The mood in the Indian start-up ecosystem is bullish, the outlook positive. The reason, for that, is simple – Indian start-ups today are making businesses and professionals around the world stand up and take notice. Consider vPhrase Analytics Solutions Pvt. Ltd, for example.
An investee company of Venture Catalysts
, India’s first Seed Investment & Innovation platform, vPhrase was recently named amongst the top 100 innovators in the world by the Royal Academy of Engineering, London under its ‘Leaders in Innovation Fellowship’ for having built an artificial intelligence technologythat analyses data and communicates the insights in words.
But is vPhrase the only Indian start-up that has been creating major waves across the global economy owing to its disruptive approach toproblem solving and its innovation-centric, technology-heavy model?Not by a long shot. Several other Indian ventures such as Crayon Data and ClearTax have also gained international recognition; Crayon Data was declared the winner at TieCon 2014and was shortlisted among top 50 global finalists at Code_n (Code of the New) Awards at Europe's largest technology showcase,Cebit 2014, while ClearTax was selected for Y Combinator Summer batch of 2014 (YCS14) as one of 47 start-ups from across the world. Another technology start-up, Girnar Soft, which has leading auto portals such as CarDekho, BikeDekho, Zigwheels and Gaadi.com under its aegis,was also recently selected by Google Capital for a strategic investment.
Explaining the rising global outlook amongst Indian start-ups and their appeal to the global market, Dr.Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “Indian start-ups are evolving above and beyond a localised approach and are delivering solutions that can be applied to any and every global scenario. This is due to an increased need to add value anddeliver relevant business solutions that transcend geographies and economies, and is driven by a burgeoning of early stage support infrastructure that nurtures and develops promising start-ups within the country.Government initiatives such as Start Up India are also fostering a more conducive environment for budding start-ups and areencouraging more and more entrepreneurs to start their ventures.”
Dr. Sharma feels that this exposure to a global setting is something that will help Indian start-ups in realising their maximum potential, something that Neerav Parekh, Founder, vPhrase Analytics,agrees with. Neerav felt that while his start-up was already well on its way to achieve success and scale, the experience in London as a start-up selected for the ‘Leaders in Innovation Fellowship’with a focused period of training in the UK, access to expert mentors, and opportunities for international networking added great value to his venture.
“It was an honour to be selected forthe prestigious fellowship. The programme was meticulously structured to help start-ups at our stage. The training and guidance provided by industry experts and coaches was extremely useful. The network built with international peers and industry veterans was the icing on the cake,” Neerav said.
However,while Indian start-ups are gainingtraction with international players, the Indian early stage investment and supportindustry is not resting by idly. Dr. Sharma’s own initiative, Venture Catalysts, is actively providing start-ups with a one-stop, comprehensive platform to address all start-up requirements from funding, networking, technologyand office space.The aim, ultimately, is to raise the country’s innovation quotient.
“We, at Venture Catalysts, have always sought to support promising start-ups with innovative ideas. Several of our investee companies have already been lauded for their disruptive approaches that leverage technology to address existing market gaps. vPhrase’s recognition by the Royal Academy of Engineering is just another milestone in our journey. We are actively seeking out more promising ventures to invest in, as we look to nurture them into leading industry players not just in India, but on a global level,” adds Sharma.
In addition to vPhrase, VCats has made key investments in other promising start-ups such as ConfirmTkt and Siftr, with an average investment amount of $200k-250k per company. VCats has also tied up with Plug And Play, a leading global start-up accelerator, in order to grant its investee companies with access to state-of-the-art networking and technological capability. With such measures in place, Venture Catalysts is ensuring that Indian start-ups have all the tools required to achieve global recognition and scale.
About Venture Catalysts:
Venture Catalysts is India’s first Seed Investment & Innovation Platform which adds value to start-ups through its angel network, venture fund, co-working facility and effective post-investment support.
Founded by Dr.Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, former Executive Vice President at Venture Nursery, Mr.Gaurav Jain, (Former Venture Capitalist at GenNext Ventures, IIT Grad and an MBA from Stanford), Mr.Anuj Golecha (Angel Investor & Partner, Banshi Jain & Associates), Mr. Anil Jain (Co-founder, Wallfort Financial Services Ltd. One of the largest institutional broking firms of India) and Venture Catalysts brings lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed.
With an end-goal of disrupting the Seed Investment industry, VCats will be looking to integrate services to address the various start-up requirements on a single platform. The company is looking to have about 800-1000 active angels onboard its platform in the near future.
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