On June 13, 2026, the Global Association of MSMEs (GAMSME), in partnership with Vantage Circle, hosted the inaugural ‘The Founders’ Coffee Circle’ in Guwahati. The event brought together innovators and ecosystem builders from across the state for a frank, candid conversation about what it actually takes to scale a business in Northeast India today.
A Diverse Room with a Shared Mission
The gathering reflected the sheer breadth of Assam’s growing economy. Leaders from tourism, eco-friendly manufacturing, education, trade, packaging, FMCG, and IT shared the same table—swapping hard-won lessons and looking for concrete ways to collaborate.
While MSMEs power nearly 30% of India’s GDP and roughly 45% of its exports, local enterprises in the Northeast frequently run into various problems. The Founders’ Coffee Circle was built to identify the roadblocks and the solutions around it using the years of experience of the cohort, and at the same time, identify points that the Association can take forward at the relevant forums.
The following four were the major problems that were identified:
- Limited access to funding and finance
- Broken or fragmented market linkages
- Compliance and Human Resources
- Logistics and Supply Chain
Once the major problems were identified, the discussion shifted to finding peer-to-peer-based solutions. Ultimately, this session delivered low operational overhead while yielding a high-utility dataset and building a resilient, interconnected internal founder network.
The following entrepreneurs were part of the discussion:
- Abhijit Sharma, Founder and Director, School of Livelihood and Rural Development
- Amit Baruah, Research Scholar, Guwahati
- Anjan Pathak, CTO, Vantage Circle
- Dhruba Jyoti Deka, Founder, Brahmaputra Fables
- Evamoni Das, Founder, White Co India
- Gaurav Medhi, Quick Ghy
- Himangshu Baruah, Founder and CEO, Finderbridge.com
- Kunal Barthakur, Chief Executive Officer, PlasmaPonic
- Rakesh Pareek, Prince Print N Pack
- Runa Rafique, Founder and Executive Director of Saraighat Farming Trust
- Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, Entrepreneur, Guwahati
- Sumita Dey Deka, Campus Director, JD Institute of Fashion Technology
- Tilak Pandit, Founder, Desi Tesi
- Ushmita Dey, Director, JD Institute of Fashion Technology
Stay tuned to our website and social media channels for regular updates on our on-ground deployment and success stories from this initiative.