Startups grow faster when founders are plugged into the right conversations. That’s what eChai makes happen — connecting founders across cities, stages, and markets.
Every week, across different cities, founders come together — to share, test ideas, and move forward with a little more clarity than before.
eChai started in 2009 with founders in Ahmedabad meeting over chai. People sitting together, talking about what they were building, helping each other figure things out. That was the whole idea. Since then, eChai has grown into something much larger, but the spirit of that first gathering has never changed.
Today, eChai Ventures is a global startup network. Every week, across 25+ cities in India, the US, Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East, founders come together. Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, San Francisco, London, Singapore, Dubai, New York, Toronto, Pune, Hyderabad, Surat, Jaipur, Mumbai, Boston. The list keeps growing. In some cities, eChai meets every Saturday at a co-working space. In others, it is a monthly founder dinner. In others, it is a demo day where early-stage startups present to peers and investors. The format looks different everywhere, but the thing that happens is the same.
So you walk into an eChai meetup and there is a startup panel going on. Founders are talking about what worked and what did not. Someone in the audience asks a question and the conversation goes somewhere nobody expected. After the panel, people stick around. Two founders realize they are solving similar problems in different cities. Someone mentions a name that turns into an introduction that turns into a partnership. This happens every week, in city after city.
Then there are demo days where early-stage startups get up and share what they are building. Pitch nights. Sector meetups around SaaS, FinTech, D2C, ClimateTech, HealthTech. CoRise, which is the format for women entrepreneurs. Startup cricket leagues and pickleball leagues, because founders who play together end up building together. Founder dinners where people talk about the stuff they would not say on a panel.
eChai tells stories too. The Startup Spotlight, where founders talk about what they are building and why. The First Welcome in Silicon Valley, documenting the moment Indian founders first step into the Bay Area ecosystem. The First Hire, the story behind every startup's earliest team member. These are the records of a community that pays attention to its own people.
eChai Ventures has four parts today. The first is eChai itself. The community, the events, the content, the city chapters. The place where it all starts.
Hummingbird Talent helps startups and growth-stage companies hire. Engineering, product, operations, leadership. When you have spent years meeting founders, operators, and builders across 25+ cities, you end up knowing who is good and who is available. That is what Hummingbird runs on.
Point10 Consulting is strategy and advisory. Growth, go-to-market, partnerships, business model decisions. When you have been part of thousands of founder conversations across sectors and stages, you can sit with a founder and actually be useful on the questions that matter to them.
eChai Brands works with select companies as their Growth Partner. Co-working spaces, developer tools, cloud platforms, fintech products, consumer brands and many more. Together they host curated events, founder-led conversations, and ongoing engagement across cities and sectors. Brands that serve the startup ecosystem work with eChai to reach the founders they want to be useful to.
eChai, Hummingbird Talent, Point10 Consulting, and Brands. Each one does its own thing, but they all come from the same place. Seventeen years of showing up, week after week, city after city, and getting to know the people who are building things. Startups grow through people, through momentum, and through being around the right folks at the right time. That is what eChai Ventures makes happen.