About BYTE LIFE

Two founders. One campus counter. Forty small robots.

We built this for the version of you that's running on four hours of sleep, a deadline, and whatever the vending machine had left. Good food. Good energy. Better you — we mean that literally, not as a wall decal.

Founded by two women, on purpose

Meet Shilpa and Poornima

Two co-founders, one counter, and a shared conviction that everyday campus food deserves more care than it usually gets.

S

Shilpa

Co-founder

Wanted to be a journalist, ran a printing press, taught for two decades — and cooked for her family the whole way through. BYTE LIFE is the first time there is a queue.

P

Poornima

Co-founder

Three decades of corporate leadership, now building something of her own — the discipline of the boardroom brought to a campus food counter.

A printing press, a classroom, a kitchen

The long way round to a counter

Shilpa Adarsh wanted to be a journalist. She ended up working with ink of a different kind — spending her first years as an entrepreneur in Bangalore, running a medium-sized business under the umbrella of MSIL: a binding and printing press, making the books that other people filled with words.

The cooking ran underneath all of it. She experimented constantly, pulling flavours across Indian and Western kitchens to find out what happened when they met in the same pan. By the early nineties she was turning out pastries good enough to put in a shop window. There was no shop window. They went to the family, the way everything she made did.

Then came the decision a great many women are quietly expected to make, and she made it on her own terms: family first. For the last two decades she has taught — a tuition teacher with a generation of students passing through her front room, learning at the same table the food came out on.

For three decades, the best thing she made never left the house.

Both children are settled now — one training to be a doctor, the other a software engineer in the United States. The house is quieter. So she picked up the thing she had put down.

The shop window she never had

BYTE LIFE is the first time Shilpa's cooking has had a queue in front of it. Three decades of experimenting for an audience of one family, now pointed at a campus — and a campus, fed properly, is just a bigger family.

A new chapter. A passion. A purpose.

The story behind BYTE LIFE

Poornima Sunil Mogale, co-founder of BYTE LIFE, brings with her more than three decades of corporate experience, leadership, and a deep understanding of people, business and excellence.

After 30+ years in the corporate world, she chose to begin a new chapter — not because she had to, but because she wanted to. A chapter built around passion, purpose and the simple joy of creating something meaningful.

The idea behind BYTE LIFE was born from a belief that everyday food can be more than just convenient. It can be fresh, enjoyable, thoughtfully prepared and inspiring — especially for today's young generation.

With BYTE LIFE, Poornima brings together the discipline and experience of her corporate journey with her passion for food, people and entrepreneurship. Her vision is to create a vibrant food experience that feels contemporary, welcoming and relevant to campus life.

Experience creates confidence. Passion creates possibilities. And it is never too late to turn an idea close to your heart into something real.

From boardrooms to bytes

After years of building businesses, teams and careers in the corporate world, Poornima is now building something of her own — one thoughtful choice, one fresh idea and one memorable bite at a time.

Why a campus, why now

We weren't chasing a food trend. We were annoyed by a gap.

A campus with thousands of students building the next decade of software runs on instant noodles and vending-machine coffee. That gap is the whole business case. Not "healthy," not "wellness" — just fresh, fast, and worth queueing for between labs.

So we picked one counter, one campus, one mascot, and started there. PES University, RR Campus, Bangalore. Everything else — the app, the second branch, the merch — comes after this one works.

Women-led, unapologetically

Not a footnote. Just how it happened.

Two women started a food and beverage business from scratch, mascot and all. None of that needed a special explanation, so we're not going to write one — we're building a brand, and it happens to be led by two women who are good at building things.

What's next

One campus. One counter. Get that right first.

Find the counter →