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Lowe’s Innovation Labs [LIL], the disruptive innovation hub of Lowe’s Companies, Inc. have announced the opening of LIL-Bangalore and unveiled its new facility in the heart of Bangalore.

The new lab will house tech-savvy startups that will participate in an intensive 16-week accelerator program and give them an opportunity to partner with Lowe’s and deploy their technology in the U.S. LIL-Bangalore’s primary focus and priority technology areas include augmented and virtual reality, 3D printing and scanning, and robotics.

Richard Maltsbarger, chief development officer and president, International, Lowe’s Companies, Inc. said

Innovation and diversity of thought is at the core of what Lowe’s represents. Lowe’s Innovation Labs is revolutionizing the home improvement retail experience in the U.S., and we hope the tremendous talent and vibrant startup community in Bangalore will help us continue building a network of uncommon partners with whom we can co-develop technology.

Lowe’s created LIL in 2014 to bring together uncommon partners with a commitment to get technology out of the lab and into the real world. Beginning with science fiction prototyping to craft a narrative for the future, LIL collaborates with startups and has introduced projects including the Lowe’s Holoroom, an augmented and virtual reality home improvement design tool, the OSHbot autonomous retail service robot & in-store and online 3D scanning and printing.

Kyle Nel, executive director of LIL said

Lowe’s Innovation Labs-Bangalore will provide an open space where startups can interact and rapidly bring customer experience solutions to life through cutting-edge technologies, once thought to be the realm of science fiction. Bangalore is a dynamic community with world-class tech resources right in the heart of the city making it the perfect launching pad to expand our work in the U.S. and take disruptive technology to the next level.

LIL-Bangalore will also complement Lowe’s existing Bangalore Global In-house Center [GIC], which has been operating since 2014 and has grown to include more than 400 employees working on technology and analytics solutions.

Lalit Ahuja, acting managing director, Lowe’s India said

Opening Lowe’s Innovation Labs-Bangalore further strengthens our long-term commitment to India. We are confident that it will complement our efforts and further establish India as one of the innovation hubs for the company.

LIL-Bangalore is expected to welcome its first round of accelerator startups later this year. For more information, visit LIL-Bangalore.

About Lowe’s

Lowe’s Companies, Inc. is a Fortune 50 home improvement company serving approximately 16 million customers a week in the United States, Canada and Mexico through its stores and online at Lowes, Lowes.ca and Lowes.com.mx. Founded in 1946 and based in Mooresville, N.C., Lowe’s supports the communities it serves through programs that focus on K-12 public education and community improvement projects. For more information, visit Lowes.com

[Image Credit* – BrassRing]

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated:

NASSCOM marked the second anniversary of its 10,000 Start-up Program to create 10,000 domain specific start-ups in the country by 2020. As the 10,000 start-up program keeps rolling to its fourth phase of shortlisting, Phase 3 had 500 startup shortlists who went through pitch & mentoring Konnect sessions.

Applications are currently being processed on FIFO basis till 22nd April for the next session of Startup Konnect which is a mini boot-camp program for shortlisted startups who will be eligible for connect-2-pitch with all ecosystem partners including leading Accelerators, Angel investor networks & venture capital firms.

Nasscom_10000Startups

Speaking at the occasion, Rajat Tandon, Senior Director, NASSCOM 10,000 Startups stated

Startups are the lifeblood of our economy. We today have the support of 150 volunteer mentors, industry specialists, angel investors & VCs, as well as a startup alumni network like no other.

We can proudly say that through its phases the 10,000 start-ups program has been able to carve out many success stories across domains. Now with the roll out of the fourth phase, we are looking to accelerate more startups who will re-define the technology landscape of the country.

Speaking at the occasion Mary Grove, Director, Google for Entrepreneurs said

We are impressed by 10,000 Startups’ work to foster a vibrant ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in India. We are very excited for the fourth phase of 10,000 Startups Program that enables entrepreneurs to connect with investors and mentors to grow and expand.

Ravi Narayan, Managing Director, Microsoft Ventures India said

Microsoft Ventures has been working with NASSCOM 10,000 startups to accelerate high potential startups and we are delighted to see the impact of our partnership. Many of the startups we have helped gain traction through our accelerator programs were previously incubated in the 10K Warehouse and the startups have benefited from both programs immensely. We are positive that this partnership will continue to build a stronger ecosystem for startups in India and provide them promising future.

Application Process for startups

  • Startups need to apply for the program here
  • Startups should provide a detailed overview of their business idea and the market opportunity.
  • Approximately 200 startups will be shortlisted for the 4th batch, handpicked by the ecosystem partners.

