NetApp’s accelerator progamme shifts focus to deeptech startups
NetApp's programme will now focus on GenAI and deeptech startups as it seeks to drive up its AI innovation quotient through engagement with these companies.
Enterprise data infrastructure company NetApp has pivoted towards deeptech startups for its accelerator programme, specifically into Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) entities, as it seeks innovative solutions from these emerging companies.
“Our (NetApp) charter is to become this intelligent data infrastructure company to support the new kind of workloads, so we wanted to invest more into these new startups,” said Vasanti Ramesh, Vice President & Engineering Head, NetApp India.
This pivot was made over the last 18 months and there have been other changes, which included inviting startups from countries outside of India as well as encouraging women-led entrepreneurs.
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NetApp has been running its startup accelerator programme for eight years, which has seen engagement with more than 90 tech startups. The startups have gone on to raise more than $350 million in funding.
This engagement was primarily driven by NetApp's need to increase its innovation quotient.
“We started learning a lot from these startups and found a lot of value in connecting our customers with them. Also, there was a lot of value in understanding what are some of the new business problems that are coming in,” Ramesh remarked.
At the same time, NetApp also provided wider customer connections, mentorship and the possibility of integrating the solutions developed by the startups into its array of products.
Ramesh says the focus is now on solving a technology problem through AI and GenAI, which finds application across industries. As an example, NetApp is engaged with a deeptech startup that has come out with a guardrail solution that acts against AI hallucination.
In addition, NetApp is now aiming at tangible outcomes in its engagement with the startups. These include developing a solution that can be integrated with its product portfolio, doing a proof of concept or coming out with a whitepaper.
The focus of NetApp’s accelerator programme on deeptech and GenAI startups is also playing well into its core business of enterprise storage. Ramesh remarked that the key driver for any GenAI company is based on data and a lot of transformation is happening at the storage level.
“The whole philosophy of NetApp is evolving to ensure that we give this intelligent infrastructure of storage on which one can compute directly,” she said.
The presence of startups outside of India provided a different perspective to NetApp’s accelerator programme. The cohort also has startups in the US.
“Each country has a different advancement in technology. They look at problem space in a very different way,” says Ramesh.
Besides, the global flavour also increases the competitiveness of the startups as they get to interact with each other.
NetApp also ensures that there is a deep alignment between them and the tech startup so that the relationship brings value to both parties.