Reliance Industries’ venture investment management arm, GenNext Ventures, on Friday signed a three-year partnership with Microsoft India through Microsoft Ventures in India to catalyse technology start-up ecosystem. The companies set up GenNext Innovation Hubs, a country-wide initiative.
The first hub is to start operations in October in Mumbai and will be replicated across multiple cities.
Addressing a press conference, R. A. Mashelkar, Chairman, GenNext Ventures, said, “Technology start-ups, which are a key source of innovation in India, are at an inflexion point today. While the numbers have grown exponentially year-on-year, the industry is at a nascent stage. While several initiatives are underway to help start-ups, what is lacking is a national platform that seamlessly brings together all stakeholders and also provides the resources Indian start-ups need to be successful.”
Microsoft Ventures will help GenNext identify and shortlist promising start-ups and power the four-month accelerator programme. It will also provide them access to software and technology advice. At the end of the accelerator programme, GenNext will invest strategically in some of these IT start-ups.
“The emerging trends in India’s technology start-up space are fascinating both in numbers and in diversity of ideas,” said Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India. “With this partnership, start-ups in India will have access to GenNext Ventures’ deep industry experience and Microsoft Ventures’ knowledge and IT industry network and strength.”
Without divulging the ticket-size of target start-ups, Mr. Pramanik said the venture planned to set up 7-8 accelerators in different cities but the locations were yet to be determined. Microsoft’s own accelerator programme in Bangalore in its last batch had received 1,300 applications of which 12 were accepted. “We want a scale larger than our Bangalore accelerator which in its four batches has seeded 51 start-ups. In the U.S. there are 60,000 start-ups per year while China has around 6,000 and India, a mere 1,000.”
John Kuruvilla, Managing Director, GenNext Ventures, said the company had done three investments to-date after having evaluated around 360. The Mumbai hub is receiving applications for the accelerator programme and the last date is September 25. The programme will commence on October 6 at Navi Mumbai. The Mumbai centre planned to have two batches in the next 12 months, he said.
