Zone Startups India in Partnership with Startup India Launches Online Incubation to Promote Women Entrepreneurs (VIP-WE) in India

Zone Startups India (ZSI), in partnership with Startup India, has launched Virtual Incubation Program for Women Entrepreneurs (VIP-WE) to promote women entrepreneurship in the country.

Continuing the journey that was started over 4 years ago with empoWer (India’s first accelerator for women in Tech), VIP-WE is a sector agnostic program architected to support early-stage tech startups founded by women through a curated 10-week program. As the name suggests, VIP-WE is being delivered completely online.

VIP-WE will handhold and guide 20 early stage technology-based startups led by women entrepreneurs, who are preparing to build market traction for their products or services and scale their ventures. The highlight of the program is that the incubatees will not only go through an intensive period of curated learning and development but also get a mentor assigned who will provide personalised coaching basis the identified needs of the specific venture. Further, this will be a free of cost program for all incubatees.

Mr Hemant Gupta, Managing Director, Zone Startups India, said, “Zone Startups India has always focused on tech ventures which are innovative either in the idea, offering, approach or delivery and those that need guidance during their initial period of product development, go to market as well as growth phase. Entrepreneurship is a long and oftentimes lonely journey, and we want to by the partners that give the support that is required, when it is required. We have built a strong supportive network of mentors, coaches, corporates and investors for our startups. Promoting women entrepreneurship has always been our focus and we have been running the hugely successful ‘empoWer’ program for women entrepreneurs for the last 4 years.

We are delighted to join hands with Startup India, who has been doing path-breaking work in the areas of innovation and startup ecosystem enablement. Our virtual incubation program will allow mentors, business services providers, investors and corporate innovation departments to connect virtually to these startups. By creating a virtual platform to nurture women led startups we have expanded our reach to support women from even the hinterland of our country. Our program outreach will also cover the hinterland cities of India apart from metros. Catalysing tech innovations by enabling women founders to take their idea forward and make available to them a larger platform to find collaborators, customers and investors in order to succeed, is what we hope to deliver via our VIP-WE program.”

The program will include 80 hours of workshops & interactive sessions spread over 10 weeks delivered virtually. The unique curriculum developed by Zone Startups India includes diagnostic sessions & clinics, practical insights, topical business management techniques, business and revenue model validation and investor pitch training.

The program will kick-off with 100 Open Startups as the Global Strategic Partner with access to their extensive global ecosystem, Cisco Webex as the Technology Partner along with a host of investors as well as Business Support Services Partners in a collaborative effort to boost women entrepreneurship in India. And the program will end with a virtual Demo Day, where the startups will get a chance to pitch to a panel of angel/early-stage investors, accelerators as well as corporates.

Additionally, while all 20 startups qualify for Global Level 3 of 100 Open Startups Global Movement , the top 3 selected startups will qualify for Global Level 4 of the same challenge. Startups can also subscribe to cloud services, legal & financial and other business support services via credits and/or discounted offerings through this program.

Says Mr Varad Rajan Krishna, Founder and CEO, 100 Open Startups, “Under the present circumstances, the virtual or digital incubation and mentorship program is the best option. Women entrepreneurs face a lot of challenges worldwide. The reason 100 Open Startups partnered with Zone Startup India as their Global Strategic Partner is that women entrepreneurs worldwide and in India can add value and can also learn from each other. We would like to bring more visibility for the founders through various global events and initiatives thereby creating more opportunities for business and investments.”

For details on the program email to: abhishek.rotkar@brtsif.com

9 Startups Graduate From Zone Startups India’s empoWer Accelerator Program

• empoWer, India’s first tech accelerator for women entrepreneurs, hosted a Demo Day for its 4th Edition with a cohort of 9 startups 


• The 2019 cohort presented their startup pitches to an audience and jury consisting of investors, corporates, entrepreneurs, government partners and industry experts


• Top 3 startups received a total cash grant of INR 37.5 Lakhs


• One startup was selected for a one-week market access to Quebec.

Zone Startups India hosted the demo day of the 4th cohort of empoWer accelerator program, at the BSE International Convention Centre. The 4-week accelerator program culminated in top 9 women entrepreneurs from the cohort presenting their startups, with over 50+ leading industry players, successful entrepreneurs, top corporate professionals, delegates from the government, and prolific investors in attendance.

