Chiratae Ventures Launches Innovator's Program To Empower Homegrown Startups The Innovators Program is the longest running program in the country and over the previous six editions, Chiratae Ventures has partnered with 14 companies
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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Bengaluru-based venture capital firm Chiratae Ventures on Wednesday announced the launch of seventh edition of its Innovator's Program.
The program will include a 5-week foundational initiative for the final set of selected startups to empower seed and early-stage founders to enable their growth journey through mentorship, customer connects and access to capital in the core sectors of consumer tech, deep tech, healthtech, enterprise/software and fintech.
This program also acts as the beachhead for the seed and early-stage investment practice.
Since inception, Chiratae Ventures has invested over USD125 Million in 50 seed investments, including Uniphore, NestAway, PlaySimple, Rentomojo, Unbxd and CloudCherry (acquired by Cisco). These companies have raised over USD 500 million and are valued at over USD 1 billion collectively.
The program will host experts and founder mentors, tech experts and industry evangelists from across the Chiratae portfolio of companies, such as Lenskart, FirstCry, Cure.Fit, PolicyBazaar, Bounce and Uniphore to create a high-level learning and knowledge-sharing experience. With the impact of COVID-19, emergence of new business models and the push for digitization would help champion homegrown businesses.
Over the 5-week program, each week will have a specific theme focused on the key investment sectors of Chiratae Ventures. The program will focus on the key aspects involved in the growth of startups, such as market analysis, team building and culture, technology, product, market entry and expansion as well as fundraising.
Commenting on the launch, Sudhir Sethi, founder and chairman, Chiratae Ventures said "The Indian startup ecosystem has witnessed steady growth over the past few years but with the ongoing pandemic, the entire ecosystem has been challenged to innovate and overcome. This has given us an opportunity to support stellar entrepreneurs and founders who are building and solving for real world challenges using technology. With our program in its 7th edition, we aim to discover more innovative ideas and partner in their journey to scale up."
Through this program, the selected startups will also gain access to both local and global markets via Chiratae's corporate collaboration partners including Amazon AWS. In addition, the program will have leading global and Indian corporates as industry partners including Cisco, Sony Innovation Fund, Wipro Consumer Ventures, JSR Corporation (Japan).
Speaking on the launch, Karan Mohla, partner and head of consumer technology, Chiratae Ventures said "We understand the importance and role of community building and the support systems in the growth of startups. With the Innovators Program, we aim to create along-lasting and engaged community of founders where shared learning can be fostered. Our endeavor is to build this platform which goes beyond the duration of this cohort."
