Soham Mehta

At Nimaya Foundation, we are excited to announce our partnership with IndiaAI to democratize access to high-quality exposure in Generative AI, with a deliberate focus on training young women in rural India. This initiative marks a historic moment where success and growth can be achieved by applying innate creativity to co-create with AI, independent of one's background. Vaishnavi Singh Malavika Nair Nilendu Prabhakar Muskaan Vats Raj Anam Navya Naveli Nanda Ashvini Chauhan

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When you mentor founders, you are not just helping build companies. You are influencing the kind of leaders the next decade will produce. Over the years, I have worked with student founders across fourteen universities, from Southern California to India. The ideas were different. The environments were different. The challenges were different. Yet one pattern showed up again and again. Most early founders do not lack funding advice. They lack founder formation. Enduring companies are not built by decks, frameworks, or spreadsheets alone. They are built by people with the ability to think clearly under pressure, question assumptions, and stay anchored to their values when shortcuts are tempting. Curiosity is not just interest. It is the discipline to ask better questions, even when the answers are uncomfortable. Resilience is not optimism. It is the willingness to rebuild when the first plan fails, because it almost always does. Ethics is not a talking point. It is the quiet structure that holds trust together long after momentum fades. I have watched twenty-one-year-old founders stay up late not to refine a pitch, but to make their product more honest. Those moments matter. They show what mentorship truly shapes. Not direction, but judgment. Not outcomes, but decision-making. We often talk about building the next generation of startups. What we need just as urgently is the next generation of founders. Leaders who are thoughtful, steady in their purpose, and disciplined enough to outlast noise, hype, and trends. That is the real multiplier in any ecosystem. What qualities do you believe will define strong leadership in the decade ahead? #mentorship #students #founders

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We spent a lot of last week reporting on OpenAI and Google, but the actual biggest story in Edtech was undoubtably the wildly successful IPO of Indian Edtech PW (PhysicsWallah). PhysicsWallah, which offers test preparation and tutoring primarily for standardized exams, launched at 40% over IPO price, a strong signal for Edtech in general and Indian Edtech in particular- even though the stock price has corrected downward through the week. https://lnkd.in/esCiS8A2

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Meet the woman who ignored the ₹40,000Cr B2C EdTech hype to build a billion-dollar empire inside the 'boring' walls of 8,500 local schools While the rest of the EdTech world was burning millions on celebrity branding and "B2C tablets," Smita Deorah (Co-founder & Co-CEO, LEAD Group) chose the institutional path of school infrastructure. By early 2026, her "School-in-a-Box" model has reached 4 million students, proving that the most stable way to win in India is to fix the classroom, not bypass it. The "Foundry" Logic Behind the 2026 Comeback: 1) In FY25, LEAD achieved a landmark Operating EBITDA Breakeven, narrowing net losses by 69.5% to just ₹42.8Cr. This wasn't accidental; it was the result of reducing core expenses by 24% and focusing on scale efficiencies, teaching us that true profitability is often a byproduct of operational discipline rather than just aggressive top-line growth 📈 2) LEAD is currently the only major player with 100% Net Revenue Retention among its 8,500+ schools. By integrating everything from the teacher’s ERP to the student’s curriculum, Smita created a "Switching Cost" so high that schools treat LEAD as an essential utility, demonstrating that being indispensable to a client's daily workflow is the ultimate protection against a funding winter 🛠️ 3) While competitors sold digital "add-ons," Smita built ELGA (English Language and General Awareness), a proprietary skill-level program that solved the actual English-barrier bottleneck in Tier 3/4 cities. By owning the curriculum instead of just the delivery app, they’ve ensured their product’s value is tied to measurable learning outcomes, a reminder that in 2026, content is no longer king - context and outcomes are 🏆 4) With a current ARR of ₹415 Crore (a 30% YoY jump), Smita is targeting an FY28 IPO and an expansion to 10,000 schools by the end of this year. By focusing on "Value Retention" - selling deeper tech layers to existing partners, she’s scaling the business on the back of trust rather than high-CAC marketing, proving that the cheapest way to grow is to maximise the life-time value of your existing base 💸 The ➡️ Insight: Smita Deorah didn't build a product that competes with the school; she built a "superpower" that makes the school survive. In a market like India🇮🇳, the winners aren't those who try to disrupt the system from the outside, but those who transform it from within. ➡️ Build for the infrastructure, not just the individual. When you become the operating system of an entire institution, the market stops being a battle and starts becoming a monopoly 🔥

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We didn’t plan to build a SaaS company. We just wanted to fix something our dads struggled with their entire lives. All three of us: Sharad, Rohan, and I grew up around factories. - My dad worked in an Indian Railway engineering unit. - Sharad Sen Sharma managed inventory at NTPC at various places. - Rohan Sen Sharma's father was running Mid sized manufacturing. Many conversations had one theme: Firefighting in manufacturing operations Manual processes, paper trails, endless coordination. Factory operations were happening very inefficiently… with broken or no tools. Years later, when we started working with SME manufacturers, we saw the same chaos still existed. Despite expensive ERPs and digital tools, factories ran on Excel, WhatsApp, and last-minute calls. Most systems were too complex, too rigid, or too expensive. That’s when we spotted and immediately resonated with the problem and gap. SME Manufacturers didn’t need more features They needed clarity with an easy way to run their operations: A simple, intuitive system that actually fits their workflow from inquiry to dispatch. So we built the first version of TranZact. And when the first few customers said: "This is exactly what we needed." We knew we were onto something valuable, real and worth our time and energy. Today, TranZact helps 10K+ Indian factories run faster, smoother, and smarter. Have you ever stumbled into a mission you didn’t see coming? Would love to hear your turning-point story 👇 #startup #journey #founder

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