About
To promote and support the arts across visual, performing and culinary disciplines in South Asia through festivals, grants, residencies and educational initiatives.
Serendipity Arts Foundation is a non-profit arts foundation founded by the industrialist and arts patron Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman of Hero Enterprise, to support and promote the arts across disciplines in South Asia. It is best known for the Serendipity Arts Festival, one of the largest multidisciplinary arts festivals in the region, held annually in Goa since 2016, which spans visual arts, performing arts, craft, culinary arts and more across many venues, each edition programmed by a fresh curatorial team of leading figures. Beyond the festival, the Foundation supports grants, residencies, education and outreach in the arts.
Founded around the launch of the Serendipity Arts Festival in 2016, the Foundation reflects Sunil Kant Munjal's conviction that the arts deserve as much attention as the economy. Under its aegis the Goa festival grew into a major event drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors, taking over heritage venues along the Mandovi and presenting scores of projects each year, while the Foundation broadened its work into year-round grants, residencies and educational programmes, and Munjal went on to develop further ambitious cultural projects, positioning Serendipity as one of the most significant new forces in Indian arts patronage.
Visit & Access
The flagship festival is free and open to the public across multiple venues in Panaji, Goa, each December.
Founding & Leadership
Sunil Kant Munjal, a leading industrialist of the Hero Group / Hero Enterprise, founded the Serendipity Arts Foundation in 2014 under the Serendipity Arts Munjal Initiative for Creativity. A committed arts patron - 'the arts need as much attention as the economy' - he conceived the festival as a place where visual arts, music, dance, theatre, craft, culinary arts and photography could meet in a single, welcoming, free-to-access platform.
Private patronage
A not-for-profit foundation led by a Director (Smriti Rajgarhia) under Founder-Patron Sunil Kant Munjal.
Leadership & Trustees
Initiatives & Portfolio
India's largest multidisciplinary arts festival, held in Panaji, Goa, with free public access across seven-plus disciplines; reached its 10th edition in December 2025.
Enduring Traditions, Folk Arts, Production Grant for Independent Musicians, Arts Journalism, Craft & Design/Architecture, and the Serendipity Arles Grant (with Rencontres d'Arles & IFI).
A three-month immersive residency for emerging practitioners at the Foundation's Defence Colony space, with an Open Studio showcase; plus the RCA x SAF Senior Artist Residency with the Royal College of Art, London.
A data-collection project documenting musicians' practices across India.
Year-round programming across ~10 Indian cities and international mini-editions (Birmingham, Dubai).
An arts library and public programming including Delhi Art Week and public-art commissions.
Cultural Funding
Cultural verticals
Impact & Metrics
Partnerships & Network
Partner institutions
Government partners
Funders & patrons
RCA x SAF Senior Artist Residency; Serendipity Arles Grant; City As Stage (British Council); SAF x Asia TOPA.
Credentials & Compliance
CSR-eligible · Schedule VII(v) - art & culture
A well-resourced not-for-profit foundation with a transparent public programme and named institutional partners. Specific 80G/12A/FCRA particulars are [Data Not Publicly Available]. Funding is concentrated in a single founding patron, which is a stability strength today but a continuity question for the long term.
Privately patronised by Sunil Kant Munjal; aligns with CSR Schedule VII(v) (promotion of art & culture) and partners with international cultural institutions.
Recognition
The Serendipity Arts Festival is widely described as India's / South Asia's largest multidisciplinary arts festival.
Serendipity Arts Foundation is one of the most significant contemporary patrons of the arts in India, notable for the large multidisciplinary Serendipity Arts Festival and for its year-round support of artists across disciplines.
[Atlas Perspective] Profiled as an Institution with the role of Funder in the Cultural Philanthropy field. The Foundation funds and organises the Serendipity Arts Festival and supports artists through grants and residencies, connecting it as a funder and organiser to festivals and artists across the Culture Atlas. It was founded by the patron Sunil Kant Munjal.