Startup incubator WE HUB, on Wednesday announced the selection of 23 startups out of a total of 223 applications for the second cohort of its incubation programme. It is a comprehensive incubation programme for entrepreneurs from across the socio-economic strata, geographical borders and operational capacities. The new cohort of startups will receive the required support (Technical, Business, and Financial) and expert interventions to scale faster at no cost to the startup.
The startups for the second cohort are selected from more than 200 applications from across 15 cities in India, out of which majority were from Telangana, followed by Mumbai and Delhi NCR. One of the qualifying criteria for applying was for the startup to be woman led (should hold 51% stake in the company. The innovations should solve problems for industries such as FMCG, Manufacturing, Technology (Healthtech, Fintech, Edutech, and Deep Tech) and E-commerce. The second cohort commences in May 2020, which is a custom designed 10-month incubation programme based on the need of each startup.
Recognising the need to be engaged and enable entrepreneurs during the ongoing crisis, WE HUB conducted a virtual pitching session using “Octa”— A Virtual Platform for pitching by Radius, A WE HUB incubated startup. A three-day pitching session was scheduled for 20th, 21st and 22nd of April 2020, where the 63 shortlisted startups were categorised into six batches based on their sector, and each batch had a specific jury panel. The selection was done by an expert panel consisting of leaders from government, corporates (Intel, Microsoft, SalesForce), investors (Indian Angel Network, 50K Ventures, SucSeed Partners), academia and research incubators (AIC-CCMB, TEZ, Aidea-NAARM), industry organisations (FICCI, CII IWN).
WE HUB has structured the incubation programme to kick off virtually due to the COVID-19 crisis and then it would be a blend of physical and virtual incubation for all sets of entrepreneurs in this cohort, using Octa. It will provide assistance in the development of the startups for transforming their ideas into products, processes and services. The programme will offer not only management, administrative, legal and marketing support to the new cohort, but also technical support for developing their product and streamlining the technological innovation process in their businesses. The core intention of this virtual Incubation is to make it accessible for women entrepreneurs from across the country and support them seamlessly in their daily operations.
The shortlisted startups will receive access to industrial visits and international market access support through WE HUB’s partnerships with various corporates and international organisations, along with one-on-one interactions and need-based sessions for each of the startups. WE HUB will mutually set goals and will track the progress of each of the startups as well as the programme.
This year, WE HUB has onboarded more partners who will facilitate the strategic growth of startups. The programme partners are Microsoft, INTEL, SalesForce, P&G, e-commerce players, incubators like a-IDEA NAARM, AIC-CCMBC, KSUM, VC firms such as 50K ventures, international entities like UNIBF, USIBC, Parkurbis, Innosuisse. These partners bring in leading technologies in the fields of Technology, Customer Management, Finance, Internationalisation, Legal and Sales & Marketing.
Deepthi Ravula, the CEO of WE HUB, said, “The second cohort brings in a high quality of startups with great minds behind each team who have the potential to create a strong economy in India based on innovation. We witnessed several startups from the first cohort who scaled up exponentially through our programme. We have incorporated a lot of our learnings from our first cohort and also included our international partners for this cohort to enable startups to get in-depth knowledge of the customer needs, technological advances and market opportunities as they are building their products. We are excited and enthused to explore values of this tailor-made incubation programme not only to help startups sustain but also accelerate growth, during the global pandemic which has created a paradigm shift on how businesses and startups need to work across the world.”
Startups from the new cohort are StartoonLabs, Newsreach, Heamac, Designocare, Medsaaman, Macromoney, Architude, Hilo Design, Wudbux, Studio uniforms, Forward parcel, Futurestep, Cydee technologies, Blue, Yugenie, Dhairya, Hungerpacks, Backbenchers, Standwespeak, Clan earth, Sweet tooth, Pillplus and CIEL Dessert Bar.