The Charter and Secret Host Sonmarg Founder Gathering

The Charter and Secret brought 50 founders, investors, senior entrepreneurs and cultural voices to Sonmarg, Kashmir, for a three-day invitation-only gathering without keynote speeches, panels or pitching. The Secret Charter used a nomination-only process, with 25 places selected through The Charter’s founder network and 25 nominated by Secret. Participants included 25 seed to Series B founders, 10 investors, five cultural voices and 10 senior founders who had built companies at scale. The event was designed to give business leaders time for informal conversations and peer connections outside a conventional conference schedule.

A Curated Group

The Charter combined its curated founder network with Secret’s experience hosting small gatherings centered on shared activities. Secret began with the Secret Ski Party in Gulmarg in 2016 and has since added the Secret Serve Party in the Seychelles.

The event had no application form or public admission route. Its organizers assembled a group intended to connect people across company stages, sectors and disciplines, including entrepreneurs, investors and leaders from outside the startup ecosystem.

Devarsh Saraf, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at The Charter, said:

“Founders spend much of their professional lives in structured environments: meetings, conferences, investor conversations, public forums. We wanted to create a setting where those structures could be removed for a few days, and people could simply spend time with one another. The idea was not to replace the traditional founder event, but to create a different kind of environment for relationships and conversations to develop.”

Activities Replace Conference Sessions

Sonmarg was chosen as the setting for a program built around outdoor activities and shared meals. Over three days, attendees joined a glacier walk, fly fishing and mountain biking, along with riverside meals and informal gatherings. The program ended with a traditional Wazwan and a Sufi mehfil.

Krishan Anand, Founder at Secret, said:

“Before Secret, I spent several years building CEO summits, at the Four Seasons Mumbai, the Leela Bangalore, the Leela Delhi. Three hundred of the most senior people in Indian business, in one ballroom, at enormous cost. They worked perfectly. And nothing happened. Ballrooms are built for facing a stage, and nobody has ever said anything true while facing a stage. The Secret Charter removed the stage. There was no keynote and no panel, and pitching was treated as bad manners. The room was composed before a single invitation went out, and then the room was left alone. That was the entire idea.”

Plans for Future Editions

The initial group of 50 will become the founding cohort for future Secret Charter editions. The Charter said participants have since discussed visits in one another’s cities, extended personal invitations and continued conversations begun in Kashmir.

For founders and investors able to access the private network, the model offers an alternative to large-scale startup events: a small, selected group and an activity-led format intended to support longer-term business relationships. The Charter operates in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi and describes its membership as 550 founders, investors and creators, with a waitlist of more than 55,000 people.