Push to Prod Hackathon — ₹9.2L Prize Pool for Bengaluru AI Builders — Frequently Asked Questions

The event carries a prize pool of up to ₹9.2L, described in the programme details as $10,000 in prizes. Alongside the cash, winning teams get an office-hours session with the Elevation Capital team after the hackathon.

Applications close on 8 August 2026. The hackathon itself is a one-day, in-person event held as part of Basecamp, a community-led technology festival in Bengaluru that runs from 6 to 12 August 2026. Teams get five hours of focused building time on the day.

The hackathon is open to all builders. The organisers describe the audience as developers, product thinkers and founders, and both individuals and teams can enter — no team size limit is stated. There is no restriction on startup stage, sector, city or background, and no company registration or funding history is required.

No. This is an open hackathon, and no DPIIT recognition, MSME registration, incorporation or similar paperwork is mentioned as a condition of entry. The only build-related requirement is that Claude sits at the core of what you make.

No. Push to Prod is a competition with cash prizes rather than an investment, so no equity is taken and nothing has to be repaid. The Elevation Capital team's involvement after the event is limited to an office-hours session for winners.

Yes. Teams are required to use Anthropic or Claude as a core part of their product, their workflow, or their intelligence layer. Participants also get access to powerful AI tools to accelerate their builds during the event.

The theme is Build the Next Audacious. Entrants are expected to create something that does not exist yet — a new capability, architecture or approach rather than a repackaged existing tool; a product with a credible route to very large scale; something that makes the current default way of doing things look dated; a new way of interacting with technology such as voice, agents acting for the user, or new input and output formats; or infrastructure that later startups and enterprises will depend on.

Mentorship and guidance are provided by teams from Anthropic, Elevation Capital and other ecosystem partners across the build window. Participants also get access to AI tooling to speed up their work. Judging at the end focuses on the audacity of the idea, how well it was executed, and its potential impact.

It is an in-person event in Bengaluru, run as part of the Basecamp festival. You need to be present on the day to take part, since the format is five hours of live building alongside mentors and other teams.

Registration is handled through the Devfolio listing for the event, available at https://pushtoprod-india.devfolio.co/. Applications close on 8 August 2026.

The application deadline for Push to Prod Hackathon — ₹9.2L Prize Pool for Bengaluru AI Builders is Closed (8 Aug 2026). Deadlines can be revised, so reconfirm on the official source before applying.