IIJS Bharat Signature 2026 witnessed a defining moment for India’s gem and jewellery industry with the launch of JewelStart, GJEPC’s first dedicated innovation, incubation and acceleration platform for gems, jewellery and allied startups. Unveiled at the show in Mumbai on 10th January 2026, JewelStart signals a deliberate move to embed structured innovation, entrepreneurship and technology-led problem solving into the industry’s growth story.

Conceived as an industry-led incubation platform, JewelStart has been designed to address the specific needs of the gem and jewellery value chain. The initiative aims to enable start-ups, MSMEs to transform ideas into scalable, market-ready enterprises, while fostering collaboration between industry, academia, investors and government bodies. Through this initiative, GJEPC seeks to further reinforce India’s position as the “Jeweller to the World.”

On the occasion, GJEPC also signed a series of strategic Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) to strengthen the JewelStart ecosystem and enable multi-stakeholder collaboration. The MoUs were signed between  Kirit Bhansali, Chairman, GJEPC and  Shaji Varghese, CEO, Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT Bombay;  A Panigrahi, Senior Professor and PhD Scholar, National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad;  Hitesh Sachdev, Head – Startup Engagements and Investments, ICICI Bank Ltd;  Narayanan Naduvath, State Operation Head, Indusind Bank Ltd; and  Mitesh Shah, Co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures.