About
From being a kid who came last at every school sports event, Swathi Bhojaraj went on to win 18 national medals in fencing for Karnataka state. At 14, Swathi Bhojaraj knew exactly what she wanted: to represent India, and with that began an Olympic dream. Two years later, she wore the national colours as a fencer. The Olympic dream that followed did not unfold as she had hoped, but the belief behind it never disappeared. Years later, after graduating from NALSAR University of Law, one of the best law schools in the country, and building a career at Infosys Limited for almost a decades, negotiating complex global technology transactions, she moved to Spain, where she graduated as valedictorian from the Master's in Sports Management and Legal Skills with F.C. Barcelona at ISDE. She went on to work in the business of sport in Europe, including on emerging technology projects for LaLiga, one of the world’s leading professional men’s football leagues. Swathi found another way to channel that ambition. Having competed within the sporting ecosystem, she now set out to help reshape it.
That conviction became PropelAthon – Sports is Capability, founded in 2023 with a clear purpose: to bridge the gap between elite and grassroots sport and create a more accessible, equitable, inclusive and sustainable sporting ecosystem through technology. At its heart is a simple idea Swathi knows from experience: sport creates capability, but the systems supporting sport should enable that capability to travel further.
PropelAthon works at the intersection of sport, technology, capital and strategy, democratizing access to professional practices, sports management expertise and affordable technologies, particularly for grassroots and mid-tier sports organizations. But Swathi never intended it to become a consultancy that simply hands over recommendations. Its approach is deliberately hands-on: create alongside organizations, connect the right stakeholders and turn ideas into work on the ground.
Recent projects show what that philosophy looks like in action.
In 2026, PropelAthon was at the forefront of supporting India's capabilities in organizing a world-class continental sporting event, supporting the Fencing Association of India at the Asian Fencing Championships 2026 in Delhi, an event that brought Olympic and World Champions to India alongside leading Indian fencers. For Swathi, the project carried an unusually personal significance. She had once stood on the piste herself representing India and dreaming of the Olympics. Now, through PropelAthon, she was contributing to the ecosystem surrounding the sport that had shaped her life. One of the outcomes PropelAthon is proudest of is helping propel the championship's reach to more than 3.2 million people during the event.
The achievement also captures something important about PropelAthon's vision. Impact in sport is not only about what happens inside an arena. It is also about helping a sport reach new audiences, strengthening the organizations behind it and creating opportunities for athletes, technology providers, partners and communities to participate in its growth.
She believes that the Indian sports ecosystem, as it is today, is not capable of absorbing all the incredible sports technology solutions built within the country. It would require at least another five years to a decade for such adaptation. In the future, Indian sports should not be battling today's problems (lack of knowledge, affordable solutions, or reliance on imported technology), especially as a country that is technologically advanced. Therefore, it is important for PropelAthon to enable business opportunities for Indian sports technology companies so that they can sustain themselves today. In the future, when the Indian sports ecosystem is ready to adapt to technologies, they needn’t look elsewhere. PropelAthon is the only organization in India creating this today!
A recent example was its role in enabling a collaboration between Indian sports-tech company SportVot and TXIMIST Foundation around the Tximist Cup, a San Sebastián-based women's football tournament. Through the collaboration, the tournament's U15 and U17 women's competitions were livestreamed on TximistCup TV, extending access to a tournament whose previous editions have featured more than 200 leading football clubs from around the world. The latest competition included champions from the academies of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, some of the world’s leading football clubs.
For Swathi, however, building bridges internationally matters just as much as bringing global expertise and opportunity back to the grassroots.
PropelAthon also worked with TXIMIST Foundation and Rush Sports on a grassroots initiative for girls and young women in India. The project brought together football, education and community, translating an international collaboration into activity on the ground. Swathi has described it as a first-of-its-kind project for women's football in India, and sees it as a foundation for larger, more focused programs in the future.
These projects reveal the larger ambition behind PropelAthon. The company works with sports organizations on business and strategy, including opportunities across sponsorships, admissions, media rights, licensing, merchandising and ticketing. It helps sports-tech businesses enter new markets and connect with customers and stakeholders. Through its investment network, it seeks to connect sports properties and technology ventures with relevant capital and expertise. Its social-value work focuses on inclusion, equity, transformation and sustainability. The common thread is connection: connecting technology with sport, international expertise with local ecosystems, capital with opportunity, and professional practices with organizations that may otherwise struggle to access them.
PropelAthon's growing international exposure also includes participation in the International Olympic Committee's Olympism365 Innovation Hub Tech365 Explore Collective. Selected as one of 25 organizations from several thousand applications worldwide, PropelAthon has joined a community bringing together international sporting organizations, technology innovators and sports-business leaders to explore how technology can increase the positive impact of sport.
Behind this work is an unusual combination of lived and professional experience.
Swathi represented India in fencing and won 18 national medals for Karnataka. She later trained as a lawyer at NALSAR University of Law and built nearly seven years of experience at Infosys, where her work progressed into multi-million-dollar technology transactions, digital innovation deals, and marketing, sponsorship and licensing arrangements involving global sporting organizations. She subsequently pursued a Master's in Sports Management and Legal Skills with FC Barcelona at ISDE in Spain, before moving into sports business with StadioPlus, where she worked on partnership and sponsorship activations for LaLigaLand, LaLiga's metaverse ecosystem.
Those experiences matter not because they make an impressive chronology, but because PropelAthon draws from all of them. Swathi understands the athlete looking for opportunity because she has been one. She understands contracts and complex partnerships because she has negotiated them. She understands technology and international business from years inside a global technology company, and she understands the commercial realities of sport from working within the European sports ecosystem.
Today, she is bringing those worlds together.
For Swathi, “Sports is Capability” is therefore more than PropelAthon's identity. It reflects what sport gave her and what she now wants sporting systems to make possible for others. Whether that means taking Indian sports technology onto an international stage, bringing global organizations into grassroots projects in India, expanding the reach of fencing, or helping sporting organizations build stronger and more sustainable models, the ambition remains consistent.
Having represented India multiple times as a fencer, Swathi carried a bigger dream of competing at the Olympics. Today, her arena may have changed, but that ambition has evolved into a larger purpose: to help build the connections, systems and opportunities that can propel sport, and the people within it, much further.
- LinkedIn - Propelathon - Sports is Capability
- Instagram - propel_athon
