Venture Catalysts launches its incubation programme in Mumbai
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], (ANI): Venture Catalysts, a seed investment and innovation platform, has launched its incubator programme, Catalysts Lab, to fuel the entrepreneurial dreams of promising early-stage start-ups.
ANI
Jan 23, 2017 17:53 IST
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], (ANI): Venture Catalysts, a seed investment and innovation platform, has launched its incubator programme, Catalysts Lab, to fuel the entrepreneurial dreams of promising early-stage start-ups. The first batch of the structured mentorship initiative will commence in February, with VCats handpicking 20 start-ups for the three-month long programme here. Last date to apply for the programme is February 15, 2017. The Catalysts Lab's extensive focus is on providing business exposure, mentorship, and technological support. Selected start-ups will be given a chance to interact with Catalysts - seasoned angel investors, mentors, industry experts, and successful entrepreneurs - who will draw on their own in-depth experiences to provide relevant and insightful business advice to incubated ventures. This will help start-ups under the programme to build great products, launch their services in the market, refine their business approach, and boost their growth and scale. The Catalysts Lab also has a value-driven proposition and a diverse array of tech-based start-up solutions. The programme offers founders access to 24-hour co-working office space, cloud credits worth INR 1-2 lakh, and payment gateways and other tech tools worth an additional INR 1-2 lakh. Founders also get a chance to interact with 10-15 mentors, industry experts, angel investors, accelerators, and established entrepreneurs as well as 5-7 VCs, which gives them a chance to strengthen their business networks and opens up avenues for future investments. All this is made available to selected start-ups at a minimal cost of INR 23,000, without needing them to give up any equity. Speaking about the launch of the programme, Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts said, "Venture Catalysts was established with a vision of revitalising the early-stage start-up landscape in India and to identify and support highly disruptive ventures that have the potential to become global success stories. The launch of our incubator programme, Catalysts Lab, is another step towards fulfilling that vision. We are confident that our innovative approach to early-stage incubation will help many a budding venture realise their full potential and achieve great success." Catalysts Lab will also hold various sessions on de-risking start-ups and to help entrepreneurs focus on building sustainable businesses in order to present potential investors with an attractive investment proposition. Venture Catalysts has previously organised mentoring sessions and talks from successful investors and founders such as Tarun Davda (MD - Matrix Partners), Rehan Yar Khan (Partner -Orios Venture Partners), Punit Soni (ex-Google and ex-CPO - Flipkart) and Mitul Thakkar (Co-founder - Customer360). Sharma added, "Mentoring is an important part of any business journey, and with good reason. Getting advice and guidance from those who have already achieved success not only helps emerging entrepreneurs in avoiding common errors of judgement in business, but also allows them to build on the experiences of their mentors. That is why we have focussed rather extensively on roping in the most prominent names in the industry to aid start-ups incubated under the Catalysts Lab programme." The programme will be directed by Sharma. He also serves as a board member of reputed institutes like Jammu State University, Somaiya Incubator. Apart from being amongst the very few Indian professionals to hold a PhD in Incubation, he has managed Venture Nursery as well as the Western Region of Indian Angel Network (IAN). He has led and mentored more than 50 early-stage investments with an extremely successful track record, and has start-ups such as OYO Rooms, InvenZone, Talview, Circuit Sutra, Jigsee, Birds Eye, Webklipper, ConfirmTKT, Siftr, LenDenClub, Beardo, DSYH in his investee portfolio. (ANI)
Get the App
