Press release Highlights
● The Innovators Program is the longest-running program in the country & over the past 6 editions, and Chiratae Ventures has partnered with 14 companies through the program.
● Since inception, Chiratae Ventures has made over 50 seed investments including companies such as Uniphore, NestAway, PlaySimple, Rentomojo, Unbxd, and CloudCherry; which collectively have raised over $500 Mn in the capital.
● This edition focuses on the core sectors – consumer tech, deep tech, health-tech, software, and fin-tech
● Chiratae’s goal has always been to empower homegrown startups and the Innovators Program is an initiative in this direction to empower seed & early-stage founders and address challenges faced by them
Bangalore, 30th September 2020: Chiratae Ventures, India’s leading Venture Capital fund today announced the launch of their 7th edition of the Innovator’s Program. This will include a 5-week foundational initiative for the final set of selected startups to empower seed & early-stage founders to enable their growth journey through mentorship, the customer connects, and access to capital.
The Innovators Program is the longest-running program in the country and over the past six editions of the program, Chiratae Ventures has partnered with 14 companies through the program and includes some of the pioneering names in technology. This program also acts as the beachhead for the seed and early-stage investment practice at Chiratae Ventures. Since inception, Chiratae Ventures has invested over $125 Mn in 50 seed investments including companies such as Uniphore, NestAway, PlaySimple, Rentomojo, Unbxd, and CloudCherry (acquired by Cisco). Collectively these companies have raised over $500Mn and are valued at over $1 Bn.
In the 7th edition of the Innovators Program, the focus is on companies solving real-world problems through technology across sectors like consumer tech, deep tech, health tech, enterprise/software tech, and fin-tech. The criteria for selection will be a market opportunity, team, innovation, scalability, and building a dominant brand in India with global relevance. The program will also invite experts and founders from across the Chiratae portfolio from companies such as Lenskart, FirstCry, Cure.Fit, PolicyBazaar, Bounce, Uniphore to name a few. With the COVID impact, the emergence of new business models, and the push for digitization now is the time to champion such homegrown businesses.
Commenting on the launch, Mr. Sudhir Sethi, Founder & Chairman, said “The Indian startup ecosystem has witnessed steady growth over the past few years but with the ongoing pandemic, the entire ecosystem has been challenged to innovate & overcome. This has given us an opportunity to support stellar entrepreneurs and founders who are building and solving real-world challenges using technology. With our program in its 7th edition, we aim to discover more innovative ideas and partners in their journey to scale up.”
Over the 5-week program, each week will have a specific theme focused on the key
investment sectors of Chiratae Ventures. The program will focus on the key aspects of the growth of startups including market analysis, team building, and culture, technology, product, market-entry, and expansion as well as fundraising. The program will also host founder mentors, tech experts, and industry evangelists to create a high-level learning and knowledge-sharing experience.
Through this program, the selected startups will also gain access to both local and global markets via Chiratae’s corporate collaboration partners including Amazon AWS. In addition, the program will have leading global and Indian corporates as Industry Partners including Cisco, Sony Innovation Fund, Wipro Consumer Ventures, JSR Corporation (Japan). Additional partners will also be announced in due course.
Speaking on the launch, Mr. Karan Mohla, Partner & Head of Consumer Technology said “We understand the importance and role of community building and the support systems in the growth of startups. With the Innovators Program, we aim to create a long-lasting and engaged community of founders where shared learning can be fostered. Our endeavor is to build this platform which goes beyond the duration of this cohort.”