Announcements

SPJIMR WISE Tech has been named ‘Accelerator of the Year’ at the Entrepreneur India Awards 2026. The innovation studio brings together startup discovery, venture building and experiential learning through an integrated entrepreneurship model.

Siddharth Jain, Researcher and Lead, Programme Marketing, WISE Tech, SPJIMR, received the award from Preetima Bhardwaj, CEO, Entrepreneur India & APAC, and Charu Pragya (Singh), national TV spokesperson and media panellist, on 5 October at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. The award was presented as part of Entrepreneur 2026, the 16th edition of Entrepreneur India’s flagship summit.

Manoj Mohan, Executive Director, WISE Tech, SPJIMR, said: “Winning the Accelerator of the Year award is meaningful recognition of what we are building. This recognition belongs equally to the founders, mentors, investors, partners, students and the entire WISE Tech team who make this ecosystem possible.”

“WISE Tech is more than an accelerator. Our India Pitchathon is one of India’s widest startup discovery networks, and this award recognises the role our Series A accelerator plays in helping promising ventures become stronger and more investment-ready,” he added. “Our next chapter is an early-stage fund and a postgraduate programme in startup management, building WISE Tech into a uniquely integrated ecosystem for visibility, nurturing, talent and capital.”

An integrated model for entrepreneurship

WISE Tech began in 2023 with a simple but consequential question: what happens when startup discovery, venture building and experiential learning are designed as one connected system rather than as separate activities?

The answer is a model that connects founders, students, mentors, investors and corporate partners. The innovation studio discovers founders through its national India Pitchathon, supports selected ventures through its accelerator, and brings SPJIMR’s PGDM participants into these ventures to work on live business challenges to add further value to the startups.

The India Pitchathon is the entry point. Across its seasons, it has received more than 2,300 applications from founders across 28 Indian states, with more than half coming from Tier II and Tier III cities. By creating a national discovery platform, WISE Tech widens access to investors, mentors and institutional networks for founders beyond India’s largest metros.

The model also brings entrepreneurship into the learning experience. More than 290 SPJIMR PGDM participants have worked directly with founders on live business challenges, gaining first-hand exposure to the decisions, trade-offs and constraints that shape early-stage businesses. At the same time, founders gain additional capacity and fresh perspectives from student teams.

Together, these elements create a two-way learning and growth ecosystem: helping founders build stronger ventures while giving students the opportunity to learn entrepreneurship by working on real problems.

From discovery to investment readiness

WISE Tech has supported over 50 startups through its award-winning Series A accelerator programme. Together, these startups have raised more than US$9 million in institutional funding.

The Series A accelerator represents a later stage of this journey, helping promising ventures strengthen their businesses and become more investment-ready. It is this approach to venture support, connecting discovery with structured acceleration, that the Entrepreneur India Awards recognised.

An ecosystem built on partnership

The award also reflects the wider network that makes the WISE Tech model possible. Founders, investors, corporates, mentors, students and ecosystem partners each contribute to an environment in which ventures can discover opportunities, build capabilities and access capital.

For WISE Tech, the recognition is therefore not only for the accelerator, but also the ecosystem around it.

The next phase will add two new components: an early-stage fund and a postgraduate programme in startup management. Together with the India Pitchathon and the Series A accelerator, these initiatives will extend WISE Tech’s role across four connected areas: visibility, nurturing, talent and capital.

The ambition is to build an entrepreneurship ecosystem that helps promising ventures move from discovery to growth, while creating meaningful opportunities for students to learn by engaging with the realities of entrepreneurship.