The 4th Edition of empoWer was launched on June 21, 2019, inviting applications from technology-led women-owned businesses in enterprise tech, social impact and consumer tech. This 2019 edition is sponsored by BSE CSR Integrated Foundation and launched in partnership with the Québec Government. Post the program announcement, roadshows were held across 4 cities in India with the final launch in Mumbai to pool in the best technology startups from diverse sectors.The roadshows attracted a total of 150+ attendees. With 270+ applicants received for the program, top 14 startups were selected for empoWer bootcamp. 

The 3-day bootcamp took place in September 2019, with focus on designing business model, pitch coaching sessions and peer to peer knowledge sharing. 9 women founders from the bootcamp were on-boarded as a part of the 4-week accelerator program.

The sectors ranged across logistics, healthcare, AgriTech, capacity building, virtual reality, FinTech, IoT, interior design, and crowdfunding. empoWer accelerator program took on a fresh approach this year by providing sector-specific connects locally with mentors, investors and corporates. They were also hosted for one-on-one meetings in Mumbai with the legal firm, Lexstart, and Finance & Accounting firm, Savage & Palmer. One-on-one investor meets were facilitated with Artha Fund Ventures, BayTree and Unicorn Ventures.

Says Hemant Gupta, MD, Zone Startups India – “This is the 4th edition of empoWer and we have leveraged the learnings from the past 3 editions to make it more impactful. We have a tight cohort of 9 startups that have undergone two rounds of screening. Rather than calling the startups to Mumbai multiple times, we have moved to a localised model of support, providing the startups the support/mentorship/connects they need in their cities’ of operation. However, the core of the program stays the same, we will be supporting and tracking these startups even after the Demo day and providing them the support they need to scale and succeed”.

The opening fireside chat at the empoWer Demo Day was delivered by Dharti Desai, Vice President - TiE New York and Vice-Chair TiE International Women and was moderated by Harshit Desai, Head - customer experience, strategic initiatives and digital, Aditya Birla Capital, with a focus on how startups can scale their startups to a global level with the role that communication plays in its success.

The fireside chat was followed by a high-profile panel discussion moderated by Rashmi Bansal, author, entrepreneur and a youth expert. The panelists included Akshay Soni, Managing Director - N/Core, Sharda Agarwal, co-Founder - Sepalika and Marketgate and Functional Nutrition Therapy Practitioner from the Nutrition Therapy Association, Hariharan Mahadevan, Senior Vice President and Head of Strategic Projects, Analytics, MIS and CSR at ICICI Securities, and Prachi Jain, Director at Achieving Women Entrepreneurs Funds. The talk addressed one of the major pain points in the ecosystem for women entrepreneurs i.e. Funding challenges.

Akshay Soni, Dharti Desai, Hariharan Mahadevan, Prachi Jain and Sharda Agarwal donned the jury hat to judge the 9 startups from the 2019 cohort that presented their startups. Pratyusha Pareddy, Co-founder of Nemo.Care, emerged as the winner of the empoWer cash grant of INR 18 lakhs. Nupur Gupta, Co-founder of NIRA and Monika Shukla, Co-founder of LetsEndorse, were announced as the first and second runner-ups respectively, with a cash grant of INR 12 lakhs for the 1st runner-up and INR 7.5 Lakhs for the 2nd runner-up. The cash grants were supported by BSE CSR Integrated Foundation.

Based on the international scalability potential, NemoCare was offered a one-week market access trip to Montreal by Government of Quebec, tentatively scheduled for May 2020.

Francis Paradis, Consul & Director of the Quebec Government Office in Mumbai shared a few words about the startup selection for the market access trip with empoWer. He says, “Use of smart technology in neonatal care helps to nurture a healthy generation. Who else but a woman can understand it better! Hence, Nemocare was an obvious choice of Quebec government as we give priority to diversity, women empowerment, health care and AI. We are delighted to see all these points converge in the winner of empower 2019 cohort who will be eligible for a Quebec market access trip in 2020."

