The newest Hyderabad-based Progress Pacific Incubator to commence in November; applications are open
Launching a corporate incubator or accelerator is the latest ‘in’ thing across the globe. Tech and non-tech biggies are launching their accelerators left right center; Reliance with Microsoft, Nike+ Accelerator, Wells Fargo, and Target, to mention a few.
NASDAQ listed global software company, Progress, announced its plan to start a startup incubator in Hyderabad two weeks ago, and now application are being accepted.
The company statement said, “The Progress Pacific Incubator program aims to help early stage startups that are building business applications. Startups that are at the prototype stage of an idea can leverage the Progress Pacific and Progress Rollbase® solutions to gain significant productivity benefits and faster time-to-market for their business applications. The Progress Pacific Incubator program will provide work space for each startup and access to the Pacific platform to build their solutions.”
Ramesh Loganathan, VP of Progress Software and President of ITsAP, shared
with YourStory about what motivated the vision for the incubator? “The incubator is named ‘Progress Pacific Incubator’. The motivation for this is primarily driven by our existing outreach with the startup ecosystem in a few locations where we have engineering labs, including Hyderabad. And also by the compelling value our Pacific (cloud aPaaS) platform offers startups/ISVs building enterprise biz products and solutions. We believe such startups can build solutions with a small development team and can instead focus their limited resources on the market outreach efforts.”The engineering team from Progress will provide the cohorts with mentorship and access to market opportunities.
Adding value while taking no equity
Usually startups give up portion of their startup equity ranging from 2-6% when they are admitted to be accelerated. Ramesh says, “We will not be taking any equity for the cohort program. All we expect is they use our platform,”
Incubatees will avail working place that will be worth Rs 10,000 pm for each seat in exchange for no equity.
Regarding the unique value propositions for startups that will be incubated at Progress Pacific, Ramesh says, “The Pacific Incubator aims to help early stage startups build business solutions. These could be startups that have built at least the prototype of their idea, or those who already have a little customer traction. Progress Software will be actively engaged in reviewing and refining the startups’ product ideas by providing domain expertise, mentoring the startups, and providing access to markets—depending on the merit of the startups’ ideas. Any startup that builds business or domain solutions can benefit from the Pacific R&D model, which is SaaS and mobile-ready.”
The applications submission date
“This is a cohort program. First batch starts on November 1. Applications open (here). Any early stage startup that is in the prototyping stage can apply. They will need to look at our Pacific (Rollbase, Mobile and Modulus for node.js & MongoDB) and assess suitability to their product being built; as building the solution on Progress Pacific platform is a pre-requisite to join the incubator,” says Ramesh Loganathan.
Progress Pacific Incubator program plans to host about seven startups in its Hyderabad facility at iLabs. Eventually, they want to scale it to accommodate around 25 startups.
At present, the program solicits applications pan-India, but physically the startup will have to move to the incubator office at Hitech City, Hyderabad, for the six-month program.
Feature image source: atelier.net
