How These Indian startups Nailed Google Launchpad Accelerator program These 6 startups will join mentorship program in Google Headquarters and also receive $50,000 in equity-free funding.
By Samiksha Jain •
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Google yesterday announced the second class of Indian startups that will join the Launchpad Accelerator program at Google Headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley, California.
The six nominees (Taskbob, Programming Hub, ShareChat, PlaySimple Games, MagicPin and RedCarpet) will join the second class on June 13, 2016.
The six-month long mentorship program for mid to late stage startups will include $50,000 in equity-free funding, a two-week all-expenses paid bootcamp at Google Headquarters, six months of ongoing mentorship and access to Google's full suite of Launchpad initiatives and connections and product credits including Google Cloud and other products.
Commenting on the recent development Paul Ravindranath, Program Manager, RedCarpet Google India, said "The Indian startup ecosystem is growing and maturing very fast, entrepreneurs are not shying away from the risks involved and are very eager to learn. Access to good mentoring and advice at early to mid- stage has been a big gap which we're looking to fill."
Adding further he said, "In our experience many startups struggle with UX, building scalable architectures and go to market strategy. Launchpad Accelerator Program brings together mentors and experts from within Google and external world to help these startups succeed. The first batch from India has benefitted a great deal and we are excited to on board the second batch from India."
These startups will join 18 other promising startups from Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico. The two week boot camp will start with by determining each startup's critical challenges, and then deploy precise mentorship, actionable solutions, and Google resources that enables their product/app to scale.
Amarendra Sahu Co-founder of Nestaway from India , who was part of the first batch from India, shared that, "If you believe you can build a world class product, the mentors will push you to bet on yourself. We have benefitted a great deal from this program and have just closed a $30M Series C, one of the largest investment rounds in India this year."
We at Entrepreneur India dig out more about these startups and find out that what made them qualified to the Google Launchpad Accelerator program.
1. Organizing the fragmented hyperlocal home services market:
Founded in November 2014, Taskbob.com, the brainchild of four IIT B alumni, was formed to organize the fragmented hyperlocal home services market using a simple mobile app. Since its inception, the company has established a strong presence in Mumbai. With the aim to expand to 3 more cities in the next 3 months, startup provides a range of home services like home cleaning, car spa, handymen services, drivers, appliance repair, maids on demand at just a click of a button.
2. Learning programming becomes easy with the help of this startup
Programming Hub enables its users to learn programming in the fastest way by referring readymade programs and theory created by programming experts.
Mumbai based startup provides an app to help learn more than 15 programming languages such as Python, Assembly, HTML, VB.NET, C, C++, C# (C Sharp), JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, R Programming, CSS, Java programming and much more!
3. Providing social networking chat platform in Indian languages
This Bangaluru-based startup provides a social networking chat platform in Indian languages. With ShareChat you can share videos, jokes, GIFs, audio songs and funny images in Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, and Malayalam.
4. Now get instant credit for online purchases
This Delhi based startup RedCarpet provides instant credit for online purchases. You can buy any product from any site and pay back in easy instalments
5. Building games become easier with this startup
Bangaluru based startup PlaySimple Games specialises in building simple and fun social games.
6. Helping users to discover local merchants
MagicPin, a Delhi based startup provides a platform for offline merchants in a locality and provides real time promotions, loyalty programs while helping users to discover local merchants and transact on the platform.