The program participants had great things to share about empoWer. “empoWer is the push and conviction that every entrepreneur needs in their journey. The accelerator program opens doors to numerous industry experts relevant to your line of business. BECKFriends.com benefitted from the connects made with blockchain experts and international delegates for market access. And while the program ends, the network remains to be reached out for any advice or access needs. This has been a truly empowering and enriching 4 weeks!”, says Shikha Pandey Co-Founder, BECKFriends.com.

empoWer now has a cumulative cohort size of 79 women entrepreneurs, built over 4 cohorts. The empoWer cohort will receive year-long post-program support.

Zone Startups India Launches the 4th Edition of empoWer Women Tech Accelerator

Zone Startups India, India’s leading tech accelerator located at the iconic Bombay Stock Exchange building, launched empoWer’s 4th Edition in Mumbai. Zone Startups is an international brand of technology accelerators and early stage venture funds managed by Ryerson Futures Inc, Canada (part of Ryerson University Network). The flagship initiative that focuses on gender diversity, empoWer is tech accelerator program supporting startups run by women entrepreneurs through mentorship, industry connects, peer network and investor meets. Indian Clearing Corporation Limited (ICCL) a wholly owned subsidiary of BSE Ltd. (BSE) has joined in as the Industry Sponsor for the 4th Edition of the program.

empoWer 4th Edition was announced on June 21, 2019. Post the announcement, roadshows were held in 4 major cities across the country to evangelize the program and pool in various innovative startups for the program. Starting with Pune, the empoWer team travelled across Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi to meet women entrepreneurs in tech and held panel discussions with 12 panelists in these 4 cities, attracting a total number of 150+ attendees.

empoWer launched its 4th edition in Mumbai at Rise by Barclays coworking space. Startups, corporates, industry experts, investors were in attendance of the grand launch event with a total comprising of 70+ guests. The evening started with welcome remarks, as the audience was taken through the new format of empoWer’s edition. Tara Scheurwater, Senior Trade Commissioner, Consulate General of Canada delivered a keynote talk at the launch event. This was followed by an interactive and insightful panel discussion on ‘The technological curve: how it’s impacting the startup ecosystem in this age’. The panel comprised of -

• Paula Mariwala, Managing Director, Seedfund




• Lincy Therattil, Head - Rise Mumbai, Barclays




• Deval Sheth, Managing Director - India, Giesecke & Devrient MS India Pvt. Ltd.




• Abhishant Pant, Founder, The Fintech Meetup (Moderator)

The event ended with networking.

After a hugely successful 3rd Edition of empoWer for 30 women entrepreneurs in 2 track cohorts - Tech & Impact Tech space, empoWer 4th Edition has been launched for 15 women entrepreneurs focused on Consumer Tech, Enterprise Tech & Impact Tech. The new edition has been designed to take 15 entrepreneurs through a 3-day bootcamp commencing on 22nd August, followed by 10 startups from the bootcamp that will be selected for a 4-week accelerator program. INR 37.5 Lakhs cash grants will be given to selected women entrepreneurs as takeaways, on the empoWer 4th Edition Demo Day.

Says, Shreya Agarwal, Program Manager, empoWer - “Following the huge success of the previous empoWer Editions from the last 3 years, we are very keen to explore and work with the new set of high potential tech startups in our 4th Edition cohort and help them scale up and grow through the program. With a flourishing startup ecosystem, we are seeing women entrepreneurs break barriers and carve a path for themselves. It makes us proud to be a part of their journey, to create the stepping stones that empower these women leaders."

Over the past 3 years, empoWer have disbursed INR 2.1 Cr in grants and have welcomed 65 women entrepreneurs to be a part of 4 cohorts, and 1 bootcamp. A large majority of startups from these have raised further funding amounting to a cumulative of ~ INR 32 Crores.

Looking back, empoWer has accelerated startups to quite a few success stories ranging from fundraising to various awards and recognitions. Last year, Math Adventures, the math learning platform from empoWer 2016 Edition, got acquired by Edtech platform BYJU’S. The vernacular language-based technical learning platform from the previous empoWer cohort, Guvi raised INR 1 Crore from US-based Gray Matters Capital earlier this year.

