Boosting India’s art and craft ecosystem: A roundtable hosted by NSRCEL
As part of the Women Startup Program: Scale Hub – Women in Art & Craft, NSRCEL hosted an ecosystem roundtable, bringing together policymakers, designers, retailers, donors, market access partners and founders. The focus of the meet was on what it takes for art and craft ventures to scale beyond early revenue.
The participants of the roundtable were Mridula Tangirala, Head – Tourism, Tata Trusts; Joshua Livingstone, Senior Manager, HCLFoundation; Dr. Chethana Thirthahalli, Technical Lead – Health, HCLFoundation; Vijaya Kumar TR, Co-founder, Rare Planet Handicrafts Pvt Ltd; Siva Devireddy, Founder, Director & Board Member, GoCoop; Dr. Suresh Bhagavatula, Chairperson, BBA DBE and faculty of the Entrepreneurship area, IIM Bangalore; Ruchi Tavkar Manrai, CEO, GoCoop; Prof. Nagaraja (Naga) Prakasam, Faculty, Mentor & Investor, NSRCEL and Alliance University; Ami Patel, Sr. Director – Lead, Business & Capacity, Industree Crafts Foundation; Prof. Neelima Hasija, Head of Faculty – Industrial Design, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad; Dr. Srivardhini K. Jha, Chairperson, NSRCEL and faculty, Entrepreneurship area, IIM Bangalore; P L Sreedevi, Regional Officer for the Southern Region, Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts; Anand Sri Ganesh, CEO, NSRCEL; Vijaya Krishnappa, Co-founder, KOSHA.ai; Manish Arora, Principal Consultant – Retail & Hospitality SME, Technopak; Vino Supraja, award-winning fashion designer known for sustainable and ethical fashion; Kanchana K V, CEO, NICE.org; Sanjay Anandaram, Co-founder, NICE.org, and Dr. Swati Bandi, Chairperson, Centre for Management Communication and faculty, Management Communication, IIM Bangalore.
The roundtable shed light on areas critical to the growth of India’s art and craft ecosystem. Under ‘Building for Premium & Luxury Markets’, the session covered global quality benchmarks, premium positioning, product curation for luxury channels, and the role of certifications and provenance. As part of ‘Financing the Creative Economy’, the session included topics such as working capital and inventory-linked finance, blended funding models, and the role of CSR and foundations in de-risking growth. ‘International Market Access’ comprised focused talks on export readiness, global buyer linkages, international branding, and access through trade fairs and B2B platforms.
The roundtable brought forth thoughtful conversations and a shared intent to build sustainable growth pathways for women-led ventures. The main takeaway from the roundtable was that, scaling craft-led ventures needs ecosystem alignment – across capital, markets, design and policy – with founders at the centre.
