I am not new to Kashmir.
Over the years, I have come here for treks, for startup events, and to meet founders and ecosystem builders. Now with founders I have invested in, this space feels more familiar for me. Every visit also leaves me with a different memory. Sometimes it is he landscape, the absolute beautiful terrains, sometimes the conversations, and the reminder that places, much like people, are always evolving beneath the stories we choose to tell about them.
So when the invitation arrived for the Startup Summit, Mountains to Momentum, saying yes was easy. I had an excuse to meet founders I had invested in, and engage deeper with the ecosystem.
What surprised me, pleasantly, was the people who were at the event. Some of the most active venture funds in the country had travelled to Srinagar. Investors who spend their time evaluating opportunities across Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and increasingly international markets had chosen to spend two days here. That, in itself, felt meaningful. Capital rarely moves first. Curiosity does. Investors showing up is often the earliest sign that an ecosystem is beginning to enter the national conversation.
If you have spent time around emerging startup ecosystems, and Tier 2 India, you recognise a familiar energy almost immediately. Founders are hungry, not simply for funding but for conversation. They want someone to challenge their thinking, introduce them to customers, and just have deeper conversations around venture building. Equally encouraging was seeing government officials listening with genuine intent. In younger ecosystems, that willingness to listen often matters more than having all the answers.
The highlight was the small roundtable that had been organised with the Chief Minister. Everyone was given an opportunity to share inputs around what could help Kashmir move forward aggressively. With the CM taking notes, tt felt less like a formal meeting and more like a working session.
I found myself repeating something I have now said in several states across India.
If you want to build a startup ecosystem, activate investors and mentors first. We emphasise a lot of founders, but for complete ecosystems to mature, we need to ensure local support commits.
It is tempting to begin with incubators, accelerators, grants and infrastructure because those are visible and measurable. They make for good announcements. But the strongest startup ecosystems are built when the local businesses engage with the entrepreneurs. Local business owners understand regulations, challenges and the nuance of building. If we can educate and enable them, founders will have intelligence that does not need to be relearnt.
My observation of the last decade is that wvery successful ecosystem has an invisible layer that nobody notices while it is being built. It is the founder who makes an introduction without expecting anything in return. It is the angel investor who writes the first cheque and stays involved long enough to write the second. It is the entrepreneur who speaks openly about failure so that someone else can avoid making the same mistakes. None of these appear in policy documents, yet together they become the social capital on which every thriving ecosystem eventually rests.
That thought returned later in the day while I was moderating a panel with some of the country’s leading investors.
What struck me was not where the panel disagreed, but where they converged without even trying.
The conversation drifted across sectors, valuation cycles, talent, policy and capital, yet everyone kept returning to the same conclusion. Jammu and Kashmir is not short on ideas. The founders are solving meaningful problems. Consumer brands emerging from the region have stories that feel authentic rather than manufactured, built around provenance, craftsmanship and ingredients that cannot easily be replicated elsewhere. Nobody suggested that the diligence bar should somehow be lower because a company happened to be headquartered in Srinagar instead of Bangalore. Good businesses still need strong teams, disciplined execution and large enough markets. Geography does not change those fundamentals.
What is still being built is everything that sits around the founder.
Bangalore did not become India’s startup capital because capital suddenly arrived one morning. It spent nearly two decades quietly building relationships that later became institutions. The first founders became mentors. The first exits became angel investors. Successful entrepreneurs backed the next generation, who in turn repeated the cycle. Over time, an ecosystem developed its own memory.
That memory cannot be imported. Every region has to create it for itself.
These moments rarely make headlines, but they are often the real foundations of an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
It also made me wonder whether every ecosystem should even try to copy Bangalore.
Perhaps the investment models that worked elsewhere may not survive the journey here unchanged. Perhaps this region needs patient capital that measures returns over longer cycles. Perhaps government has a greater role in sharing early risk, much like Singapore did while nurturing its innovation ecosystem decades ago. Every successful ecosystem eventually develops its own personality, shaped as much by its history and geography as by its founders.
Now, for the exciting part of the trip - I was invited to plant a tree. Maybe go back in 5 years and see the footprint we left.