Vartika Manasvi, Founder & CEO, StackRaft Inc. from empoWer 3rd Edition cohort and the winner of a seed fund grant of INR 5 lakhs each, talks about her experience of empoWer. She says, “My company StackRaft, was one among the cohort of 30 founders that included a mother of a newborn, recent graduate, ex-banker and many such amazing woman entrepreneurs. We discussed struggles over countless cups of coffee, shared resources and emerged as friends to back on even today. Zone Startups was meticulous in matching every startup's independent challenges with Industry experts for private 1:1 feedback's. I loved that our class was small, it gave us more time with mentors and get challenged for our assumptions. I will recommend empoWer program to any woman entrepreneur committed to building a technology business. This is the most powerful, collaborative, thoughtful and well-planned acceleration program for women entrepreneurs in India."

Applications are now being accepted for the bootcamp and accelerator program for a cohort comprising of 15 women entrepreneurs selected from a PAN-India application pool. The last date for application in 2nd August. An evaluation committee will be formed to evaluate the startups. This year’s cohort will be announced on 13th August.

18 Tech Women Entrepreneurs Bag Funding from empoWer

Zone Startups
India hosted the demo day of the 3^rd cohort of empoWer accelerator
program, on 29th March 2019 at the BSE International Convention Centre. The
demo day was attended by over 100 guests, that largely included the investor
community, industry leaders and large corporations. The grand Demo Day followed
a 6-month accelerator program, which connected these entrepreneurs to over 90+
mentors, including industry leaders and subject matter experts.

The 3^rd cohort of empoWer was
launched in September 2018, with a focus on technology-led women-owned
businesses in enterprise tech and social tech. 15 women founders were
on-boarded as a part of the 2 parallel tracks. 
This edition of empoWer is in partnership with Indian Clearing Corporation
Limited (ICCL), a wholly owned subsidiary of BSE Ltd. (BSE), as the lead
Industry Sponsor and Department of Science and Technology (GoI), Government of
Quebec, Concordia University, La Coop fédérée, Caisse de dépôt et placement du
Québec and Amazon Launchpad,  as
Supporting Partners.

The launch was a part of a full-day
conference that was presided by 25+ women leaders from the industry. This was
followed by multi-city roadshows at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Pune, and
an online application campaign that brought in 285 applications from diverse
domains – ranging across financial services, media, smart cities, healthcare,
education, agriculture and retail to name a few. The program focused on technology areas such as Deep Tech, Artificial Intelligence,
Machine Learning, Enterprise Mobility, Search & Feedback Engines,
Enterprise Software; making it is a very interesting mix of tech applications.

Says Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director
(India), Zone Startups – “This was a new experience for us, to manage 2
parallel cohorts under empoWer. The nature of startups is to be iterative, and
we at Zone Startups India consider ourselves to be one. After the first 2
cohorts, we realized the need to split up enterprise tech and social tech as
separate themes; as the nature of support and program required is different.
One the feedback we got over the past 2 years, was a request from entrepreneurs
who missed out due to smaller cohort size, asking if we would think of
expanding the same. This year, with the funding availability it gave us the
bandwidth to so. We are extremely delighted by the composition of the cohorts
and the kind of companies that are being built. We look forward to greater
success with empoWer and enabling more women entrepreneurs in India”.

The opening Keynote at the empoWer Demo
Day was delivered by Apurva Purohit, President - Jagran Prakashan Ltd., and she
touched upon an empowering message to our women leading the way in today’s
startup ecosystem

The keynote address was followed by a high
profile panel discussion on whether gender inclusion is the key to boosting
innovation in entrepreneurial ecosystem. The panel was made up of
representatives from a diverse background, and comprised of Deepali Naair,
Director - Marketing (India & South Asia), IBM, Anjalli Ravi Kumar, Social
Mission Director, Unilever and Shweta 
Aprameya, Co-founder HAPPY & Founder AU
Welfare Foundation. The session was moderated by Kritika Saxena, Chief
of Bureau- Mumbai and South, CNBC-TV18.

After much deliberation, the jury of
investors and tech leaders awarded the top 18 women-led startups with an equity
free seed funding of INR 5 lakhs each, based on the strength of their business
model, their team, their market viability and their products/services. The seed
funds were supported by BSE CSR Foundation.

