Looking for the Right Networking Opportunity? This Event Has All the Answers The Local Startup Meet (LSM) is one of IIT Kharagpur's flagship events.

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In the world of entrepreneurship, networking plays an important role. Start-up founders are always on the lookout of finding the right connects for funds, mentorship and market access. In this scenario, events play an important role as they work as a platform for investors, mentors and entrepreneurs to meet. But how does an entrepreneur identify the right event?

The entrepreneurship cell at IIT Kharagpur comes to the rescue of entrepreneurs. The non-profit student organization was established with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India and is today one of the most successful entrepreneurial organizations in the country with over 50 startups incubated within 10 years of inception.

They are organizing The Local Startup Meet (LSM), as one of their flagship events. With a view of addressing the primary problems of an early stage startup, the LSM will be conducted in major Tier I cities of India v.i.z Hyderabad, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune.

What Really is LSM?

The Local Startup Meet will be a well curated, invite-only event consisting of eminent angel investors, venture capitalists, influencers along with the early stage startups and a few Alpha stage incubated startups. LSM will be conducted in association with ecosystem partners like Axilor Ventures, Omnivore Partners, GHV Accelerator, Cowrks and many more. The main agenda of the event would be to come up with constructive and practical solutions which could be implemented with ease.

This year the esteemed presence of eminent personalities like Sanjay Enishetty(CEO – 50k Ventures), P S Sreekanth (Investment Director-Hyderabad Angels), Premanshu singh (CEO-Coverfox), Murali Krishna(Investment Manager-Parampara Capital), Uday Reddy (CEO – YuppTV) etc would provide a vision to the start-ups en route to success. Start-ups would get an opportunity to connect with the Venture Capital firms, and would also get an exposure to the start-up communities in their region.

What an Entrepreneur Can Take Home From LSM

The Local Startup Meet would be methodically structured- consisting of a Networking Session, Pitching Session for selected start-ups from Products and Services Track, a Panel Discussion on "Raising Early Stage Venture Capital' and the Lean Startup Drive targeted towards the alpha-beta stage startups to familiarize them with the concept of going lean to understand the rapidly evolving market needs.

If you are an early stage startup that is on the lookout of funds, mentoring and ecosystem support, log on and register at ead.ecell-iitkgp.org/comingsoon. The event is also open for individuals who are currently working on their Alpha product in the respective cities.

There's More in Store

Along with The Local Startup Meet, Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive, one of the major flagship PAN- India initiatives of Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur would also take place in 16 cities to promote the entrepreneurial culture across India. With a participation of over 30,000 startup enthusiasts, the previous editions of the events have been a massive success. Log on to ead.ecell-iitkgp.org/comingsoon for more details.

The Local Startup Meet and Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive also coincide with the launch of their regular round registrations of theInternational Business Model Competition: Empresario. Empresario is their Annual Business Model competition where business ideas in all fields ranging from Product and Service to Social, get equal opportunity to win the prize and incubation opportunities to the tune of INR 2.5 crore. The prizes and services for the winners as per the last year are worth 25 lakhs INR.

This year, Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur is organizing the Empresario 2019 in association with International Business Model Competition (IBMC). The best entries will get an opportunity to participate directly in the quarter-final rounds of IBMC 2019, which will be conducted abroad. About 25% of the entries in our Business Model Competition- Empresario were from participants of EAD, which underlines the impact of this unique initiative towards motivating young minds towards entrepreneurial thought and action. To know more about empresario, log on to ecell-iitkgp.org/empresario.

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