![\"Lakshya](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/lakshya_gupta_1776133709417_1776133717121.png\" "\\"Lakshya")
Lakshya Gupta (L) is the founder of US-based startup Lab0, while Srikrishnan Ganesan (R) is the CEO of Rocketlane.<\/p>\nA startup founder has called out the CEO of a more established company after being debarred from their conference. Lakshya Gupta, the founder of Y Combinator-backed Lab0, was upset that he and his team were asked not to attend Propel, Rocketlane’s flagship event for professional services leaders that is set to take place in San Francisco next month.<\/p>\n
Lakshya Gupta (L) is the founder of US-based startup Lab0, while Srikrishnan Ganesan (R) is the CEO of Rocketlane.<\/p>\n
IIT Bombay alum Lakshya Gupta was so upset, in fact, that he took to social media to share a screenshot of the email that Rocketlane CEO Srikrishnan Ganesan sent him. The post has now been deleted.<\/p>\n
Why Rocketlane \u2018banned\u2019 Lab0<\/p>\n
In the email, Ganesan politely explained that Rocketlane could not have Lab0 at their conference as they are competitors who operate in the same space.<\/p>\n
Ganesan, who is based in the US and studied at IIM Bangalore, told Lab0 co-founders Lakshya Gupta and Sujay Srivastava that their tickets to Propel would be refunded.<\/p>\n
(Also read: Net worth of 5 Indian-origin CEOs leading multibillion-dollar US companies<\/a>)<\/p>\n “Hi Sujay and Lakshya, I hope you’re doing well. I wanted to reach out to you regarding Propel.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter an internal review, we’ve realised that we are unable to host you at Propel as Lab0 operates in a space that directly overlaps with Rocketlane’s offerings and would present a conflict of interest,\u201d wrote the CEO of Rocketlane \u2014 an Agentic PSA and customer onboarding platform.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve built this community and event with a lot of effort from our marketing team, so it would be hard to accommodate Labo this time,\u201d Ganesan elaborated, saying he wanted to be \u201ctransparent\u201d about the reason for rescinding the tickets.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do want to be transparent and let you know promptly, our team will refund your tickets.<\/p>\n \u201cWe appreciate your understanding and hope there are no hard feelings. Happy to meet 1:1 sometime.\u201d<\/p>\n The CEO of Rocketlane said he would be happy to meet them one-on-one at a later date.<\/p>\n Bad blood<\/p>\n Gupta shared a screenshot of the email on X, apparently miffed at being barred from the two-day event. <\/p>\n \u201cThe CEO of a $400M company just banned a pre-seed startup (us) from attending their conference as we supposedly “compete” with them,\u201d wrote the IITian startup founder.<\/p>\n He then tagged Ganesan and Rocketlane and wrote, \u201cnot cool\u201d. The post has now been deleted.<\/p>\n