The grantees were:

- A. Soumya Rao, Founder,  UpSoil Technologies

- Gayatri Mathkar, Co-founder, Skygge

- Gitanjali Banerjee, Founder, Fertility
Dost

- Kajal Gohil, Co-founder, ARKidzoo

- Manasi Kulkarni, Co-founder, Innoweave
Biocare

- Poonam Choudhary, Co-founder, Vendaxo

- Poonam Gupta, Founder, WeeSure

- Prajakta Kuwalekar, Founder,
EngenderedCo

- Pritha Datta, Founder, Econolytics

- Richa Sethi, Co-founder, GetLitt!

- Ridhima Gauba, Co-founder - Interview
Air

- Romita Ghosh, Founder, MedSamaan

- Sailaja Nori, COO, Traxion LLP

- Shilpa Malik, Founder, Bioscan Research

- Sonam Motwani, Founder, Karkhana.io

- Sridevi Arunprakash, Co-founder, GUVI

- Surabhi Srivastava, Co-founder,
Innovision Tech

- Vartika Manasvi, Founder, StackRaft

The grant awards were followed by several
category takeaways by the partners.

2. Based on the international scalability
potential, seven startups were offered a 1-week market access trip to Montreal
by Government of Quebec:

- Kajal Gohil, Co-founder, ARKidzoo

- Keerti Singh, Co-founder, Hitwicket

- Poonam Choudhary, Co-founder, Vendaxo

- Poonam Gupta, Founder, WeeSure

- Prajakta Kuwalekar, Founder,
EngenderedCo

- Pritha Datta, Founder, Econolytics

- Shilpa Malik, Founder, Bioscan Research

Dominic Marcotte, Consul, and Director of
the Quebec Government Office in Mumbai is very happy with this partnership. He
says, “It is a matter of great pride for the Government of Quebec to support
the empoWer program. Our partnership with Zone Startups India has flourished in
the second year with more partners from Quebec supporting the market access
trip. As a part of its international policy, Quebec supports diversity and
minorities. We believe that enabling women to become successful entrepreneurs
is the best means of empowerment.”

Sravani Chandramukhi Cheemala, Co-founder,
Mirsae was offered to join the Amazon Launchpad Program.

The program received amazing
positive feedback from its participants. “Being a part of empoWer has been an
extremely enriching experience. As an entrepreneur, you are always looking to
meet people who can mentor, partner, share and do business with. In these 4
months of being associated with empoWer, I was able to meet a variety of such
people that have helped me and my business grow.”, says Pritha Datta,
Founder,  Econolytics.

empoWer now has a cumulative cohort size of 65 women
entrepreneurs, built over 3 cohorts. From the first 2 cohorts, a cumulative of
INR 60 Crores has been raised by Founders, and there have been 3 solid
acquisitions. empoWer is at the forefront of being the go-to platform for women
entrepreneurs that are looking to accelerate their ventures, and Zone Startups
India is gung-ho about launching newer initiatives under this banner.

Zone Startups India Announces 30 Women Entrepreneurs for the 3rd Cohort of empoWer

Zone Startups India’s flagship initiative for women entrepreneurs, empoWer, announced two tracks in Tech and Tech for Social Impact as part of its 3rd edition this year. empoWer, India’s first tech accelerator for women entrepreneurs was launched in April 2016, and has since grown tremendously with 2 successful editions, many of its cohort members going on to achieve various accolades in their business. Over the past 2 editions, 35 women entrepreneurs have been a part of 2 cohorts, and 1 bootcamp and the program has disbursed INR 1.2 Cr in grants. Post program, a large majority of startups have raised further funding amounting a cumulative of INR 35 Crores.

Zone Startups empoWer 2018 3rd cohort

Zone Startups is international brand of technology accelerators and early stage venture funds managed by Ryerson Futures Inc, Canada (part of Ryerson University Network). In 2014, Zone Startups in India was launched its accelerator program based out of iconic Bombay Stock Exchange building in partnership between Ryerson Futures, BSE Institute and Simon Fraser University- Vancouver. Since then, the program has launched many initiatives to support startups from different sectors and geographies. Empower is one of the flagship initiatives which focuses on Gender diversity, supported women led startups in technology space. The past editions of empoWer was supported by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India & leading corporates - HDFC, Vodafone, Capital First, PayU, ICICI Bank, Microsoft, Amazon Launchpad etc.

empoWer 2018 was announced on 28th September with with BSE CSR Integrated Foundation and ICCL as the industry sponsor and Department of Science and Technology (Government of India), Government of Quebec, Canada, and Amazon Launchpad as supporting partners of the program. Post the announcement, roadshows were held in 6 major cities across the country to evangelize the program and pool in various innovative startups for both the tracks - Tech and Tech for Social Impact.

