Chetan Naik, Senior Fund Manager & Strategy Head at 360One Asset, and Shalini Karunakaran Kuila, AVP at Economic Times, jointly unveiled the Economic Times Top Soonicorns and Minicorns of Maharashtra 2025 report, in collaboration with Research Partner Tracxn, spotlighting the state’s most promising ventures. The report, based on Tracxn’s meticulous dataset spanning January 2020 to July 2025, positioned Maharashtra as the epicentre of India’s innovation renaissance, with over 8,000 startups founded and $20.7 billion in investment during the period. It reflected the state’s ability to turn ambition into enterprise and ideas into enduring institutions. Mumbai and Pune, the twin engines driving the state’s startup surge, accounted for over 82% of startup formation and nearly all (95%) of funding. Yet, the beauty the enduring value of the report lies in its going beyond the obvious to tap into emerging hubs such as Thane, Nagpur, and Navi Mumbai, each scripting its own entrepreneurial chapter.