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New Post has been published on http://www.mouseworldnow.com/news/breaking-news/microsoft-ventures-in-india-announces-its-accelerator-programs-2014-summer-batch.html

Microsoft Ventures in India announces its accelerator Program's 2014 summer batch

Bangalore, India, February 11, 2014: Microsoft Ventures in India has announced the final list of technology startups that will constitute the 2014 summer batch at the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Program in India. The 16 startups are Appointy, App Virality, Bookpad, Boutline, Imly, InstaSafe, IntouchApp, Metaome, Sliderule, Voonik, MyBusTickets.in, Praxify, Thinxtream, Touchfone, ZingHR and Zoom. Six of these companies, namely MyBusTickets.in, Praxify, Thinxstream, Touchfone, ZingHR and Zoom, will constitute the newly launched Accelerator Plus Program, which is tailor made for startups that have customer traction and know their market fairly well, whose needs are vastly different from early stage companies.

Director Microsoft Ventures Ravi Narayan said, “The good thing about this batch is that most of these companies already have a certain amount of customer traction and the Accelerator Program is well positioned to step in and help them move ahead faster than they would have otherwise. We saw a lot of great applications this time around, which means the startup ecosystem is evolving rapidly.”

Explaining the rationale behind the Accelerator Plus Program, Narayan said, “This program is for more mature companies which are closer to VC funding. Most of them have made significant progress, so much so that the startup ecosystem is taking their eyes off them. But we at Microsoft Ventures feel this is the time they need the most help, when from an investor standpoint they are getting ready to graduate into the mainstream. Microsoft Ventures is uniquely positioned with resources to help these companies to roll out products and raise serious capital to fund their growth.”

Microsoft Ventures in India partners with industry bodies to support the startup community and widen its reach. Four startups from the latest batch– Bookpad, Praxify, Imly and Boutline – were selected at events organized by one of our industry partners, NASSCOM.

The other participants in the batch came through applications received over two months. All applicants went through a rigorous selection process, culminating in face-to-face presentations to a panel of judges.

Bharati Jacob, Founder-Partner at Seedfund, who was on the panel, said, “It was a great mix of startups – some solving local problems which had global sized opportunities while others were global in nature. Most of the startups came up with original ideas, i.e. they weren’t “copy+paste” of an overseas idea. All teams came with tremendous energy and passion for their idea, which bodes well for the Indian ecosystem.”

Microsoft Ventures in India has graduated 35 startups since August 2012. About 80 per cent of these are funded and two graduates, Adepto and Plustxt, have been acquired.

Vijay Anand, founder, The Startup Centre, said, “Microsoft Ventures is steadily emerging as a key player in the Indian startup ecosystem – working closely by pooling its resources with other accelerators, incubators and other industry bodies with the goal to help startups. The Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Program gives us great insight into young and high potential teams that are building products; raring to go compete in the global marketplace.”

New Post has been published on http://techinews.org/meet-16-startups-picked-microsoft-ventures-summer-acceleration-program/

Meet the 16 startups picked for Microsoft Ventures summer acceleration program

Microsoft Ventures India has announced the list of 16 startups for its summer batch of accelerator program for 2014. Of the total 16, six startups will constitute its newly-launched Accelerator Plus Program, which is tailor-made for startups that have customer traction and know their market fairly well, whose needs are vastly different from early stage companies. “The good thing about this batch is that most of these companies already have a certain amount of customer traction and the accelerator program is well positioned to step in and help them move ahead faster than they would have otherwise,” said Ravi Narayan, director at Microsoft Ventures. According to him, this program is for more mature companies which are closer to raising VC funding.

Here is a sneak peek at the summer batch of startups. Appointy: A scheduling software that helps businesses to schedule appointments, accept pre-payments, send reminder alerts, update social networks and personal calendars, create promotions, create discount coupons, manage and grow virally. App Virality: A solution that let one’s app go viral on social media, increase the number of app downloads, and identify top influencers and communicate with them.

Bookpad: Provides an enterprise product called docspad.com that enables customers to provide preview, edit and manage any documents on their cloud – right in their application user interface. Boutline: It lets one set up social tasks and challenges for an event audience and enables him/her to reward the audience for influencing the masses.

Imly: An online aggregator of home chefs. The portal is a full-fledged marketplace that currently offers 1,265 dishes from over 150 home chefs from 10 cities. InstaSafe: It aims to make it simple and safe for companies to securely access enterprise-provisioned on-premise applications, public and private clouds, from anywhere.

IntouchApp: Enables one to automatically view up-to-date information of his/her contacts on mobile as well as online. Metaome: A Big Data company for the life sciences space. Its flagship product, called DistilBio, combines graph search and data integration technologies to accelerate drug discovery by connecting across diverse data in life sciences.

SlideRule: An online learning solution that helps one discover the world’s best online courses in every subject. Voonik: A stylist-handpicked online fashion store. MyBusTickets.in: An online bus ticket booking platform. Praxify: An online healthcare venture for doctors, patients and hospitals.

Thinxtream: Provides DeviceMaestro Smart, an intelligent, secure and open machine-to-machine (M2M) application to enable organisations to implement their M2M strategy. Touchfone: Provides an instant messaging platform called Chat n Play. ZingHR: A HR management software for SMEs as well as large organisations.

Zoom: A membership-based, self-drive car rental service. Microsoft Ventures in India has mentored 35 startups since August 2012, of which about 80 per cent were funded while two – Adepto and Plustxt – got acquired.

Tags: App Virality, Appointy, Bookpad, Boutline, Imly, InstaSafe, IntouchApp, Metaome, Microsoft Ventures, MyBusTickets.in, Praxify, SlideRule, Thinxtream, Touchfone, Voonik, 

New Post has been published on http://www.mouseworldnow.com/news/breaking-news/four-indian-startups-raise-rs-10-lakhs-each-at-nasscom-event.html

Four Indian startups raise Rs. 10 lakhs each at Nasscom event

New Delhi, India, December 26, 2013: Nasscom has helped four start-ups raise funding of Rs 40 lakh as part of its programme to help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful businesses. Eight pre-revenue companies were shortlisted from the applications received for the 10,000 Start-ups programme, which pitched their business ideas to a panel comprising of 10 investors. Nasscom had started the 10,000 Start-ups program with the support of Google, Kotak, Microsoft and Verisign.

Nasscom said, “Four start ups are Boutline, Imly, Drawtime and Routo, raised Rs 10 lakh each as part of Nasscom’s on-the-spot funding event for pre-revenue companies.”

Boutline offers event audience engagement app, while Routo has a suite of location sharing apps for business listings and location tracking.

Drawtyme has a mobile video platform for teachers to share interactive videos with students and Imly offers a marketplace of homecooked delicacies.

Under the Smart Capital, Nasscom’s 10,000 Start-ups and Microsoft Venture with the support of Mumbai Angels have developed the on-the-spot funding model to help prototypes get the backing of angel investors who invest about Rs 5-10 lakh in them for the same percentage points of equity.

Under the format, very early stage startups pitch for about five minutes to a panel of investors and post the pitch, those who are interested pool together to pitch in Rs 5-10 lakh of funding. These companies also receive mentoring and connections as well.

Nasscom 10,000 Start-ups Senior Director Rajat Tandon said, “The real value these companies would receive is in form of the mentoring and connections they would get access to through the respective investors.”