Says, Ms. Devika Shah, MD & CEO of ICCL, “There is a need to create an ecosystem to encourage entrepreneurship so that we have more job creators and not job seekers in the technology space in our country. Also currently the percentage of women tech entrepreneurs is very low. However, I believe there are plenty of women working hard to buck the trend and we need to support, encourage and enable them to do so".

Says, Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director (India), Zone Startups - "When we were starting out in 2016, empoWer was an experiment to gauge the need of a program focussed on women entrepreneurs. Being able to attract such number of applications over the years, is a validation for us; and more importantly showcases the increasing number of women entrepreneurs in the country. We have only 32% repeat applications over the previous year. This year we have spun off a parallel track, so that we are able to accommodate a higher number of women entrepreneurs leveraging tech for social good. We aim to expand the program year on year. Congrats to selected 30 entrepreneurs. We look forward to creating many more success stories".

empoWer received an immense response from over 285 women entrepreneurs from a Pan-India application pool. Zone Startups India formed an evaluation committee comprising of 10 industry experts, to evaluate and select the 30 startups to be a part of this year’s program. After a thorough and competitive selection process, involving application evaluation and personal interviews, the following 30 startup founders have been selected for the 6-week accelerator program. The program will comprise of mentoring sessions, workshops, industry connects, case studies, peer-to-peer sessions, investor connects and a bootcamp.

As part of the program, the top 3 women entrepreneurs from each track will receive an equity-free seed fund of INR 10 Lakhs. The top few startups of the program will also receive a 1-week market access trip to Quebec, Canada and Access to the Amazon Launchpad Program.

Cohort for the Technology for Business program:

1. Sailaja Nori - Traxion LLP


2. Sakshi Khanna - The Uncube


3. Khushboo Maheshwari - Kaarva


4. Chetana Pawar - Deazzle Services Pvt. Ltd.


5. Gayatri Mathkar - Envention Solutions


6. Vartika Manasvi – StackRaft


7. Vidhya Mattumel - Vahmine Technologies Pvt. Ltd.


8. Sonam Motwani – Kharkhana


9. Pritha Datta – Econolytics


10. Kajal Gohil – Arkidzoo


11. Keerti Singh – Hitwicket


12. Alisha Nanda – Hungerpacks


13. Tanvi Agarwal – Vendaxo


14. Sridevi Arunprakash – Guvi


15. Riddhima Gauba - Interview Air

Cohort for the Technology for Social Good program:

1. Meha Lahiri - Recity India Private Limited


2. Mrudula Kulkarni - iKnowlation Research Labs Pvt. Ltd.


3. Shilpa Malik - Bioscan Research


4. Nandita Yenagi - Adaptive Agritech Solutions Pvt. Ltd.


5. A SOUMYA RAO - Upsoil Technologies


6. Megha Rawat - Kurio Designs –


7. Poonam Gupta - Wee Sure


8. Prajakta Kuwalekar – Engendered


9. Richa Sethi - GetLitt! (Writer's Bug Learning Pvt. Ltd.)


10. Gitanjali Banerjee - Femtech Fertility Dost Pvt. Ltd.


11. Vanita Prasad - REVY Environmental Solutions


12. Romita Ghosh – MedSamaan


13. Manasi Kulkarni - Innoweave Biocare


14. Vidya T G – Whatsloan


15. Sravani Chandramukhi Cheemala - Mirsae

Zone Startups India Plans the 2nd Cohort of empoWer - India's Dedicated Accelerator Program for Women Tech Entrepreneurs

On account of International Women’s Day, Zone Startups India has announced that they will soon be launching the 2nd cohort of empoWer, with a few exciting industry partners. The 1st cohort of empoWer was hugely successful, with 15 women entrepreneurs selected from over 180 applications received from across India.

