Seeing the huge potential that the Indian tech Startup ecosystem holds, Europe's largest technology company, SAP has decided to double its startup intake for its accelerator programme, SAP StartUp Studio, in India from seven to 16 startups this year.

Founded in June, 2016, the 12 months long mentorship programme in Bangalore, allows the selected startups a full access to SAP's technology and customer base. In addition to this, they also get support and coaching from SAP to better their business model.

The Germany-based company believes that startups will be acting as a key enabler in riding the next wave of technology disruption in the industry. Not only this, the company predicts a time in the future where the companies might no longer own or subscribe but will favour paying per use.

The SAP StartUp Studio programme is a part of SAP's efforts in transforming itself into a cloud-based service company and stepping away from being a company dependent on costly licence fees and upfront installations.

"India is a growing market for startups. We are successful and start-ups are successful if we join forces," said Bernd Leukert, member of the Executive Board of SAP, in a statement to ET. He further added, "Once they have built software, then we have marketplace to place their products which makes our solutions better and richer. One plus one is more than two."

SAP, which is a market leader in enterprise application software, will help selected startups decompose their dedicated services, offer these services on a digital platform in the cloud and enable them to develop new solutions faster. With this, the company will get to be an integral part of their journey to success.

According to SAP, India is doing phenomenally well as a technology and innovation exporter to the world, and the only emerging country among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations that is growing at an impressive pace.

After the completion of the programme, the startups have an option of scaling up their businesses on their own or partnering with SAP for further expansion. They might even get acquired by SAP itself or any other company that might be interested in the venture.

In the past, SAP has acknowledged that it is looking forward to small acquisitions and partnerships with big industrial companies in order to prepare for new trends such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning etc.

In addition to the SAP StartUp Studio programme, the Germany-based company has contact with over 400 Indian startups through a number of other programmes. It is currently adding about 100 new startup engagements in India every year.

The company believes the accelerator programme along with its other funding and startup engagement programmes will help it tap into the technology rich talent in the Indian subcontinent.
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