Venture Catalysts-backed IncubateHub to replicate its open innovation success globally this year

Bengaluru-based open innovation platform IncubateHub is set to launch nine thematic demand-led programs for startups and corporates to co-create solutions and go-to-market strategies in partnership with early-stage investor Venture Catalysts and accelerator fund 9Unicorns. 

The platform has witnessed a 4x growth in the number of corporates, startups, and investors participating on its platform in 2021. Over one lakh corporate professionals, startups, and other ecosystem players used IncubateHub for various services, from using white-labelled portals for open innovation management to getting a group of dedicated analysts, community managers, and program managers to drive corporate accelerator programs.

Founded in 2016 by Rajiv Mukherjee, Uday Vipra, and Pradeep V, IncubateHub is akin to US-based innovation platform Plug and Play Tech Centre. The firm provides open innovation and corporate venturing management-as-a-service for corporate professionals, investors, and ecosystem players. It connects large corporates with a curated community of deeptech startups to help them create a proof of concept, accelerate solution development, drive digital transformation, and build capacity.

"Open innovation is the future. We are helping the ecosystem stakeholders to work on ideas, test, pivot, and launch products and services that are globally scalable. We want to be the largest such platform in the world," says Rajiv.

With just three corporate programs in 2016, IncubateHub has managed to execute over 480 open innovation programs with 76+ companies and conducted over 986+ paid pilot projects. In 2021, the platform onboarded 86 startup partners and helped them secure Rs 280 million of paid pilot projects, among which six have progressed to be long-term vendor contracts.

Last year IncubateHub launched Asia's first Enterprise SaaS platform for managing open innovation programs, global corporate programs for some marquee logos like Mondelez, P&G, Telstra in Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Egypt, Eastern Europe, LATAM, and North America.

 “The corporate innovation market is estimated at a little over $200 million and is expected to reach $750 million by 2023, growing at 27 percent CAGR. IncubateHub is well-positioned to capitalise on the immense potential in this sector,” adds Rajiv. 

Gaining popularity amongst corporates, open innovation enables access to the right talent, synergies between internal and external innovations, the potential employer branding opportunities, low costs of experimentation besides, increased competitive advantage and creation of new revenue streams.

Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts says, ‘’As a company, we have seen a rise of CVC especially in the Asian market which is a huge boost. IncubateHub will further establish and strengthen the position of startups, accelerate product development, expand its footprint with existing customers, and scale its go-to-market organisation.’’

IncubateHub launched four solutions for corporates last year for specific needs of corporate innovation teams to accelerate their build/co-create, rent/license, buy/invest decisions.

Experimentation, trendspotting, and building an innovation culture to Stay ahead of the curve

Offerings

1. Intrapreneurship program with employees

2. Crowdsourcing hackathon with employees, students and early-stage startups

3. Corporate Accelerator Programs with Startups

Build startup partnerships for transformation projects, joint GTM, investment mandates

Offerings

1. Pilot solution showcase by mature startups

2. Corporate venturing program

Building emerging technology talent pipeline

Offerings

1. Hiring hackathons with T-Schools

2. Hiring hackathons with B-Schools

3. Hiring hackathons with developers, professionals, and designers