India's Reliance Industries and US tech-giant Microsoft will tie up togather to incubate startups in India with seed capital, mentorship and technology infratructure and if sources are to be believed the incubation will be on scale never attempted before in India.
Reliance inudstries' Chairman Mukes Ambani is keen on working for startup ecosystem in India and boost its entrepreneural strategy for Indian entrepreneurs.
As per sources the Reilance-Microsoft start-up incubation model will be based on Y-Combinator, an American seed accelerator which provides seed money, advice, and connections at two three-month programs per year. In exchange, they take an average of about 6% of the start-up company's equity.
Microsoft already have Microsoft Ventures in India for startups to mentor and provide capital as well. Reliance on other hand will operate through Gennext Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm it set up in 2010. Till now Gennext Ventures has invested in two Indian startups - Mumbai-based enterprise software maker Covacsis and Kolkata-based Video surveillance firm Videonetics, the amount invested in both of these startups are undisclosed however.
Under this partnership, startups will be identified and mentorship and technology support will be provided by Microsoft and funded through RIL and there will be no limit on investments as at the seed stage. Microsoft India will provide ready access to its business units within India and overseas for piloting the incubatee companies' products and services.
Earlier RIL's retail wing had also announced that it is planning to enter e-commerce arena of India, the company is poised to launch multi-channel shopping in the this year.
Talking about the Reliance-Microsoft partnership and startup-model they wanted to replicate is Y-Combinator which would be tough in India as Y-combinator has advantage of being in proximity of Sillicon Valley and not to forget Y Combinator was named the top startup incubator and accelerator by Forbes. As of 2013, Y Combinator has funded over 500 companies in over 30 different markets. Replicatinng such kind of model could have been tough but will be beneficial for Indian startup ecosystem no matter at what scale it will get started.
Even Hyderabad has also claim to be bulding India' biggest incubation hub called T-Hub, the upcoming incubation hub will be the name of this new upcoming incubation centre to be developed in collaboration with International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad, Indian School of Business (ISB) and NALSAR University of Law.
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