PVR Inox CEO, AngelBay cofounder among 55 leaders to mentor startups at India’s first venture school

More than 55 investors, founders, senior executives, and academics will mentor and co-build startups as part of VenturEdu's flagship 14-month venture-building programme.

The mentor group includes Pramod Arora, chief executive officer of PVR Inox; Sanjay Guha, former president of Coca-Cola UK and Ireland; AngelBay co-founder Sorabh Agarwal; OakNorth India co-head Ashish Nayyar; and Suraj Jain of Expedia, alongside executives from technology, consumer, financial services, and venture capital firms.

“Mentorship is often the difference between ideas that stall and companies that scale,” said Kulmani Rana, founder of VenturEdu. “The leaders joining us have built and scaled businesses themselves. They understand capital discipline, leadership under pressure and the realities of growth.”


VenturEdu is India’s first residential venture school combining structured coursework, hands-on venture building, and access to early-stage capital. The programme targets first-time founders and early-career professionals who have business ideas but limited exposure to execution, mentorship, or funding.

Unlike traditional incubators and classroom-led entrepreneurship courses, the school follows a co-building model in which mentors are expected to work closely with founders across the venture lifecycle, including idea validation, product-market fit, team formation, go-to-market strategy, and fundraising.

Mentors will take part in candidate selection, curriculum inputs, venture reviews, execution guidance, and investment discussions during the programme. Several of the mentors are also investors in Fibonacci X, the holding company of VenturEdu, and have previously backed startups through its accelerator platform.

“Our focus was on bringing together operators and investors who have personally scaled businesses, built leadership teams, and deployed capital,” Rana said. “That combination is still rare in most entrepreneurship programmes, particularly at the idea stage.”

VenturEdu said it will track success through venture outcomes, including the number of startups achieving early revenues and securing external funding within six to 12 months, and longer-term progress to Series A and beyond. Alumni will continue to receive access to the mentor network, capital ecosystem, and execution infrastructure even after completing the programme.

Participants will also be introduced to venture capital firms, while a dedicated accelerator fund may invest in the top 30% of each cohort.