Set your clocks and clear your calendar because it's almost Basecamp time! @basecampblr is a one-of-a-kind tech fest bringing together frontier labs, global brands, homegrown startups, and local communities to celebrate the builders who make Bengaluru so special. This week has 80+ events designed to knock an idea loose and help you find your people. 🚀 You can build and ship your most ambitious idea in working sessions with frontier labs 💡 You can learn from experts about AI in defence and law, physical AI, narrative building, and more 🎉 You can mingle with your peers over a meme quiz, board games, breakfast with strangers, or a round of karaoke 💪🏻 You can recharge with a game of cricket, pickleball, golf, or a workout session That’s why we call this the biggest anti-conference India has ever seen! Whether you’re a successful founder or building for the first time, an operator with fifteen years behind you or three months into your first job, an engineer or a designer or a writer, there's a room for you! Or probably 10. This is a festival of global ambition and possibility, and the whole city is the arena. Ambition grows in company. Come find yours at Basecamp. basecampblr.com/

When Sajid came back to the Bay Area in 2024, he asked his old hotel friends what had changed since the pandemic. Pretty much nothing. Labor was still expensive, overnight shifts were impossible to staff, and revenue was still going to voicemail. So he built an AI agent for a couple of properties as a favor. Reviews went up at both within 90 days. That became Dextr AI, and today we're announcing their $6.7M seed, led by @ElevCap with our friends at @FoundationCap. At a lot of hotels nobody's at the front desk after hours, and most of the time nobody's there at all. The call rings out, the guest books on an OTA, and the hotel pays a 40% tax on its own traffic. Dextr answers that call. One hotel now books $100-300K a month through Daisy, their voice agent. What stuck with me was owners telling us Dextr changed their life. It's an AI workforce running alongside their team, from reservations to housekeeping, and the owner runs it all over text. Hundreds of properties, zero churn, before raising a dollar. The agents do the work, so they compete for a hotel's labor budget, not its software budget. Hospitality is one of the clearest cases of that I've seen. Welcome to the family, Sajid and Scott. Now please fix my late check-ins. @ElevCap @FoundationCap @mukularora @poorvivijay Dhruv Sanskar Prerna #VerticalAI #AIagents #HotelTech

Congratulations to Dextr AI on raising $6.7M in the seed round! Hospitality is, at its core, a business of human connection. But behind every warm welcome is a mountain of repetitive work, from managing bookings and answering routine queries to coordinating between vendors and keeping operations running smoothly. Dextr AI is building a specialised AI workforce to take on this busywork. Its forward-deployed team of AI strategists and engineers works directly with hospitality operators to identify high-impact opportunities and build bespoke agents for use cases spanning guest bookings, concierge services, workflow automation, and more. By taking care of the repetitive tasks, Dextr gives hospitality teams more time to focus on the moments that make a guest’s experience memorable. We’re delighted to back Sajid Shariff and Scott Arnold as they aim to automate the work around hospitality while keeping the human touch intact. Read our investment memo to learn what excites us about Dextr AI: elevationcapital.com/perspec… @kpowerinfinity | Dhruv Jain

In a stirring speech at Basecamp Dialogues, @PawanKChandana walked us through his almost decade-long journey of building @SkyrootA. Pawan built a category-defining space tech company at a time when India lacked the policy, capital, and talent needed to build one. He emphasized the beauty of building within constraints and candidly shared how, even with all the odds stacked against them, his team continued to build on their audacious idea and went on to launch the country’s first-ever privately developed orbital rocket. His story is proof of what founders can achieve when pushing against the currents. @basecampblr

We spoke to more than 30 CTOs across India’s startup ecosystem to understand how AI is playing out within the engineering function. Our report, 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀, maps how tech leaders are doubling down on AI to create business leverage, what it costs, and how it impacts the team structure. Some key takeaways from our research: → The engineer’s role is moving closer to business outcomes. It’s expanding beyond producing code to framing ambiguous business problems, directing AI towards useful solutions, and taking ownership of the value delivered. → The hiring bar is changing with this redefined role. Product thinking, system design, and judgment are becoming increasingly important signals for CTOs evaluating engineering talent. The question is no longer just whether someone can build, but whether they have the aptitude to gauge what’s worth building and how to assess the result. → Access to AI tools is only the starting point. The teams getting the most out of AI are building the systems around it: clear codebase boundaries, contextual documentation, room for experimentation, and review practices that protect quality. Our report also explores where engineering leaders are directing AI spend, how they are measuring ROI, and what it takes to run agents reliably in production. Read the full report here: stateofai-engineering.elevat… @bansalvartika | Harsh Agarawal

We wrapped the tenth edition of Elevation Connect, our signature investor-founder connect platform, with 500+ curated meetings across two editions in 2026. Elevation Connect 2026 began with a virtual edition in March and culminated in an in-person edition in Bengaluru this September. Across both editions, we facilitated 500+ meaningful interactions between 35 of our portfolio companies and a diverse lineup of 100+ domestic and global investors across the US, SEA, UK and Middle East. A Sundowner in Bengaluru brought together our portfolio founders, investors, and the Elevation team for an evening of warm conversations and new connections, a fitting close to our tenth edition. The energy and engagement we witnessed, both virtually and in person, reaffirm our belief in the quality of founders we back and the relationships we continue to build around them. We're excited about the connections made and the possibilities ahead. Here's to the founders building the next generation of category-defining companies.

