Poyni Bhatt

Poyni Bhatt is a seasoned legal and compliance professional with a background as a Fellow member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. Transitioning into the realm of technology business incubation by happenstance, Poyni has been a guiding force for entrepreneurs for more than a decade, accumulating a rich experience of 3 decades within both the industry and academia. Poyni is a pivotal founding team member of SINE, the technology business incubator at IIT Bombay, and has been spearheading the management of the incubator since 2004.

Having played a crucial role in incubating over 100 start-ups at SINE, Poyni has witnessed a spectrum of outcomes from exceptional successes to learning experiences from failures, with the majority of ventures thriving and running successfully. Poyni's efforts have also led to partial exits in nearly one third of the startups supported by SINE. Actively engaged in mentoring start-ups and innovators beyond SINE, Poyni has facilitated collaborative international initiatives for innovators and entrepreneurs, including recent endeavors with Russia and Switzerland.

Before contributing to SINE, Poyni accumulated over a decade of corporate experience in the manufacturing and finance sectors. During this tenure, Poyni led secretarial, legal, and compliance functions, oversaw IPOs and fundraising activities, structured corporate M&A deals, and interfaced with various Indian regulatory bodies. Poyni's involvement extends to membership in various Indian government committees focusing on innovation, entrepreneurship, and incubation, in addition to serving on the boards of multiple incubators in India. Poyni also imparts knowledge through guest lectures on entrepreneurship.