Five NIC Lahore startups join Plug and Play's Silicon Valley fall batch
Entropy & Co., Heyeve, Hsieh AI, Recruit AI and elevAID will spend three months in the accelerator, backed by Ignite funding of Rs5 million each.
Five startups from the National Incubation Center (NIC) Lahore have been picked for the Fall 2026 batch of Plug and Play, the Silicon Valley accelerator, according to TechJuice. They are Entropy & Co., Heyeve, Hsieh AI, Recruit AI and elevAID.
TechJuice said their work covers AI powered automation, legal technology, recruitment and healthcare, though it did not match each company to a field. The programme runs for three months and ends with Plug and Play's Silicon Valley summit on 3 to 5 November.
The batch has 140 startups from 20 countries, about 55 per cent of them from outside the United States, the report said. Plug and Play takes no equity. It says its alumni have raised more than $9 billion in total and that it links founders to over 565 Fortune 1000 corporate partners. Each of the five Pakistani startups receives Rs5 million from Ignite, the government's national technology fund, TechJuice reported. The Ministry of IT and Telecom and the Pakistan Startup Fund also backed them.
Building a pipeline
NIC Lahore is run by a consortium led by NETSOL Technologies, with HBL, Daftarkhwan, Beaconhouse National University and UET Lahore as partners. TechJuice said this is the second time its startups have reached Silicon Valley. Four joined Plug and Play's GOAL programme in June 2025, and an AI startup called Blainy won a separate Plug and Play place in May 2026.
The selection follows a government move in July. Digital Pakistan reported on 10 July that Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal witnessed a letter of intent with Plug and Play at its California headquarters. The aim is to accelerate up to 300 startups from Pakistani universities, and Plug and Play plans hubs in Islamabad and Karachi.
Ayub Ghauri, president of NIC Lahore, told TechJuice the Silicon Valley push is about belief and empowerment, and not funding alone. Muhammad Bilal Abbasi, chief executive of Ignite, called the pipeline a proud moment.
Reported from coverage in TechJuice and Digital Pakistan.
