Entrepreneurism sounds quite fascinating in the initial stages; however, the road to becoming an entrepreneur is not everyone’s cup of tea. There come multiple hurdles and challenges on the way. And given these challenges, many such business-minded people lack guidance and assistance and also get confused about how to start on the journey to set up a company.
There the importance of incubators and accelerators comes in. The mentors of such programmes help budding entrepreneurs gain the know-how to form their startup ideas and convert them into reality. From the very first step of your startup journey, incubators and accelerators serve as a great platform to streamline your thoughts and plan the road ahead.
Basically, these accelerator programmes help the budding startups to reach the next level of development. From helping to furnishing the startup to garner funds for the business, accelerators/incubators help in every step of the journey.
In this article, we have listed seven down Indian accelerator programmes for startups:
- Supreme Incubator: Supreme Incubator is a seed-stage startup accelerator program that has been active in the entrepreneurial ecosystem for the past 2 years. With their last summer cohort, the program transitioned itself to a fully digital model. With a virtual program, the company has expanded the scope of support offered and startups incubated, especially in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities to get the same level of networking and support opportunities as their counterparts in metro cities get.
- India Accelerator: India Accelerator is again a seed-stage accelerator program that helps startups grow from GOOD to GREAT. It’s a structured program that can bring the building blocks for a startup under one roof – the much-needed mentorship, the network, the technology, the peripheral services, and last but not the least, the capital. It is the only GAN partnered, mentorship-driven, program in India. We only accept about 2% of the applications that come our way from startups.
- Electropreneur Park: Inaugurated and launched in 2016, the incubator Electropreneur Park (EP), Delhi, is managed by Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Its partners are Delhi University and India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA), to nurture ESDM (Electronics System Development and Maintenance) startups in India. EP has completed six batches of incubation, with 32 graduated startups, and an additional eight startups mentored in other programs.
- Startup India: Startup India promotes tech entrepreneurship through mentoring and funding. Since its launch in January 2016, the initiative has successfully incubated several startups. The program also provides a comprehensive four-week free online learning program with dedicated research parks, incubators, and startup centers across the country. A key feature of the initiative is the ‘Fund of Funds’ to help startups gain access to funding.
- SAP Labs: SAP Labs India launched its Startup Accelerator Program to drive entrepreneurship and tech development in India. Since its inception, SAP Labs India has already hosted startups like Niki.ai, logistics solutions provider Blubirch, Ecolibrium Energy, a provider of energy management solutions among others. In addition to this accelerator, SAP also has a 75 seat incubation lab, Startup Studio at the SAP Labs campus in Bengaluru, which nurtures early/disruptive stage tech big data and IoT startups.
- INVENT: Innovative Ventures and Technologies for Development (INVENT) is a joint collaboration of the Technology Development Board (TDB), Government of India, and the Department of International Development (DFID), Government of the United Kingdom. INVENT aims to make a positive social impact by providing incubation support to technology-oriented start-ups.
- NSRCEL by IIMB: With programs specifically catering to entrepreneurs with profit ventures and social ventures, also student and women entrepreneurs, NSRCEL offers its support to various players of the startup ecosystem. NSRCEL brings together startups, industry mentors, and eminent academicians from its parent institution Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and researchers who thrive on continuous interaction of theory and practice. NSRCEL is also the first incubator with a program tailored for social entrepreneurs and their unique challenges.