We took a shikara across Dal Lake to Sona Lank, one of the two famous islands located in the iconic Dal Lake, Srinagar, renowned for its lush greenery, peaceful surroundings, and stunning views of the Zabarwan Mountains. Visiting the island by shikara is a truly memorable experience, offering a tranquil escape where the beauty of Kashmir can be appreciated in its purest form. Sona Lank perfectly reflects the natural charm and timeless heritage that make Dal Lake the “Jewel of Kashmir.”
The Son Lank (the Golden Island) is an artificial island in the Dal Lake. It was built by the Mughals, apparently to be one up on the Kashmiri King Zain-ul-Abidin, who had originally built the island. It is roughly 35m² and, in the mid-19th century, used to host a jail, the ruins of which might still be seen.
“In the middle of the Bod Dal (Large Dal), opposite to Hazratbal, Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin had built an island, Sona Lank, and a palace with three storeys on it, but it cracked in an earthquake. Then, the Mughal kings turned it into a pleasant scenery. [Afghan governor] Amir Khan made changes in it and caused the water to be drawn up the Chinar with the help of a water-wheel and built a fountain in the courtyard of the building. He spent his time enjoying it. Today the building is desolate.” (Hassan, mid-19th century).
We were there with Curve Electric, a Srinagar-based startup building electric mobility solutions for the region. On paper, the business sounds straightforward: electric bicycles, campus mobility and shared transport. In reality, what they are solving is a problem that only becomes obvious when you understand the city itself. Srinagar is a place of lakes, hills and narrow roads, and mobility looks very different here from how it does in Delhi or Bangalore.
The company has already crossed more than a hundred thousand rides, covered well over a million kilometres and prevented hundreds of tonnes of carbon emissions. It has appeared on Shark Tank, been featured by Forbes, and now works with organisations including IIT Bombay and Hyderabad Metro.
Great startups often begin by solving deeply local problems. They understand one geography so well that, almost by accident, they discover a solution that travels. We often assume that building globally means thinking globally from day one. More often than not, enduring companies begin by understanding one community exceptionally well. Definition of scale is to build for the smallest unit, and then build systems and process to replicate that unit.
Walking through the startup booths reinforced that feeling.
A ninth-grade student confidently explained a nanotechnology project with the ease of someone discussing yesterday’s homework. Founders were building businesses around sustainability, luxury apparel, food products and agricultural innovation. There were walnut-based consumer products, saffron businesses and, to my surprise, a walnut chai that I enjoyed far more than I expected to.
Innovation never arrives in one uniform.
Sometimes it wears the language of artificial intelligence and deep technology. Sometimes it wears the language of craftsmanship, agriculture or clean mobility. The common thread is not the sector. It is the willingness to ask whether something familiar can be done differently.
During his address, the Chief Minister made an observation that stayed with me long after the summit ended.
Mountains to Momentum can be understood in two very different ways.
You can see mountains as obstacles standing in the way of momentum.
Or you can see momentum as the force powerful enough to move mountains.
The phrase means something different depending on which side of the story you choose to stand.
As I thought about it later, I realised that Kashmir has always been shaped by mountains, but it has never been defined by them. For centuries, traders crossed these passes carrying ideas, crafts and commerce between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Geography influenced the journey, but it never determined the destination.
Startup ecosystems are not very different.
Every region inherits a different history. Every founder starts with different constraints. Some have access to capital. Others have access to talent. Some have policy support. Others rely almost entirely on community. Yet over time, the ecosystems that endure are rarely the ones with the fewest obstacles. They are the ones where enough people decide to build despite them.
I return from these visits with the same quiet conviction every single time.
The next generation is not waiting for permission to build differently. They are already changing how they work, what they choose to build, how they consume and how they imagine the future.
Kashmir is no exception.
It always leave me with the feeling that I want to share the story, the warmth and absolute beauty of a region, that has stood so conflicted over time. Hopefully the startup ecosystem will have the power to cross that mountain sooner.
Rooting for my founder friends in Kashmir. I hope as investors, you are inspired to be more open to them, and supporting them in their journey.
Happy to see such an enthusiasm.