Kushagr Punyani

Kushagr Punyani is Chief Business Officer at SmiLe Venture Hub in Lund, one of Europe’s and of course Sweden’s leading life science incubators. SmiLe supports startups and corporates in building and scaling companies in diagnostics, medtech, and biotech, with a strong focus on regulated industries. At SmiLe, he works across external partnerships, open innovation, and venture support, and is directly involved in guiding selected medtech companies on strategy, commercialization, and scaling. He started his career as a researcher in medtech, before becoming an entrepreneur and building companies in biotech and diagnostics space. His work today focuses on bridging startups, corporates, and innovation ecosystems. In parallel, he contributes as an independent expert to European innovation programs including Horizon Europe and the EIC Accelerator.