Panasonic wants to co-create and co-prosper with Indian tech startups
The global technology company—which desires to build a long-term relationship with Indian tech startups—has ignited this journey with its first accelerator programme in the country.
Panasonic’s philosophy of co-creating and co-prospering has led the Japan-headquartered global tech firm to embark on a journey to build strong linkages with the startup ecosystem in India.
The corporate venture capital arm of Panasonic has been actively funding startups in geographies such as the United States, Europe and Japan. The company has now trained its focus on the Indian startup ecosystem in an endeavour to nurture and build innovative solutions in the country.
India has emerged as the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, and Panasonic wants to tap into this opportunity by providing technology as well as other frameworks to startups. At the same time, it also wants access to some of the innovative solutions built by Indian startups, which could potentially be part of its product portfolio.
Panasonic has had an informal engagement with Indian tech startups ever since it established its India Innovation Center in Bengaluru in 2017. This engagement is now formalised through its first accelerator programme ‘Ignition’ launched last year, as it seeks to nurture a long-term association with the startup community in the country.
Founded in 1918, Panasonic is more than a 100-year-old company offering a wide range of products and solutions–from ACs, microwaves, and washing machines to energy management, internet of things (IoT), and automotive solutions.
Globally, Panasonic is focused on the areas of food infrastructure, commercial infrastructure, lifestyle, wellness, and sustainability.
“Panasonic has a broad understanding of customers both from the B2B and B2C perspective, and startups have certain unique solutions. We are looking at how together we can solve the bigger problems in a much faster way,” Manish Misra, Chief Innovation Officer, Panasonic Life Solutions India, tells YourStory.
Investment philosophy
The corporate VC arm of Panasonic was established in 2022 with a total fund size of 8 billion yen ($55 million). It has already invested around 40% of the corpus in startups across Japan, the US, and Europe.
The remaining 60% is an opportunity for Indian startups, says Misra, adding, “We will not shy away from investing a good amount.”
Panasonic will look at investing in startups at the Series A stage of funding.
Focus on energy management
Panasonic’s first startup accelerator programme in India is centred around energy management. The company has partnered with Mumbai-headquartered early-stage venture capital firm 100X.VC on this programme.
Yagnesh Sanghrajka, Co-founder and CFO, 100X.VC says, “They were looking for early-stage tech startups, and such partnerships give a fillip to the whole startup ecosystem in India.”
The accelerator programme received entries from over 140 startups, of which 12 were shortlisted based on factors such as product innovation, founders’ quality, and alignment with Panasonic’s philosophy.
The shortlisted startups are , , , , , , , Carbon Minus, Nebeskie, Quebeq Venture, , and . These startups, which have built solutions in energy management, are focused on both the retail and commercial segments.
For instance, Zodhya, a startup founded by IIT Madras alumni, based out of Hyderabad, has developed plug-in AI devices that reduce energy bills and emissions. Living Things, a Mumbai-based startup, offers a smart IoT platform that enables businesses to optimise their air conditioning energy usage and enhance operational efficiency. Bengaluru-based tech startup Clarico has built an air filtration and energy optimisation platform for commercial buildings to maintain indoor air quality.
These startups have been engaged with Panasonic for the last 4-5 months.
Of the 12 startups in its first cohort, Panasonic will work directly with six startups. The top two startups will be open to potential investment opportunities, while the other four will collaborate with Panasonic on joint go-to-market strategies.
Nurturing an ecosystem
For Panasonic, its engagement with the ecosystem goes beyond investment—it will mentor the startups, help them fine-tune their solutions, and support their scaling and brand-building efforts. In short, it will provide everything it can to help them tap into the market opportunity.
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In the process, Panasonic plans to leverage its strengths, which it has nurtured over the last five decades ever since it entered India in 1972. The real thrust in India came in 1994 through the establishment of its subsidiary. Today, Panasonic has a wide spectrum of operations in the country with a huge network of 5,000 channel partners and over 25,000 system integrators.
“There is a hunger among startups to get a customer base, and when they associate with Panasonic the doors just open up,” remarks Misra.
The company’s India Innovation Centre of Panasonic in Bengaluru works on various technologies such as IoT, mobility, and artificial intelligence to create products and business lines for both the consumer and industrial sectors.
While it started out as a centre that contributed to the various products and solutions of Panasonic, it is now also engaged with startups.
Approach to startup engagement
The scope of the Indian startup ecosystem has been expanding as more established corporate firms are looking to engage with these young companies. While software-driven technology companies have been associated with Indian startups for a long time, traditional old-economy companies, such as Tata Steel, Pidilite and Marico Industries, are also jumping on the bandwagon.
Sanghrajka believes many Indian corporates are now keen to engage with the Indian startup ecosystem.
Panasonic’s approach to startup engagement, according to Misra, works in two ways.
One is the outside-in approach wherein startups engage with any of Panasonic’s business divisions to collaborate on developing a solution or integrate their solution with any of Panasonic’s products. However, these are still early days on this front.
The other is the inside-out approach. Under this, Panasonic provides startups that are struggling with ideas the requisite technology to experiment, productise and commercialise an idea–somewhat like an incubator programme.
Going forward, Panasonic plans to nurture more startup cohorts, with a new theme for each cohort.
“Startups have unique solutions that generally solve for one bolt in an engine. However, Panasonic looks at the challenges of the entire engine. Together (with different startups) we will look at bringing differentiated value to our customers,” remarks Misra.
Edited by Swetha Kannan