Benefits of the Program

  • Shortlisted startups will participate in the intensive accelerator pitch & mentoring connect sessions starting June 1st week across Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad
  • They also get a Start-up Kit – a package worth $25,000 of value added services and credits from Google, Microsoft, AWS, Knowlarity, HackerRank and Kotak

About 10,000 Startups

Started in April 2013, 10,000 Startups is an ambitious attempt by NASSCOM to scale up the startup ecosystem in India by 10x. 10,000 Startups aims to enable incubation, funding and support for 10,000 technology startups in India over the next ten years. The initiative brings together key stakeholders of the ecosystem including startup incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, startup support groups, mentors, and technology corporations.

Since its launch in April 2013, they have done about 450+ events in 22 cities of the country which were attended by a whopping 25,000 attendees and received 9000 Applicants, 800 Startups Shortlists, and 150 Impacts.

Nasscom-Partners

The program is supported by founding partner Google for Entrepreneurs, Microsoft Ventures, Intel and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated:

Pitney Bowes Inc., a global technology company that provides innovative products and solutions to power commerce, called for entries for the second phase of the Pitney Bowes Accelerator Program in India. The program focuses on startups that leverage software for customer information management, mobile, data analytics, location-based services, E-commerce management & Machine learning.

Selected startups will be informed by April, 2015 and invited to present before a jury panel. After the selection process, the names of the selected startups for the six-month long acceleration program will be announced in May, 2015.

Last year, Pitney Bowes named eight startups to the program.  Participants last year included Audianz, Tagalys, Teritree, RetailNav, Heuristics, Ideata, Yo-app and Brown Tape.

More details about the program

  • As part of the program, Pitney Bowes will shortlist entrepreneurs/startups that will have a choice to be located in the PB offices either in Pune or in Noida for incubation and mentorship.
  • Startups in the program will have access to Pitney Bowes’ software, application programming interfaces [APIs] and data for the duration of the program.
  • Training, technical and business guidance and mentoring will be provided to the start-ups from Pitney Bowes engineering and innovation leaders, and from software industry experts.
  • In addition to these strategic connections, start-ups in the Pitney Bowes Accelerator program will also be networking with prospective investors.

Speaking on the of launch of the second batch, Manish Choudhary, Vice President, Global Engineering and Managing Director, Pitney Bowes Software India said

Pitney Bowes guides its clients through the complex worlds of digital and physical technologies to drive growth and create meaningful impact. Startups are vital to technology innovation and India is a hotbed of startups. The talent fostered through the Accelerator Program has the ability to develop disruptive technologies that can be scaled globally.

Pitney Bowes continues to build its presence as a strong organization in India centered on innovation by becoming an incubator partner to NASSCOM’s 10,000 Start-ups initiative. 

About Pitney Bowes

Pitney Bowes is a global technology company offering innovative products and solutions that enable commerce in the areas of customer information management, location intelligence, customer engagement, shipping and mailing, and global e-commerce.  More than 1.5 million clients in approximately 100 countries around the world rely on products, solutions and services from Pitney Bowes.  For additional information, visit Pitney Bowes at www.pb.com

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Citrix announced the successful culmination of its Innovators Program, where nine graduating teams completed its Startup Accelerator’s intensive three-month business model validation program guided by Citrix executives and industry experts. The program ended with a Demo Day, where each of the startup teams presented to a panel of industry veterans and potential investors.

The first group included five internal teams & four external companies. Citrix awarded a $10,000USD fellowship seed funding to the four external companies.

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Launched in August last year, the Innovators Program attracted hundreds of company entries of which nine teams were chosen by an Executive Council, to become part of the Innovators Program. Designed with the objective of blending leading-edge leadership, team building, design thinking and lean startup approaches, teams were trained to validate their business models around customers’ needs. Additionally, participants also received mentoring & guidance from seasoned business executives, industry leaders & venture capital investors.

Commenting on the program’s culmination, John McIntyre, Managing Director, Citrix Startup Accelerator said

The core focus of the Startup accelerator program is to enable entrepreneurs create the next wave of disruptive technologies and great new products that will pave the way for the future of the workspace. India is a gold mine of talented startups, and these nine teams are a testament to this very fact.

We are excited for what these teams will achieve & eagerly awaiting the next cohort of the Innovator’s program, what we plan to launch later in 2015.

Rakesh Singh, Vice President and General Manager, Citrix India added

We extend our warmest congratulations to the path-breaking and first ever graduating batch of the Innovators Program. Our aim had been to handpick startups that showcased innovation and potential, and subsequently help them to accelerate their growth manifold through a series of workshops and mentoring. I can safely say that each of the nine teams graduating from the first edition of the Innovator’s Program in India are better prepared to bring great products to the market, and have attracted tremendous investor interest, making us extremely proud of the outcome.

