Three startups incubated under National Incubation Center Hyderabad, Acetech, PodVare, and Esportra, ran their own stalls on Day 1 of ITCN Asia 2026 at Expo Centre Karachi, giving the ventures direct exposure to one of Pakistan’s largest national tech expos. For startups coming out of Hyderabad’s incubation ecosystem, a stall at an event of ITCN Asia’s scale offers a level of visibility that regional cities typically cannot match on their own, putting Acetech, PodVare, and Esportra in front of an audience of founders, investors, and industry professionals drawn from across the country.
Having a dedicated stall rather than simply attending as visitors allowed the three startups to engage directly with attendees, presenting their products and ideas to people who might otherwise never encounter a Hyderabad-based venture given how concentrated Pakistan’s startup attention tends to be around Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. That kind of direct product exposure matters more for early-stage companies than passive networking, since a stall gives visitors a concrete reason to stop and engage rather than relying on founders to initiate every conversation themselves throughout the day.
Beyond the three startups running stalls, NIC Hyderabad’s broader founder cohort used Day 1 to meet people across the industry, exchange ideas, and explore opportunities, treating the expo as a chance to build relationships that could pay off well beyond the event itself. For a regional incubation center, sending a larger group of founders to engage informally alongside the startups with dedicated stalls maximizes the value of a single trip to Karachi, since conversations started on the exhibition floor can lead to partnerships, customer introductions, or investor interest that would be harder to generate from Hyderabad alone.
With backing from the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication, Ignite National Technology Fund, PTCL, LMKT, and Tech Destination Pakistan, NIC Hyderabad’s presence at ITCN Asia reflects a deliberate strategy among regional incubators to actively insert their startups into national-level events rather than waiting for opportunities to come to them. For Acetech, PodVare, and Esportra, Day 1 offered a tangible first step toward the kind of broader market and investor visibility that startups outside Pakistan’s traditional tech hubs often have to work harder to secure.
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