SXSW×Tessarakt×YourStory
We run startup and creator platforms in India that already pull large audiences. We want to build the one platform India does not have yet, a home for creative founders. Here is what we run today, the track we want to build, and where SXSW fits.
Three operators, not a concept. Each of us already runs this work in India.
India's startup media platform since 2008. TechSparks ran its 15th edition in 2024 and returns 13–15 October 2026 in Bengaluru, with speakers including India's Finance Minister and Steve Wozniak. Our Startup Bharat desk covers founders in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
Blend builds creator communities and runs Blend Bazaar, co-curated with Tessarakt. The 2023 edition drew 7,000+ people, 1,000+ creators and 100 brands over two days in Bengaluru. Tessarakt designs and runs the activation on the ground.
A creative entrepreneurship track at TechSparks 2026, built for the founders behind India's creators, studios, labels, game teams and design houses. Not a panel room. A working floor.
Operators who built creative businesses, on stage with the people trying to build the next ones. Real numbers, real decisions.
Creator-led and creative-tech startups in front of investors and brands looking to back them.
Hands-on workshops on tools, monetisation and IP, run with the brands and platforms creators already use.
Studios, communities and brands in one room to meet, hire and close deals. The part conferences usually skip.
TechSparks is the annual flagship moment. SXSW is the global collaborator that connects it outward, both ways.
From India's creative founders, through the TechSparks flagship, out to a global stage.
India's home for creative entrepreneurship. The place where a creator from a small town and a studio founder in Mumbai build, raise money and reach the world. TechSparks makes it the flagship. SXSW makes it global.
A creative entrepreneurship track at TechSparks 2026: stage, pitch floor, labs and a market in one place.
Year-round. Creator labs across campuses, a founder delegation to SXSW, and a Bharat creative economy report.
India's reference platform for creative founders: awards, city chapters and a standing bridge to SXSW.
A proposed path, not a commitment. We start with the track and earn the rest.
India's startup ecosystem matured and got its platforms. The creative side has the talent and the market, but no platform of the same scale. We are positioned to build it.
Founder ecosystem, media distribution and Startup Bharat coverage into Tier 2 and Tier 3 India. The creative track needs creative founders from beyond the metros, and that is where YourStory already publishes.
The government targets a $40B AVGC sector and has put ₹250 crore behind creative-tech labs in 500 colleges. Brands like YouTube and Samsung are committing hundreds of crores to Indian creators. The demand side exists.
Startups got their platform. Creative founders have the market but not the platform. That is the gap.
Seven themes for the creative entrepreneurship track. Starting points for the discussion, not a fixed agenda.
The businesses creators build: audiences, products, monetisation and teams.
Animation, VFX, gaming and comics studios, and the founders behind them.
Independent artists, labels and live businesses building outside the majors.
Designers and labels turning craft and culture into companies.
Founders who built a business on top of a community they own.
How creative founders are using AI to make and ship faster.
Building companies out of India's regional culture, language and craft.
We keep these separate so there is no overclaiming.
TechSparks, a 15-edition annual summit. Blend Bazaar, a recurring creator festival. A media platform with reach into Tier 2 and Tier 3 India. Teams that have planned, sold and run all of it.
The collaboration, the TechSparks track, the two-way exchange and a year-round initiative. These are ideas to test on the call, not commitments we are presenting as done.
Not an event sponsorship. We want to test whether SXSW and India build this together, with TechSparks as the annual flagship and SXSW as the global collaborator.