We hosted a welcome mixer with Inkle and Corgi for the Indian founders joining YC's Fall 2026 batch. The conversation ranged from the changing shape of consumer plays to vertical AI narrowing into specific niches. But hardware seemed to be the flavor of the season with teams building for a diverse range of use cases, from drones and semiconductors to personal devices. A huge thanks to @Revanth279, Founder of Prototyping.io (YC P26), for sharing notes on how to get the most out of these three months. We're excited to see this group take the next step in their journeys with YC. @kpowerinfinity | Dhruv Jain | Sanskar Jain

The latest episode of our Defending India series takes on a question that every founder in this space is trying to answer: What does it actually take for a startup to sell to India's military forces? To find out, @AshrayIyengar sat down with Lt Gen Dr Anil Kapoor AVSM, VSM (Retired), and Smit Shah, president of the Drone Federation of India. At its core, the conversation emphasizes the importance of building trust to go from a prototype to a field-deployable system. This episode shares tactical advice on how startups can engage with soldiers, procurement directorates, and decision-makers. Watch the full episode here: piped.video/watch?v=eUEzyMfv…

At Basecamp Dialogues, @pratykumar, founder of Sarvam, made the case for why Indian founders should dream at the global scale and build for the world from day one. He walked through @SarvamAI's journey of building frontier AI models, from the ground up to their launch in February 2026. That trajectory isn't new for India, and Pratyush believes the next decade of AI in India could look a lot like the last decade of digital payments. Ten years ago, India wasn't in the global top 10 for digital payments. Today, we process roughly 60% of the world's digital transactions. That leap happened because India’s builders picked the hardest version of the problem and solved it for the world. He believes the frontier has room for more than one country to lead, and Indian founders are already showing up to claim their share. @basecampblr

Congratulations to the Comet team on their ₹100 crore Series B fundraise! In a category shaped by global brands, Comet has carved out its own identity in India's sneaker culture. Its focus on imaginative design as a form of self-expression, paired with strong product quality and emphasis on community building, has made it one of the country's most loved sneaker brands. We're proud to continue backing Utkarsh and Dishant as they expand Comet's retail footprint and bring new models to change the footwear game in India. @chiragchadha9 | @vaibhav9339

What does it take for a Fortune 500 company to trust an infrastructure platform with its production traffic? In our latest Day One episode, Rohit Agarwal and Ayush Garg from @PortkeyAI share that this trust comes down to two core metrics: latency and uptime. Once a dev tool becomes a hop in the production traffic, every millisecond of latency and every second of downtime becomes a tax paid by the product built on top of it. That's why latency and uptime drive every decision at Portkey. Catch our full conversation to hear the story of how Rohit and Ayush built one of the defining infrastructure companies of the AI era piped.video/watch?v=TBo-TgA2…

At Basecamp Dialogues, @Nithin0dha sat down with Mridul Arora to speak candidly about his journey of building one of India's most defining companies and how it has moulded his view on ambition. Nithin believes ambition is shaped by circumstance more than anything innate. Building @zerodha entirely on savings meant every call on how hard to push was theirs to make. And when Zerodha had grown beyond the money question by 2021, that same appetite drove him to start @Rainmatterin. @Nithin0dha | @dineshpaii | @basecampblr

Speaking at Basecamp Dialogues, @mukularora made the case that Indian founders today have the biggest opportunity to build the foundational technology the country has spent decades importing. Talent density has always been India's strength, but more of that talent is choosing to build at home, and founders are willing to take bigger risks than before. And for the first time, the government is partnering closely with startups by providing capital, offering infrastructure support, and actively buying from them. @basecampblr

7 days, 100 events, and 9000+ attendees later, that's a wrap on Basecamp. We've been called the Navratri for founders, a college fest for builders, and a week-long party for everyone. But through the rooms we created with our incredible partners, we believe we are distinctly Bengaluru. Where else will you draw in such passion and energy to build, learn, mingle, celebrate, and inspire each other as one ecosystem? To everyone in the city who participated, thank you for making @basecampblr brighter. And to everyone who travelled to make it to Bengaluru for Basecamp week, we were privileged to host you in our incredible city. Thank you for all the love, and see you at the next one!

Reporting live from the Push to Prod Hackathon happening right now! 150 builders are bringing their most audacious ideas to life with our incredible mentors in the room. In partnership with @AnthropicAI, @mesaschool_, @devfolio!

And it begins! Founders vs VCs friendly! Founders’ Captain: Bhavin Patel of @LenDenClub Funders’ Captain: Vishap Rana of @ElevCap 🔥🚀 @BhavikKoladiya @RuchitAgarwal1 @cars24india @PayGlocalHQ @LenDenClub @mukularora @bansalvartika @amruthajalihal @teamsignzy @ankitratan @yuyudhan

If we had to put our intention and philosophy behind Basecamp into one line, it would be this: Ambition grows in company. When one team puts a rocket in orbit, several others believe that the sky is reachable. Last night, we brought that to life with over 400 founders, operators, researchers and investors in one room at @basecampblr Dialogues. This was a night to celebrate Bengaluru's builder spirit, its stubborn belief that the hardest thing is worth building anyway. That belief set the tempo, and the evening was brimming with inspiration and excitement all through. We heard the most inspiring and unfiltered stories from audacious founders like @Nithin0dha, @viditaatrey, @PawanKChandana, and @pratykumar on how they’re pushing the frontier in their own industries, from democratised commerce and financial markets to foundational technology and space tech. And we’re so grateful to @nikiparmar09 for taking all of us to the edge of the frontier itself, with a clear-eyed read on where the technology is headed. At its heart, Basecamp is our tribute to the incredible builders writing the next chapter of India's story. And this was just night one of seven! There's a whole week of the same energy and excitement ahead of us. Come find your room across 100+ of those at Basecamp that our partners have put together with our resident team, @bansalvartika and @amruthajalihal basecampblr.com/events

Two days to Basecamp, 90+ events on the calendar. Which means the hardest decision you make this week is what to skip. 👀 Here are nine we would absolutely not want to skip 🧵