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The CoWrks Foundry concludes its first cohort with Demo Day

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The CoWrks Foundry, a premier acceleration program, announced the completion of its first cohort, comprising of five innovative startups. The CoWrks Foundry is an initiative by CoWrks, one of India’s largest shared office space providers. The program is designed to nurture early-stage startups in the field of Urban Tech, Enterprise Tech, and Social Impact Enterprise, through a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum, designed by industry veterans & experts. The Foundry’s well-architected framework nurtures durable and scalable businesses by investing in the ideas and the minds behind them.

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Out of the 350+ startups that applied to the program from across India and some even international, the final five that were selected to be a part of the accelerator are Wagonfly, Understand Better, Ayasta, Betterly and T-Scale Hub. These companies were assisted with everything from initial seed capital and client acquisition to the art of crafting a stellar pitch.

The 24-week intensive program concluded with a Demo Day on November 14. The 5 startups had the opportunity to pitch their products, ideas and business models to venture capitalists, and prominent industry leaders at the city’s newest entrepreneurial hub – CoWrks Koramangala. In order to fuel entrepreneurship and create an environment where innovators and companies thrive, The Foundry also invited applications from the startups housed within the CoWrks community to pitch on Demo Day.

In addition to providing an initial influx of smart seed capital of upto $30K, The Foundry has been instrumental in equipping home-grown businesses with a solid foundation and the resources required to fully equip, refine and fortify their companies. Situated within CoWrks’ HQ in Bengaluru, the startups in The Foundry have been able to access premium workspaces within CoWrks, and the opportunity to work alongside a carefully curated community of startups, freelancers and large enterprises. Each of the 5 startups were assigned dedicated mentors and experts from relevant industries, to provide targeted coaching and guidance.

The First Cohort of Start-ups Graduated from The CoWrks Foundry

As a part of the part of its post-program support, The Foundry will continue to aid these start-ups in terms of mentorship and guidance.

Nruthya Madappa, Managing Partner, The Cowrks Foundry said

Despite the start-up growth spurt in India, businesses in the Urban Tech, Enterprise Tech and Social Enterprise space, lack the guidance to overcome unique challenges. The CoWrks Foundry is our answer to India’s fractured entrepreneurial ecosystem. In comparison to the sturdy framework and incredible support afforded to thriving startups in Israel, Shanghai and Singapore, India lags far behind.

Therefore, it has been our endeavor to provide them with world-class mentorship and expertise, technology and infrastructure support, as well as access to investors and customers so they can scale from idea to execution at an accelerated speed. It has been a grueling yet amazing journey so far, with like-minded peers interacting and learning from The CoWrks Foundry panel, mentors and each other.

Ravi Teja Avasarala, Co-founder of Ayasta said

What drew us to the Foundry was the team behind it.  They have an inherent understanding of what startups need in order to succeed and what sort of help is required at various stages. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that during the program, the Foundry team worked harder on solving our problems than we did.

The networks we got access to would be invaluable to us in our journey. Foundry put in the effort to understanding our Ayasta’s offerings and then helped remove our biases by identifying where we are underselling ourselves. The Foundry program made us better founders which would eventually lead us to become successful entrepreneurs.

Further to the success of the first cohort, The CoWrks Foundry is inviting applications for the second one by the end of November 2018. The 24 week-long program at the state-of-the-art CoWrks Millenia office in Bengaluru will commence in January 2019.

Startups Graduated from the First Cohort

About CoWrks

CoWrks is India’s largest and fastest growing large-format co-working space provider. Established in 2016, it has quickly become home to several leading entrepreneurs, a launch pad for startups and a work hub for millennials in large enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. Headquartered in Bengaluru, CoWrks currently operates out of four cities, and is spread across 1.5 million sq. ft, with a community of over 15,000 members.

CoWrks caters to all demographics of the workforce with an array of membership options, including flexible and dedicated desks, customizable private studios and even virtual membership. With 24*7 access to select workstations, a sweeping gamut of amenities, and unique networking opportunities, the co-working space is creating a work culture that boosts creativity, productivity, cross-collaboration, knowledge sharing and skill upgradation.