September 10, 2020
Flipkart launched its new accelerator programme Flipkart Leap to aide fledging B2C and B2B start-ups.
With a Y-o-Y growth of 10-12% and 20,000 start-ups, India is now the world’s 2nd largest start-up ecosystem.
A 16-week virtual programme, it aims at nurturing new ideas and innovation to boost the government’s Start-Up India initiative.
Ease of doing business, domestic market size, skilled human resources, increase in telecom subscribers are key elements to promoting India as a start-up hub.
Flipkart on Monday announced the launch of Flipkart Leap, the company’s first start-up accelerator program with the aim to help new and upcoming start-ups grow, scale, navigate challenges, under which Flipkart Leap will identify B2C and B2B start-ups, and will conduct a 16-week virtual programme. Throughout the programme, Flipkart’s leadership from business, operations, product, and technology will mentor the selected start-ups. These selected start-ups include design & make in India, innovation in digital commerce, technologies to empower the retail ecosystem, supply chain management & logistics and enabling relevant deep tech applications.
CEO of Flipkart Group , Mr Kalyan Krishnamurthy stated “with innovations and disruptions in the field of technology coming about each day, we want to be at the forefront of driving scalability and helping these start-ups bring value to the industry as well as Indian consumers. Flipkart Leap is aimed at unlocking this potential and nurturing new ideas that bring innovation, curiosity, and unconventionality to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, while boosting the government’s Start-Up India’ initiative”.
With a Y-o-Y growth of 10-12% and 20,000 start-ups, India has evolved into the world’s 2nd largest start-up ecosystem. Now, a vibrant and mainstream economy, Indian start-ups are creating a plethora of job opportunities, solutions for consumer problems, and has become a major producer for the rest of the world. Some major factors that make India appealing as a start-up nation are cost of doing business, size of the domestic market, and skilled human capital. The widespread use of internet as India is the second largest consumer internet market in the world with over 500 million internet users also adds to the increase in number of start-ups. Incubators and accelerators play an important role in the growth of start-ups. They provide the start-ups with mentoring, ideation, technical support, and access to resources like networking events and support for fund raising. With one of the largest populations and consumer base in the world, India has the potential to be both producer and consumer in the start-up arena.