In Memoriam: Founders, Startup Leaders That We Lost In 2025

Every now and then the Indian startup ecosystem gets a sobering reality check; founder and employee wellness become hot topics, but the toll of creating a business from scratch is often very heavy. And sometimes, founders and employees pay the ultimate price. 

For instance, in 2025, unfortunately, the Indian startup ecosystem had more than one instance of death by suicide among employees. What 2025 showed us again is that employee and founder health and wellness should be an everyday concern, especially as the stakes get higher.

There is a big need to address how startup leaders and employees deal with pressure and stress, which is not always related to work. Plus, the past year also had a few reminders that life can be fleeting, as some founders passed away due to accidents. 

As we wrap up the year, we remember five startup founders who we untimely lost in 2025. 

Amit Banerji

Amit Banerji founded Table Space in 2017, after more than a decade with Accenture.

Born in 1981, the computer science graduate launched Table Space to offer customised coworking spaces to companies across India. 

The IPO-bound company is presently offering services to over 500 clients such as Apple, Google, AMD, EY, GKN Aerospace, Shell, JCI and Analog Devices, among others.

Banerji sadly lost his life after suffering a cardiac arrest on January 6, at the age of 45. Post his demise, Table Space appointed its cofounders Karan Chopra and Kunal Mehra as co-CEOs.

Additionally, Chopra took over as the company’s chairman while Mehra was named the president.

The Hillhouse-backed startup has also begun preparations for its public listing plans, but the timeline for the iPO is uncertain.

Harshavardhana Kikkeri & Shwetha Panyam

In an incident that definitely grabbed the headlines, robotics startup HoloWorld’s cofounder Harshavardhana Kikkeri died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the US in April, right after shooting and killing his wife Shwetha Panyam, the cofounder of HoloWorld.

The duo founded HoloWorld in 2018 to create  an extended reality (XR) platform banking on the metaverse hype at the time. Before founding HoloWorld, Panyam worked with Microsoft as a software engineer in the US until 2017.

Kikkeri, 57 at the time of the deaths, got a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering in 2004. 

Neeraj Tyagi

Tributes poured in for We Founder Circle cofounder and chief executive Neeraj Tyagi who unfortunately passed away in August this year. Tyagi has been a notable face in the angel investment space, backing more than 60 startups, including Zypp Electric, Oben Electric and Garuda Aerospace, among others.

He launched We Founder Circle in 2020 and also cofounded investment platforms such as Avinya Ventures and Invstt. 

Tyagi lost his life at the age of 50 due to uncertain circumstances on August 16.

Vikas Kumar

LoanTap cofounder and CTO Vikas Kumar passed away at the age of 40 in April this year after a road accident. Kumar established the digital lending platform along with Satyam Kumar in 2016. 

A graduate of the Birla Institute of Technology Mesra and Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Kumar was a serial entrepreneur. Before LoanTap, he had founded Brainvisa Technologies (2000-2010) and SME Networks (2010-2016).