Keralam Huddle Global 2026 concludes investments worth Rs 8 crore announced

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 14 (PTI) The eighth edition of Huddle Global 2026, billed as Asia's largest beachside startup festival, concluded here on Saturday, with investments worth Rs 8 crore announced during the three-day event.

    Organised by Keralam Startup Mission (KSUM), the event drew 10,000 participants, according to a statement.

    The event brought together more than 4,000 startups, over 150 investors, comprising 90-plus venture capital and 50-plus angel investors, 200 high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), over 300 mentors, more than 200 corporates, 150 exhibitors and 300 speakers, the statement said.

    More than 200 startup-investor meetings were held, while over 27 products were launched.

    Chief Minister V D Satheesan inaugurated the event on November 12. Industries, IT, Future Technology and Startups Minister P K Kunhalikutty and Electronics and IT Department Special Secretary S Suhas attended.

    Of the deals announced, deeptech aerospace startup Tessat Space raised Rs 1 crore in an angel round from Xylapay, a blockchain-powered cross-border payments platform.

    Talks between the two began at the Connect funding programme during Huddle Global 2025, and the deal was announced this year, the statement said.

    TIRF (Tevanova Incubation and Research Facility), an incubation and research facility in Palakkad, will invest Rs 50 lakh in the seed round of Bustler, a Keralam-based startup building a skill identity platform.

    The Group of Technology Companies (GTech), the industry body of the state's technology firms, issued Expressions of Interest for funding to four startups at the Cheque Mate investor pitch session held on the sidelines. They are Leadmetrics, Cloudpositive, Zeev (ZSS Technologies) and Spacetime 4D.

    Three startups, CDISC Technologies, Sixdots Design and Kalqy, were selected at the Tiger's Claw pitching session and will take part in the GITEX Dubai expo free of cost.

    In the Student Unicorn Cohort 1 for student entrepreneurs, Team BharatWorks won the first prize of Rs 1,50,000, followed by Eldora (Rs 50,000) and Tattvic Labs (Rs 25,000).

    Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Governing Board member, India AI Mission, said in his valedictory keynote that entrepreneurs should be bold in building solutions with artificial intelligence (AI), which he described as no longer a technology but a capability.

    KSUM CEO Anoop Ambika said Huddle Global had become Keralam's flagship tech conclave and that KSUM would develop it into one of the world's major events in the coming years.

    The expo showcased solutions from India and abroad across sectors such as edtech, healthtech, fintech, life sciences, spacetech, AI and machine learning, blockchain, robotics, AR/VR, IoT, greentech and e-governance.

    The exhibits featured humanoid robots, autonomous drones, sustainable energy solutions, biomedical devices and smart city technologies.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)