Says, Ajay Ramasubramaniam - Director, Zone Startups India, "Through our accelerator program, and various bootcamps, workshops, demo days hosted by us we realized the need for having a focused program that works with women entrepreneurs in tech businesses. The problems faced by a lot of women entrepreneurs is unique, and we feel that there is a case for having a dedicated accelerator program for women entrepreneurs - complete with mentoring, workshops, case studies of successful women led startups, industry connect, peer network and investor connect.”

empoWer is a 6-week accelerator program built on the basis of a primary research conducted by Zone Startups India, during its application process. The structure has been defined by the inputs generated from women entrepreneurs during this research.

 

A key supporter of the empoWer initiative is the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Says Dr. Anita Gupta, Associate Head - NSTEDB, "As a part of National initiatives on Start up India and Stand up India, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India is supporting '"empoWer ", which is designed to equip women entrepreneurs with knowledge, skills and networks required to navigate and scale up their startups."

Overall, the objective of the empoWer initiative program is to be able to identify some solid women entrepreneurs build great, fundable businesses.

Zone Startups India Announces Equivalent of Rs 60 Lakhs Seed Funding at a Grand Demo Day of “empoWer”

In April 2016, Zone Startups India announced “empoWer" - India's first technology accelerator program for women entrepreneurs, in partnership with Department of Science and Technology, Vodafone, Google and Nishith Desai Associates.

After multi-city roadshows and an online campaign to attract applications, the program received 181 applications from all over India. Says Ajay Ramasubramaniam, director, Zone Startups India "The number of applications exceeded our expectations. More so, the quality of applications was far superior than what we thought would come in. Having to select only 15 female founders from such a pool was a challenge but, it was a good challenge to have. The process validated our hypotheses of the need to have a program such as empoWer. A majority of the founders that applied felt that a structured program that offered a strong peer network, industry connects and access to mentors is what they were lacking".

During the 6-week program, the 15 founders got to interact with over 40 mentors, including industry leaders and subject matter experts; in addition to a few industry visits, such as a meeting with the Group CTO Office at Tata Sons.

Zone Startups India hosted the first empoWer accelerator demo day on 29th July, the demo day was hosted at the BSE International Convention Centre, and attended by close to 150 guests, which included the investor community and large corporates.

The main event of demo day, were the 15 startup pitches. The quality of startups and the problem that they were solving were all high quality. Each pitch seemingly the best, till the next pitch came up.

The pitches were followed by several prizes. Zone Startups India handed out equity free seed funding of INR 10 Lakhs, INR 7 Lakhs and INR 5 Lakhs to the top 3 Women founded startups, based on multiple evaluation criteria. The respective winners were Saral Designs, DAZL and Shubh Puja.

The cash prizes were sponsored by Department of Science and Technology, and Vodafone.

Additionally, GIZ handed out 3 prizes of INR 7 Lakhs each for covering partial cost of research and prototype development. The winners in this category were Algaari Systems, Math Adventures and Project Mudra.
Based on the international scalability potential, Cloudrino was offered a 2-week bespoke market access program at the DMZ, Canada's #1 technology business incubator.

Lastly, Delhi-based Vanity Cube, an on-demand beauty services marketplace won a £5,000 worth design and branding package from Dccper, a global design company.

The program had a keynote address by Vicki Saunders, Founder, SheEO - an international woman support organization. Vicki spoke about SheEO's model of "radical generosity", which brings a new paradigm to investing in women entrepreneurs. She said "globally, only 4% of all venture capital investments go to women entrepreneurs. SheEO is all about supporting women entrepreneurs with a new model and a new mindset for the world."

The program received positive feedback from its participants. "The last six weeks have been great. I've done an MBA. The empoWer program is an MBA for startups", says Saumya Vardhan, Founder & CEO, ShubhPuja.com.

Bhargavi S, Co-Founder, FinMitra added "Through program far exceeded my expectations. The quality of mentors has been amazing, as well as the session content. I've never worked out of a program like this, and never knew what I was missing - so many great people and connections and information".

Says Ajay Ramasubramaniam, "We now have a solid pilot or, a proof of concept to work with. We may perhaps do 2-3 cohorts such as this, per year. It was difficult to find sponsor partners first time around but, now we are confident of having several more partners for the next edition. We should be announcing something over the next few months".