TiE Mumbai

Start with membership, not with a programme

TiE Mumbai has no open programme you can apply to. Every mentoring session, investor session and networking format it runs is a member benefit, and joining is the only route to them. The Join Now button on any page of its site opens the membership request. If you want to ask what you get and what it costs before you commit, write to info@tiemumbai.org.

Work out which route you actually want

• If you want structured teaching, TiE Academy is the chapter's own course and the only thing it opens to non-members. It is currently between intakes, so ask when the next one runs before planning around it.
• If you want mentoring, the Business Guidance Camp and the Idea Validation Hotline are the two named routes, and both need membership.
• If you want investor conversations, Office Hours With Investors and Investor of the Month are the formats, and both need membership.
• If you want to raise from the chapter's angel group, contact the chapter directly. The apply buttons on the TiE Angels page do not lead anywhere that works.
• If you just want to be in the room, TiEcon Mumbai is the annual conference, and members attend at a discount.

Do not apply to these here

The automotive Centre of Excellence listed in the chapter's Programs menu is run by STPI at Pune. Its labs and workspace are STPI's and applications go to STPI, so approach it there rather than through TiE Mumbai. The Microsoft AI Immersive Program was Microsoft India's, aimed at post-MVP fintech and manufacturing technology startups with customers and traction, and its registration link no longer works.

What the sessions expect from you

Nothing the chapter runs is a selection process, so there is no pitch to be scored. The sessions are short and they reward preparation instead. A Business Guidance Camp is about an hour and works best when you bring one specific challenge rather than a general update. The Idea Validation Hotline is fifteen minutes on the phone. An investor office-hours slot is twenty minutes, which is enough for what you do, what you have proved and what you want from the investor, and not much else.

Check before you plan

Much of the chapter's site is years out of date, while the chapter itself is active and announces things through the press and to members first. Before you build a plan around any date, course or event you read there, email info@tiemumbai.org and confirm it is running. For events specifically, events@tiemumbai.org is the published inbox.

TiE Mumbai is the Mumbai chapter of TiE, The Indus Entrepreneurs, a non-profit network for entrepreneurs with chapters in cities around the world. It runs from an office at Arohas, Sahana Enclave, on Dr Ambedkar Road in Bandra West, Mumbai. It is a membership body rather than an incubator or an accelerator: what it offers founders is mentoring, investor access, an annual conference and a community, and the way in is to join as a member.

What it actually offers

The chapter's core offering sits behind membership. Members can book a Business Guidance Camp, a one-to-one session with a senior entrepreneur or professional about a specific business challenge, usually an hour long and held at the mentor's own office. They can call the Idea Validation Hotline, a fifteen-minute one-to-one phone discussion with a TiE Charter Member. Two formats put founders in front of investors: Office Hours With Investors, a closed-door session where each startup gets twenty minutes to talk through its idea and its problems, and Investor of the Month, where an investor and their team meet a group of founders and talk through current investment patterns, how their fund is put together and what they look for. The rest are networking formats, the Member Mixer, the Business Builder Breakfast and a candid interview series called We Mead Business.

TiE Academy is the chapter's own entrepreneurship course and the one thing on the site open to people who are not members. It was designed as a training course run by entrepreneurs, with a syllabus led by TiE Charter Members, senior entrepreneurs, board members, academics and business consultants, and it mixes classroom work with case studies, group work and building a funding pitch for your own venture. Each participant gets a confidential capacity and willingness score used to personalise their mentoring. The course also includes office visits to venture funds and to large, fast-growing companies. The only cohort the chapter has described, titled Start Your Venture, began on 9 November 2019 and ran 4.5 weeks and 55 hours at the Victor Menezes Convention Centre at IIT Bombay, ending with a TiE Angels pitching session. No later cohort has been announced, so treat the course as between intakes and ask before planning around it.

TiE Angels Mumbai is the chapter's angel group. Its page carries an invitation to apply for funding and an invitation to apply as an investor, but says nothing about who is eligible, how a deal is assessed or when it meets, and neither button currently leads anywhere that works. If you want to reach the angel group, write to the chapter rather than using the page.

How to apply, and what you are applying to

This is the thing to be clear about. TiE Mumbai does not publish an open programme you can apply to. There is no cohort with a deadline, no selection process and no listed intake anywhere on its site. What exists is membership, which you request through the Join Now button that sits on every page, and which then unlocks the mentoring, investor and networking sessions above. The chapter describes its members as entrepreneurs, startups and aspiring professionals interested in forming a new business, taking their startup to the next level, learning about the market or networking. It sets no incorporation requirement, no sector gate, no stage gate and no geography gate. It also does not publish what membership costs, so you will need to ask before you commit.

TiEcon Mumbai

The chapter's flagship event is TiEcon Mumbai, an annual conference it has now run eighteen times, the eighteenth edition in March 2025 under the theme DhandaFirst and including a Hall of Fame awards segment. It is a conference you attend, not a programme you are selected into, and members attend at a discount. One caution when reading the chapter's own flagship page: most of what it says, including the attendance figures and the speaker list, describes TiEcon in Silicon Valley rather than the Mumbai edition.

Two programmes that are not the chapter's own

The Programs menu lists a Microsoft AI Immersive Program and an automotive Centre of Excellence called MOTION, and neither is TiE Mumbai's. The Microsoft programme was run by Microsoft India for startups in fintech and manufacturing technology, and its registration link no longer resolves. MOTION is a centre of excellence in autonomous, connected, electric and shared mobility run by STPI at Pune, and its labs, plug-and-play space and coworking belong to STPI, in Pune, not to TiE Mumbai. Applications for it go to STPI directly. TiE Mumbai itself advertises no space, lab or coworking of its own.

Who runs it

The chapter is governed by a Board of Trustees, with a Presidents Council advising it. Dr Apoorv Sharma of Venture Catalysts is President. The board includes Anupam Mittal of People Group, Abhishek Bhagat of JM Financial, Karan Sharma of Avendus, Gaurang Shetty of riidl and Kaustubh Dhavse, chief advisor to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The Presidents Council includes Atul Nishar of Hexaware Technologies and Azent Overseas, Nishith Desai of Nishith Desai Associates, Anand Desai of DSK Legal, Dhanpal Jhaveri of Everstone Capital, Pravin Gandhi of Seedfund Advisors, Ranu Vohra of Avendus Capital, Harish Mehta of Onward Group and Amit Mookim of Immuneel Therapeutics. Day to day the chapter is run by Naveen Raju as Executive Director with a small team covering memberships, business development, corporate innovation and events.

A note on the site, and on the network

The chapter's website is neglected. Its footer copyright reads 2017, its Upcoming Events page is empty, its Programs archive still carries the demo blog posts that came with the theme, and several buttons lead nowhere. The organisation behind it is not dormant, though: it issued press releases through 2026, including a call for applications for a US Tech Delegation in March 2026 and an ecosystem enabler award in July 2026. Announcements like that reach members and the press before they reach the website, so email the chapter rather than judging it by the site.

Finally, separate the chapter from the network. TiE was founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley, and the member counts, chapter counts and country counts on the Mumbai site all belong to TiE globally, not to Mumbai. The same is true of TiE's signature network programmes, TiE Young Entrepreneurs for school students, the TiE International Startup Competition, TiE Institute and the TiE Women's Forum. None of them has a Mumbai page, a Mumbai intake or a Mumbai contact, so do not assume you can join one here. Ask the chapter which of them, if any, it runs.