Calling start-ups to showcase cutting-edge solutions in IoT, AI, Blockchain, AR/VR

With increasing globalization, evolving social fabric and increasing strain on environmental resources, innovation is an essential ingredient in the sustainable growth story of India. The startup and impact enterprise space in India is growing fast, with India ranking third in the number of startups only behind the US and Britain.

Venture funds, incubators, accelerators, corporates and relevant ecosystem players including the Government have been showing keen interest to encourage growth of startups. Among them, corporates have a large and unique role to play in ensuring a thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country however, it was observed that corporates make sporadic unilateral efforts to engage with incubators or enterprises with mixed results, on the other hand, incubators and enterprises are unable to access big corporates.

In this context, GIZ partnered with Bosch and Intellecap under the developPPP.de framework of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation & Development (BMZ), to initiate a Strategic Alliance on “Corporate engagement in start-up and social enterprise incubation in India” in April 2015 to create a sustainable mechanism for each of the stakeholders including corporates, incubators, accelerators and startups to come together and promote startup incubation.

If you have an innovative solution in IoT, AR/VR, AI, Automation or Blockchain across Agritech, Aerospace, Connected Mobility, Connected Industry 4.0, Digital Supply Chain, Water Management, or Waste Management, apply to demo at an exclusive showcase event.]

As part of the Strategic Alliance initiative, GIZ and their partners have conducted numerous activities to match make corporates and incubators and corporate and start-ups. One of the activities of the alliance includes identification and creation of partnerships between incubators and corporates as well as the provision of technical assistance and capacity building support to incubators to enable them to work more effectively with corporates. As part of this, the alliance has facilitated 17 partnerships between corporates and incubators providing mentoring, infrastructure support and expert advice to the incubators and respective incubatees. For instance, Marico Innovation Foundation partnered with A-Idea Naarm to support Agri-Udaan Accelerator; Capital First Limited tied up with Zone Startups to support the all women accelerator programme, Empower.

Another activity that alliance focuses on is conducting demo-days on a regular basis to enable start-ups to pitch and showcase their innovative products to corporates, VCs, angel investors, and accelerators. Till date, eight demo days/showcasing events have been conducted which facilitated multiple conversations between start-ups, corporates and investors.

This time again, GIZ along with Bosch, has partnered with Startup Tunnel to conduct the ninth showcase event in New Delhi on 10 October 2017. During the event, 10 start-ups will be given an opportunity to showcase their solutions they have built to deliver value across different industries.

So, if you are a start-up with an innovative solution in the areas of IoT, AR/VR, AI, Automation, or Blockchain and working in the following business sectors - Agritech, Aerospace, Connected Mobility, Connected Industry 4.0, Digital Supply Chain, Water Management, or Waste Management, here is a chance for you to showcase your innovative product/ solution to a room full of VCs, angel investors, accelerators, and global companies.

You can register for the showcase event here. Last date applications 27th September 2017. Just 10 slots available. Apply today.

The 10 selected startups will be notified no later than 04 October 2017. One participant each from the selected start-ups from outside the NCR region will be provided with return airfare. For any further information or questions about the showcase event, you may have, please write to Priyanka Kohli ([email protected]) or Priyanka Ahuja ([email protected]).