No pitches, just smashes: Bertelsmann India Investments wants to put health first

At 10:45 am on Thursday, the thwack of shuttlecocks echoed through Delhi’s Siri Fort, not from professional athletes, but from India’s venture capitalists and startup founders.

Some sported navy-blue Bertelsmann Badminton Championship tees, while others wore their own startup t-shirts, doubling up as brand ambassadors, such as Pranit Arora of Univest and Dhruv Gupta and Tarun Bhambra of Orange Health Labs. For a day, laptops gave way to racquets, and shuttles replaced Wi-Fi, as the ecosystem rallied under this year’s theme: Rally for Health. The event spotlighted the often-overlooked well-being of founders and investors.

Now in its seventh edition, the Bertelsmann Badminton Championship—hosted by Bertelsmann India Investments (BII)—has become a fixture on the VC calendar. The event drew participants from over 40 funds, including Accel, Trifecta, Lightrock, and Innoven, alongside startups such as CureBay, Wiom, and Info Edge.

“When we began in 2016, there wasn’t an industry-wide event to build informal relationships,” says Pankaj Makkar, Managing Director, BII, which backs early-growth startups such as Shiprocket, Eruditus, and Licious. “In this ecosystem, you may be a competitor in one deal, but a partner in three others. This gives us space to connect, and most people end up becoming very good friends.”

However, the event has grown beyond networking. “Over the years, many founders and VCs have worked so hard to build the ecosystem that they have often ignored their own health. If you want to build businesses that last decades, you need to last decades yourself. So we said, let’s focus on the health of founders and investors, leading to healthier companies,” adds Makkar.