WHO THIS IS FOR
If you are a 12th-grade student considering PES University, a current PES student with an idea you have not told anyone about, or a parent wondering whether your child's entrepreneurial ambition is compatible with a degree — this is for you.
The most common version of this question sounds like: will building a startup hurt my grades? The parent version is: is this a distraction? The student version is quieter — it is the nagging feeling that you have to choose.
The honest answer, based on every cohort we have run at PESU Venture Labs, is that you do not have to choose. But the way you do not choose matters enormously. This post is a walk-through of exactly what happens when a PES student decides to build something — from the first conversation to a funded startup.
First: What Is PESU Venture Labs?
PESU Venture Labs (PVL) is PES University's venture studio and micro fund, founded in 2021 by Suresh Narasimha (Managing Partner, CoCreate Ventures) in partnership with Prof. Jawahar Doreswamy, Chancellor of PES University. PVL invests up to $200K in student- and researcher-led startups at the pre-prototype stage — meaning you do not need a working product to get in.
We are not a club. We are not an extracurricular. We are an embedded venture studio — we co-build with founders, connect them to a global mentor network, provide cloud credits and design support, and invest real capital when the thesis is proven.
The Four Stages: How It Actually Works
PVL's model is designed as a funnel — not a single program that you either get into or you do not. Most founders move through some combination of these four stages:
Pebble — The Earliest Conversation. If you have an idea that will not leave you alone, Pebble is where it begins. Think of it as a structured ideation phase: PVL mentors help you stress-test the thesis, understand the problem space, and decide whether there is a company here. No commitment, no application fee, no prototype required. Just the idea.
Accelerator Bootcamp (ABC) — The 10-Week Sprint. The Bootcamp is PVL's flagship program, running January through March each year. Selected teams work intensively — with PVL co-builders, domain mentors, and peer accountability — to move from raw thesis to a validated insight. You remain fully enrolled as a PES student throughout. Teams from ABC 2024 and ABC 2025 have gone on to raise funding, sign their first customers, and in one case build one of PVL's earliest success stories.
Venture Studio — Co-Building with Capital. The highest-engagement track. If your team graduates from the Bootcamp with a strong signal, you enter the Studio, where PVL does not just advise — we build alongside you. Product, design, engineering, GTM. This is where most of PVL's investment capital is deployed, and where founders go from having something to having something fundable.
Portfolio — Backed and Building. PVL's portfolio companies are no longer part of the program — they are companies. Funded, with a cap table, a board relationship with PVL, and the full CoCreate Ventures network behind them. Reaching this stage while still a student is rare — but it has happened.
The Grade Question: How Does This Fit?
This is the question parents almost always ask, and it deserves a straight answer.
The Accelerator Bootcamp is a 10-week program, January to March — a period that runs before most end-semester exams. It is intensive, but it is not 24/7. The typical weekly commitment is 8 to 12 hours of structured work, plus whatever founders choose to put in on their own time. Every team we have seen struggle academically has struggled for reasons unrelated to PVL.
The deeper answer is that the skills are not separate. Founders who go through PVL's program consistently report improvements in how they structure arguments, communicate under uncertainty, and think about second-order effects — all of which show up in their coursework. PES University's Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), which operates alongside PVL, is built on Prof. Jawahar Doreswamy's foundational belief that entrepreneurship and academic rigour are complementary, not competing.
“Can entrepreneurship fund research and scholarships? Can we create a funnel of fundable deep-tech companies that are category creators for the existing VC ecosystem?”
— Suresh Narasimha, Founder, PESU Venture Labs
What If It Doesn't Work?
Most startups do not work. This is true of YCombinator companies, Sequoia-backed companies, and PVL-backed companies. It is not a reason not to try — it is a reason to think clearly about the downside.
If your startup does not become a company, here is what you still have:
- ▸A structured understanding of a real problem in a real market — something most placement candidates do not have.
- ▸A network that includes domain mentors, operators, and investors who have seen your work directly.
- ▸A track record of decision-making under uncertainty — which is exactly what the most interesting employers are looking for.
- ▸Your degree, completely intact.
PVL calls this career insurance. The Bootcamp is designed so that even failure produces genuine, differentiated outcomes. We have former Bootcamp founders who went into product management at tier-1 tech companies specifically because the PVL experience made them stand out. We have others who went to graduate school with a research question sharpened by a year of trying to build around it.
What Aalap's Founders Say
Aalap — an AI-powered music practice room that listens, analyzes, and coaches in real time — came out of the ABC 2024 cohort. It is one of PVL's earliest active portfolio companies, and its founders were PES students when they started.
“The bootcamp taught us to think in first principles — not features.”
— Adihtya R, Co-Founder, Aalap
Aalap is now a company. Its founders are still building. Some of them graduated. Some are still at PES. The startup did not wait for them to finish their degree — and their degree did not wait for the startup. Both happened in parallel, because PVL's model makes parallel possible.
How to Get Started
The Accelerator Bootcamp opens applications once a year, typically in November for a January start. If you are reading this before applications open, the best thing you can do is start thinking seriously about the problem you want to work on. PVL invests in teams and theses — not polished pitches.
THE SHORT VERSION
Yes, you can start a company while studying at PES. The Accelerator Bootcamp runs January through March, requires no prototype to apply, and is designed to coexist with your academic schedule. If it works, you get funded. If it does not, you get a set of skills and a network that outperform most CVs. Either way, you graduate.