The third and final day of Startup Mahakumbh concluded with high-octane energy as the Defence, Space & B2B, Precision Manufacturing Pavilion continued to spotlight India's ascent in strategic and deep-tech innovation. With the spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat resonating throughout, the sessions brought together bold founders, industry experts, and policy makers shaping the future of India's high-impact sectors.

During a powerful panel on ‘Defence Startups: Growth Engines of Viksit Bharat’, anchored by Capt. Vishal Kanwar (Retd), Managing Director and Aerospace, Defence & Space Leader at PwC, leading voices including Ankit Mehta, CEO, ideaForge Technology Ltd, Prashant Chiranjive Jain, Head-Corporate, L&T, Prithwish Kundu, Founder & CEO, Green Aero, and Soma Sekhar Vedantam, CEO, Meridian Data Labs came together. The conversation centered on fostering indigenous technologies, driving R&D efforts within the ecosystem, building cross-sectoral collaborations, and pushing India towards global leadership in innovation.

In a development on the sidelines of the event, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) announced the signing of MoU with Pandit Deendayal Energy University (PDEU) to establish centre of excellence for skill development in energy technologies and semiconductor sector.

Furthermore, the session on ‘Opportunities in Defence and Space Tech’ was moderated by Yachna Luthra, Senior Associate, IVCA. The panel brought together prominent venture capitalists—Ashish Taneja, Founding Partner, GrowX Ventures, Cdr Navneet Kaushik, Founder, Managing Partner, Jamwant Ventures, Girish Shivani, Executive Director and Fund Manager, Yournest, Raj Sethia, Founder, Managing Partner, MountTech Growth Fund – Kavachh, and Vinod Shankar, Founding Partner, Java Capital— shared insights around what makes defence and space tech sector investible. Key highlights captured the need to develop India’s deep domain expertise, a dual-use approach to innovation, and strong regulatory navigation. The panel unanimously agreed that India's expanding policy frameworks, evolving geopolitical posture, and investor confidence have created fertile ground for transformational startups in these sectors.

On the sidelines, another interesting panel on 'Fintech Meets B2B: Evolving Financial Strategies for Enterprise Growth' moderated by Karthik Prabhakar, Managing Partner, Peer Capital, including panelists Arup Kumar, Managing Director, SIDBI Venture Capital Ltd, Parthesh Shah, Co-founder, Knight FinTech, and Sonali Jindal, Founder, Rezolv provided actionable insights on unlocking India's potential in fintech sector. The discussion underscored the need for long-term capital, seamless academic linkages, and policy-driven incentives to catalyse indigenous development in critical technologies. The panel collectively emphasised that for India to lead globally in deep-tech, fostering a resilient ecosystem that reduces financial strain on young entrepreneurs is crucial.

Rounding off the discussion around ‘0-1 in Manufacturing’ explored how founders are building from first principles in sectors like advanced textiles, specialty chemicals, and agri-tech. Moderated by Akshay Sharma (VP, 3one4 Capital), the session featured startup journeys from panellists - Piyush Jalan (Co-founder, Thimblerr), Sachin Santosh (Co-founder, Scimplify), and Shreshtha Kukreja (CEO, Whizzo). Their stories reflected the depth of India's MSME ecosystem, regulatory readiness, and product-market co-creation, as well as their commitment to navigating stringent global frameworks like the US FDA and EPA to scale precision manufacturing ventures from India to the world.