Bombay Shaving Company has launched The Anandi Fellowship, a new initiative designed to identify and nurture entrepreneurial talent among young Indians at an early stage.
Open to students currently in Class 11, Class 12 or the first year of undergraduate study, the fellowship aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs access to the kind of exposure, mentorship and opportunities that are typically available much later in a career.
The fellowship will begin with the Anandi-NEAT 2026 (Nationwide Entrepreneurship Acumen Test), a two-hour, pen-and-paper assessment scheduled to take place in the first week of December 2026. The test is designed to assess entrepreneurial acumen rather than prior startup experience, and does not require coaching or specialised preparation.
Students who qualify will be invited to a three-day Grit Bootcamp in Gurgaon in May 2027, with all expenses covered. The bootcamp will bring together founders and CEOs from a range of startups and businesses, who will participate in the selection process and provide participants with direct exposure to entrepreneurship and company-building.
Selected Anandi Fellows will have access to four key opportunities:
- Entrepreneur-in-Residence opportunity at Bombay Shaving Company: A pre-placement offer (PPO) with a compensation of ₹25 lakh per annum.
- Paid summer internships: Opportunities to work with leading founders, startups, venture capital firms and companies across sectors, with a stipend of ₹1 lakh per month.
- Education scholarship: A ₹1 lakh annual scholarship through college.
- Future founder funding: Up to ₹1 crore in seed funding when a fellow decides to pursue their own startup full-time.
The internship network associated with the programme includes organisations such as Bombay Shaving Company, Urban Company, Elevation Partners, Country Delight, Mosaic Wellness, Z47 Partners, Atomberg, The Whole Truth, Sixth Sense, Allen, Qualia, Agilitas, GoKwik, Rebel Foods, Leap Scholar, Giga Capital and Treebo Hotels, among others.
The programme is deliberately designed to remain independent of a student’s academic background or college. Fellows can pursue the course and institution of their choice, while the fellowship focuses on identifying entrepreneurial potential at an early stage.
Shantanu Deshpande, Founder & CEO, Bombay Shaving Company, said: “Entrepreneurship is usually discovered much later than it needs to be. By then, access, networks and financial circumstances have already shaped who gets the opportunity to build. The Anandi Fellowship is our attempt to change that equation, to find young people with the curiosity, grit and acumen to build, and give them real exposure, mentorship and eventually capital. We are not looking for students who have already built a company. We are looking for the potential to build one.”
The fellowship takes a long-term view of entrepreneurship. Bombay Shaving Company expects that some of the students identified through the programme may go on to build companies years after entering the fellowship. The objective is to create an early pipeline of entrepreneurial talent and give young people the freedom to explore company-building without requiring them to have a startup idea or prior entrepreneurial experience at the time of selection.
Registrations for the Anandi Fellowship are now open here: www.theanandifellowship.com
