GSF Spring Festival 2026 was held on 5th February 2026 at Museo Camera, Centre for The Photographic Arts, in Gurugram.
The Festival is organised by GSF, one of India’s pioneering tech accelerators and an early backer of Osto. It is hosted by Rajesh Sawhney, who has invested in over 150 Indian tech startups and sits on the boards of IndiaMART, ixigo, and Matrimony. The curation is what makes the Festival one of the most consequential founder-investor gatherings on the Indian calendar.
The room was roughly 150 strong and weighted heavily toward decision-makers. Partners from across the Indian VC ecosystem attended, alongside founders raising Series A and a curated slice of seed and pre-seed founders working on the next wave of Indian SaaS, deep tech, and agentic AI.
A day of investment theses
Across the day, partners from Stellaris, Nexus, Blume, Mirae Asset, and Info Edge Ventures presented their 2026 investment theses. The cross-cutting theme was clear. India is moving from being an AI services hub to building AI-native global companies, and the security and compliance posture of those companies will need to mature substantially.
A fireside between Aloke Bajpai (ixigo), Dinesh Agarwal (IndiaMART), and Sanjeev Bikhchandani (Info Edge). Three founders who built category-defining Indian companies, talking candidly about asset allocation, the discipline behind their angel investments, and why their balance sheets look different from India’s IT services giants.
For Osto, the day carried a particular personal weight. Dinesh Agarwal is an early angel investor in the company, and meeting him in person, after several rounds of remote conversations, was the kind of moment that compounds.
A few takeaways from the day
The Festival reinforced that Osto’s positioning is aligned with what Indian VCs and operators see coming. Multiple investors specifically asked about how Osto’s platform could simplify the security and compliance burden across their portfolio companies, particularly for startups raising Series A and preparing for first enterprise deals.
Osto used the day to run a small experiment. For any VC in the room willing to introduce Osto to their portfolio companies, we offered USD 50,000 in Osto credits per portfolio company. The response was strong, and the conversations reinforced that consolidating security and compliance on one platform reduces operational drag across an entire portfolio rather than just one company.
The day also produced an initial partnership conversation with Google Cloud, which is the kind of conversation that compounds over time.
The Festival exists because Indian founders and investors needed a place to think out loud about the next decade in a room curated tightly enough to make every conversation count. GSF has built that into something the Indian startup ecosystem genuinely needs, and Osto will keep coming back to it.
Thanks to GSF and Rajesh Sawhney. The curation is the product.