VentureNursery invites applications for third round of its startup acceleration program

VentureNursery, an angel-backed startup accelerator has announced the third round of its acceleration program starting from May 16, 2013 in Mumbai. They are looking for eight differentiated ideas from media and entertainment, retail, e-Commerce, consumer technology, education and cleanTech, who will be mentored and groomed by the team at VentureNursery.VentureNursery's first and second round acceleration programs received over 300 applicants from 27 cities. The current batch has four ideas -- Interview Master, KLIP, Smart Sample and The Venturator – who will graduate in mid April 2013.One of the portfolio companies at Venture Nursery, Oravel, an online value stays portal, secured the seed round funding from VentureNursery angels in September 2012.

Entrepreneurs whose start ups ideas have been in the making for 6 to 9 months can apply online till April 15, 2013. VentureNursery team will review and shortlist start-ups for personal interaction. VentureNursery shall induct up to eight start ups in the third round to be announced by mid-May 2013.

VentureNursery was set up by Shravan Sarnoff (who founded Fame Cinemas) and Ravi Kiran (Former CEO, South East and South Asia, Starcom MediaVest Group) in March, 2012. They were joined by ten individual angel investors and two Institutional investors as the country’s first charter angel group dedicated to an accelerator.

VentureNursery’s executive VP, Apoorv Ranjan Sharma says, “VentureNursery will offer a customised mentoring program, for up to 13 weeks. The program begins with identification of the key gaps and challenge areas in each participating start-up by the angels-in-residence." The challenge areas are then addressed through multiple mentoring sessions by an elite group of serial entrepreneurs, charter angels, VCs, technologists and senior corporate managers. The feedback given by each advisor and investor is then collated and incorporated into the business plan of the participating start-up.

On successful completion of the program, each start-up is given an opportunity to present its business idea to Charter Angels and Angels-in-Residence for feedback and potential seed-funding. VentureNursery continues to support start-ups even after the acceleration program is over.