Finalists of the Flipkart Leap program, including startups from retail tech, robotics, agri-tech and fintech space, showcased their offerings to potential investors and industry leadersApplications for Cohort 2 of the program to open soon
Bengaluru - July 08, 2021: Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, hosted a Demo Day for its first Cohort of flagship accelerator program - Flipkart Leap. Through this platform, the finalists of the program presented their ideas, which evolved over the course of the 16-week mentorship training, to potential investors and industry leaders. Flipkart's Demo Day saw 900+ attendees from across the globe including investors, industry leaders and varied talent from the startup ecosystem - making it one of the most successful ‘Demo Days’ in the country. The audience included attendees from 15+ countries across the United States, The UK, The UAE, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, among others.
The startups, shortlisted from close to a thousand applicants, comprised eight technology startups in sectors ranging from retail tech, robotics as well as those in agritech and fintech space. As part of the program, the startups were given access to world-class technical and business mentorship, tools, technology and business support services, as well as connect with the relevant investors in the industry. Each startup was mapped with senior leaders from Flipkart based on the industry in order to fulfil the gaps in the startups’ journey. In addition to this, Flipkart also partnered with leading technology companies such as Google and Microsoft to provide its cohort with ‘startup credits’ and relevant workshops that can boost their growth. The Demo Day now marks the beginning of their journey towards scaling their offerings and attracting potential investments.
Commenting on the occasion of the Demo Day for Cohort 1 of Flipkart Leap, Jeyandran Venugopal, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Flipkart said, "Flipkart is driven by a culture of innovation, and we believe in nurturing new, disruptive ideas that create value for the digital transformation of India. Tech innovation and digital transformation have become even more important in the last year. India has no dearth of good ideas; the challenge is to identify promising innovators, help them develop their ideas further, and give them a platform for presenting their ideas to potential investors. Our accelerator program is aimed at providing that platform to budding entrepreneurs. The first season has yielded some great insights and learnings, and we’re excited to see how we can further evolve this program to be even bigger and better, as we launch the second season."
As part of the Demo Day, Flipkart also hosted a panel discussion which saw participation from Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director, Sequoia India, Shanti Mohan, Founder, Let’s Venture and Mekin Maheshwari, Founder, Udhyam Learning, along with Aishwarya Kalakata, Product Innovation, Flipkart. The panel was on the theme of ‘How do we Strengthen and Grow a Holistic Startup Ecosystem’ and covered how the ecosystem plays a critical role to determine the success rate of Indian startups and in turn encourages young minds to take the path of entrepreneurship.
Technology and digital transformation have been the key themes throughout 2020 and 2021. Tech innovation and nurturing disruptive ideas will continue to be leading factors in the new normal. Being a homegrown platform, Flipkart - through its accelerator program, Flipkart Leap, is utilizing its reach to nurture and boost the ideas that have the potential to revolutionize the retail and technology space. Flipkart is already gearing up to invite the applications for its second cohort of the program and will soon be revealing the new program structure and offerings.
*Refer to the annexure for testimonials from the eight finalists of Cohort 1 of the Flipkart Leap program
The Flipkart Group is one of India's leading digital commerce entities and includes group companies Flipkart, Myntra, Flipkart Wholesale and Cleartrip. Started in 2007, Flipkart has enabled millions of consumers, sellers, merchants, and small businesses to be a part of India's e-commerce revolution, with a registered customer base of more than 350 million, offering over 150 million products across 80+ categories. Our efforts to democratize e-commerce in India, drive access and affordability, delight customers, create lakhs of jobs in the ecosystem and empower generations of entrepreneurs and MSMEs have inspired us to innovate on many industry firsts. The recent launch of Flipkart Wholesale, our new digital marketplace, is a testament to our commitment to accelerate the growth of kiranas and MSMEs in India. Flipkart is known for pioneering services such as Cash on Delivery, No Cost EMI and easy returns – customer-centric innovations that have made online shopping more accessible and affordable for millions of Indians. Together with Myntra, which holds a prominent position in the online fashion market, Flipkart Wholesale and Cleartrip, the Flipkart Group will continue to steer the transformation of commerce in India through technology.
Annexure
Vibhor Sahare, Founder, ANS CommerceWe benefited immensely from the various sessions that were organized as part of the Flipkart Leap program - especially for the supply chain sector. Flipkart is as big as it gets when it comes to e-commerce in India, and we got a peek into their e-commerce engine, which will go a long way in shaping our products and go-to-market strategy. We particularly enjoyed sessions with our mentors and fellow entrepreneurs.
Ranjan Kumar, Founder & CEO, Entropik
We are about a five-year-old company and about eighty members strong. One of the biggest takeaways for us as a part of this program is to be able to figure out scalable use cases within the consumer internet industry. We were in the space of emotional AI, so we always had the tech, but finding out use cases and validating them with the right mentors and business stakeholders was a great part of our journey with Flipkart Leap.
Shailendra Tiwari, Founder, Fasal
We landed up with Flipkart Leap when we were struggling with our hiring and other aspects. We have been able to make a lot of strides in that area through the program’s guidance. We had access to mentors who helped us understand our business and how we can navigate it better.
Pawan Gupta, Founder, Fashinza
Flipkart Leap was a great platform for us. We got access to top industry leaders across fashion brands and we could understand the direct problems that they are facing, especially with all the changes happening in the industry. This helped us structure our offering better and we have been able to gather a better understanding of the problems being faced by industry leaders and how to present our offering to them.
Ajay Nain, Founder, Gully Network
Master sessions on scaling, storytelling and product-market fit were really helpful. Validation of the business model is the key takeaway for us from the Flipkart Leap program. We also got to explore B2B synergies with the Flipkart Group which will be beneficial for our business growth.
Nikhil Mantha, Co-Founder, Piggy
It was great to be a part of the flagship accelerator program - Flipkart Leap. The program had the right balance of sessions with industry experts and mentoring sessions from Flipkart leadership with a focus on KPIs. These are going to be very helpful for us while scaling up. We are glad to see an established startup-like Flipkart contributing to the ecosystem by nurturing the growth of the next generation of startups like us.Adarsh Kumar, CEO & Co-Founder, TagBox
We found the Flipkart Leap program very exciting. We got to do a couple of interesting projects with Flipkart. In addition, we had a chance to talk to multiple teams across groups to evaluate different kinds of use cases for our product. The insights from industry leaders was an added benefit.
Pramod Ghadge, CEO, Unbox Robotics
The Flipkart Leap program not only supported us as we worked with the team to deploy our solutions but we could also do deep dives in areas right from hiring to international go-to-market strategy and fundraising. I believe the program will act as a strong platform for us as we scale our venture further.
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