IIM-A, CIIE And SAP Labs To Replicate Gujarat Accelerator Success In Jaipur, Pune

IIM-A’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) and SAP Labs are now planning to replicate the success of their jointly set up Gujarat Accelerator in Jaipur and Pune.

Gujarat Accelerator, the first State-focused accelerator from CIIE, was set up last year. It aimed at mentoring and building capacities of at least 30 early-stage start-ups by 2017 with focus on social innovations, SAP Labs India Managing Director Dilipkumar Khandelwal said.

Applications were being invited for the next batch after Khandelwal reviewed the progress of the first batch with CIIE CEO Kunal Upadhyay.

The first batch had eight start-ups from Gujarat, with one, KiviHealth, a platform for doctors, managing to get funded too. It raised Rs 55 lakh, with CIIE too investing some amount. Another start-up, IndiaBizForSale.com, was in advanced talks for funding.

Gujarat Accelerator, the first State-focused accelerator from CIIE, was set up last year. It aimed at mentoring and building capacities of at least 30 early-stage start-ups by 2017 with focus on social innovations.

Prior to the association with SAP, CIIE accelerators had been sector-specific. SAP was brought in to help with industry connect and technical inputs.

According to Upadhyay, the partnership has facilitated CIIE to tap into SAP’s domain expertise in areas like IoT (Internet of Things), skill development, education and healthcare.

This would be the second venture for CIIE in Rajasthan after Startup Oasis, jointly set up with Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation in Jaipur. It had also launched its ICT vertical recently in Pune. Thus, expanding its activities in these two cities would be easy.

Meanwhile, SAP Labs, the R&D wing of German enterprise-software firm, proposes to enter into similar partnerships to incubate or accelerate start-ups with other premier academic institutions, including some of the IITs. SAP, completing 20 years in India, wants to dedicate the year to fostering entrepreneurship.

SAP Labs facility in Bengaluru would sometime soon host a Growth Camp for the start-ups that participated in Gujarat Accelerator.

While SAP and CIIE say the accelerator’s focus is on capacity building rather than procure funding for start-ups, several of the start-ups joined the programme with the expectation that the IIMA brand name would help them get investors or that along with the mentoring, the Management Institute would help them raise funds.

Yet there are others who had made major changes in their business strategy. Bhavin Bhagat of IndiaBizForSale says it helped in introducing value addition to his business. Earlier, only a listing platform that connects SMEs wanting to sell/exit their business with buyers, now it offers services including valuations.

Meanwhile, these feedback from start-ups would be taken up and the second edition of the programme would see some structural changes, according to CIIE sources.