Marico Innovation Foundation’s Scale-Up accelerator on track to produce six soonicorns

Marico Innovation Foundation—the CSR-arm of consumer goods company Marico—plans to accelerate six startups from its mentorship programme and help them achieve the soonicorn tag soon. 

The foundation’s Scale-Up acceleration programme, which offers bespoke mentorship to startups, has identified key areas of innovation across clean technology, plastic waste management, and agritech, in line with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Scale-Up programme connects selected startups in these sectors with expert mentors, helping them accelerate their business to the Rs 100-crore ARR (annual recurring revenue) mark at zero equity.

The programme was borne out of Marico Chairman Harsh Mariwala’s endeavour to give back to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Companies such as energy-efficient fan maker Atomberg Technologyand food preservation solution provider S4S Technologies have emerged from its programme, which have crossed the Rs 100-crore ARR mark and are currently in the soonicorn club.

The focus of the programme has been on innovation with a social, economic or environmental impact, says Suranjana Ghosh, Head of Marico Innovation Foundation in an interview to YourStory.

“Some of the key performance metrics we track are revenue growth, market reach, and choice of market,” she adds. 

Ghosh shares more about the Scale-Up programme and the success stories emerging from its year-round programme. 

Edited excerpts: 

YourStory (YS): Can you tell us more about how Marico Innovation Foundation came to be and how the idea for Scale-Up accelerator originated?

Suranjana Ghosh (SG): Marico Innovation Foundation was founded in 2003 when there was no structured ecosystem for innovation or entrepreneurship in India. Mr Mariwala was always keen to give back to early-stage innovators, as he himself gained a lot of value and wisdom from mentors in the early journey of Marico when the company bifurcated from Bombay Oil Mills. From his own experience with mentorship and an innovation perspective, he wanted to combine these two to see how he might be able to help other early-stage innovators. 

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Over the last 20-21 years, the organisation has tried different models to contribute to the innovator ecosystem. The core values have always been a focus on innovation with social, economic or environmental impact. 

YS: Can you elaborate the way the accelerator programme is structured?

SG: We are a CSR-funded organisation and we will find innovators who are creating impact. For about a year-and-a-half, we have been looking at things from an SDG (United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals) lens, and we have created three distinct verticals in our Scale-Up accelerator programme where we onboard startups. These are: clean tech, which is any innovation in the space of clean air, clean water, or carbon sequestration; the second is the plastic waste management vertical, including our recent circularity pilot; and the third one is agriculture. 

Agriculture as a vertical has been around for a while and we did an ‘Innovate to Cultivate’ challenge back in 2016. And leading on from there, we realised that there were a lot of innovators in the space who needed assistance and mentorship. 

YS: Can you tell us more about the cohort and the benchmark for onboarding startups?

SG: Our flagship programme runs all year around and has been in existence since 2018. It is a no-equity accelerator programme, and we offer bespoke one-on-one mentorship. There is no cohort per se, and it is extremely customised. It is a resource-heavy and time-intensive engagement.

We typically set ourselves a target of 6 to 10 startups to be onboarded every year, depending on the nature of handholding and from a bandwidth perspective. At any given point in time, we have 20 to 22 startups in our programme. 

The reason for the existence of this programme is that we help the startups in their journey to Rs 100-crore ARR (annual recurring revenue). It has taken us three to four years to assist two of our startups in reaching that mark. For reaching the revenue milestone, we currently have five to six startups in the fast lane. Our target is to have six soonicorns by 2026, and we are not too far away from that. 

In the past eight years, we have engaged with more than 30 startups, and they have done well with our strategic guidance. Some of the key performance metrics we track would be revenue growth, market reach, and choice of market—this helps us refine the approach to meet the startups’ needs. 

For example, S4S Technologies (a food-processing entity) scaled from Rs 60 lakh to Rs 100 crore in revenue after receiving our assistance. It reflects the effectiveness of our mentorship programme because we have different mentors coming in for each type of challenge, including those from Marico who do this pro bono as well as external mentors. 

YS: Is the programme location specific? 

SG: We are agnostic in terms of where the innovations are being worked on. We do manage a high degree of remote mentorship but the team also travels on a quarterly basis. The onboarding is done in person as is the due diligence—to see how the technology and output are bearing out. We manage a combination of hybrids.

Introduction to investors, market access, and unlocking finance happens all through the period. The introductory meeting that the startups have with Mr Mariwala is about him identifying who from his network we can facilitate a meeting with, for the startup. For example, if there is an ecofriendly fibre startup, we will galvanise our contacts in the garment industry to make introductions.

While we do not have any structured demo day or deal flow showcase, we are attempting for the first time to introduce our Scale-Up programme participants, along with the winners of our annual Innovation for India Awards to be held in April, to investors, grant-making organisations, CSR foundations, and others at the event. This is based on the recommendations we have received from the participants of our Scale-Up programme over the years. 

We have been awarding sector-agnostic innovations through the awards platform, which happens every two years, and the 10th edition is coming up. redBus and IndiGo which are household names now, were recognised through the awards way back. 

The copy was updated with infographics.