveness and long-term value can only be achieved through sustained growth, which is not possible without the right scaling playbook.

Without this playbook, even the most promising ventures will face stagnation in a fiercely competitive global market. How do we tackle that?

The ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 has very thoughtfully curated this next session and handpicked the panellists to get definitive answers. This conversation, titled ‘The Billion Dollar AI Blueprint: Scaling Indian Startups in the Next Decade,’ will decode the scaling strategies that make all the difference.

The panellists include Abhishek Nag, Head of Early-Stage VC, 360 ONE; Shally Modi, Co-founder, Pratilipi; Manish Gupta, Senior Director, Google DeepMind; Raghunandan G, Founder, Zolve; and Arnab Kumar, Director of Business Development for India and South Asia, Uber.

Another really important aspect of scaling and achieving sustained growth is how effectively the businesses use their capital in an environment where capital has become costlier. When the capital is tight, every rupee needs to be stretched further, and allocation becomes all the more decisive.

Ambition and capital efficiency, in tandem
Weathering any funding environment is the key to creating businesses that can compete at the global level, in sync with India’s ambitions. Efficiency in capital management has become a new normal, keeping in view the volatility in supply chains, regulatory shifts, and the global capital flow. But at the same time, this efficiency cannot come at the cost of ambition, and a balance needs to be struck between tightening costs and still investing in the future.

ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 has carefully curated this session to chalk out the roadmap for capital efficiency. Titled ‘Capital Efficiency is the New Normal’, the panel will have Reeju Datta, Co-Founder, Cashfree Payments; Pawan Danwar, President and CFO, HCL Corporation; and Anurag Jain, Founder and COO, KredEx, in attendance.

Let us then decipher how Indian companies should position themselves to attract the right kind of capital in this new normal.

Talking of strategies and steps in strengthening the startup ecosystem in India, the next logical step is going public. However, the IPO landscape has dramatically evolved in the recent past, and we must not rely on the old playbooks. What do we do then?

The CFO playbook for cracking the IPO code
There are myths about IPO readiness that still persist in 2025. The market is judging companies differently, which brings us to building new disciplines while going public, and balancing ambitious growth targets with the conservative guidance that public investors demand.

How do we do it then? How do we take the prudent steps to fit into this new playbook? What are the rules? This masterclass session, titled ‘From Pre-IPO to Bell Ringing: The CFO Playbook to Navigating 2025’s High-Stakes Market,’ will have it decoded for you.

The ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 has handpicked CFOs who have navigated these waters and learned the lessons the hard way. Arpit Chug, CFO, Razorpay and Sohil Parekh, CFO, Ather Energy, will, however, simplify things for you.

Having walked the hard yard, the panellists will ensure that you have the efficiency to convince the public market that your unit economics make sense. They will instil the exceptional clarity one needs in doing so.

The ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 understands that while these lessons are important, the inspiration to go out and explore the entrepreneurial world is also of utmost necessity.

That is what brings us to the curated sessions about people who have done it on their own, people who disrupted the market and achieved what was previously thought to be impossible, for example, tackling the most fragmented and challenging markets: meat.

The finale Fireside Chat at the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 will host Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, Founders, Licious, who reimagined an entire category and built India’s first scaled meat brand. And they turned it into the country’s first D2C Unicorn success story. How inspiring is that? Listen to the story of this startup founded in 2015.

360 ONE is the Presenting Partner of the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025, with Shiv Nadar University as the Ecosystem Partner, Raymond as the Wardrobe Partner, Pi42 as the Gold Partner, Bank of India as the Banking Partner, Tracxn as the Knowledge Partner, and K-Tech Startup Karnataka as the State Partner. The Gifting Partners of the Summit are The Mind & Company, Plum, Clinikally, EM5, and True Elements.