Graduating Batch of the Citrix Startup Accelerator Innovators Program

  1. Maxerience
  2. Karmasnap
  3. Parablu
  4. Instasafe
  5. Sharecard
  6. Oppcee
  7. Buzzybee
  8. Zipzapdata
  9. 140 Bytes

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated:

Nasscom_10000Startups

With more than 3,000 tech start-ups, India is the fourth largest base for young businesses in the world and it is expected that by 2020 the base will increase to 11,500 tech start-ups. This along with other interesting findings were revealed in ‘Tech Start-up in India: A Bright Future’ a study report by National Association of Software and Services Companies [NASSCOM] and Zinnov.

The report suggests that the Indian start-ups with their unique solutions are witnessing increased traction in global whitespace opportunities such as Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, Smart hardware, Business Intelligence & many more.

With technology spreading its wings into different domains, “Domain+Tech’ solutions are taking over other trends”. The emerging niche technology solutions are primarily focused on Ad-tech, Edu-tech, Health-tech, Agri-tech & many more. Geographically, Bangalore & National Capital Region [NCR] tops the chart for being home to maximum number of young businesses.

The findings also highlight that many trends are maturing in the ecosystem, especially funding aspect. Multiple and easily accessible platform like VC/PE, angel investors, incubators, financial institutes and even banks, are the driving force for the same.

Commenting on the new evolution of the ecosystem, Mr. Rajat Tandon, Senior Director, NASSCOM 10,000 Startups, added [Note : We in the article refers to NASSCOM 10,000 Startups]

These latest findings clearly indicate the beginning of the golden era for young tech-based businesses where opportunities for growth are much larger than the challenges in the ecosystem. We are proud to be once again at the cutting edge in helping to support a growing niche within this field and we are excited to ink new partnerships as we close the year to accelerate our efforts in that direction.

NASSCOM’s 10,000 Start-ups program has successfully paved way for 3 inevitable trends that are shaping the Indian economy with the potential to shake things up: Digitalization, Faster innovation cycles &the rise of young, ambitious talent. Start-ups are both a consequence and an accelerating catalyst of these trends. It’s exciting to be here, but we have much to do. This ecosystem is growing in scale and strength and as we move forward, we are focused towards domain specific strategic partnerships to drive it to the next level of maturity in FY 2015.

  1. The Program is partnering with AstroLabs Dubai, to navigate Indian Tech Startups to the MENA region. This association will give a tangible edge to support tech entrepreneurs emerging from the 10,000 Start-ups program, both with the physical space and with formal training programs.
  2. The Program’s partnership with ValPro, an investment banking & financial advisory services to leverage a web based platform “Enablers” which facilitates start-ups & SME’s to connect with HNI’s, Angels and VC’s for fund raising. It is a tool that makes entrepreneurs investor-ready and handhold them through various stages of fund raising.
  3. The Program inked another association with CampusEAI Consortium, a leader in the world of higher education information technology services. CampusEAI EduTech Venture Fund invests in early stage enterprise software, Internet and Mobile companies that target the education market or companies created from intellectual property technology transfer from colleges and universities.
  4. To support early-stage companies in Healthcare and Life-sciences domain, we partnered with Escape Velocity Accelerator to review applications for selecting entrepreneurs into its incubation program.

Speaking about the partnership, Anjli Jain, CEO of CampusEAI and Managing Director of CampusEAI’s EduTech Venture Fund stated

Our partnership with NASSCOM’s 10,000 Start-ups program gives us an opportunity to expand our portfolio and existing investments in India-based start-ups and provide early-stage entrepreneurs with the mentorship, guidance and funds they require to be successful. We look forward to working with NASSCOM and accelerating the mission of the 10,000 Start-ups initiative.

Speaking about the partnership, Mr. Muhammed Mekki, Founding Partner, AstroLabs stated:

We look forward to welcoming members of 10,000 Startups at AstroLabs Dubai, enabling their expansion into the growing Middle Eastern market and providing direct access to a region that has the highest smartphone penetration in the world.

Interesting info-graphic giving an in-depth view about the “Startup Landscape in India”

[Note : Click on the image to Enlarge]

Indian Startup Ecosystem - Click on the image to enlarge

*10,000 Start-ups is a NASSCOM initiative supported by Google for Entrepreneurs, Microsoft Ventures, Verisign, & Intel

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated:

TE Connectivity Ltd, a world leader in connectivity, announced the official opening of its TE Wearables Lab in Menlo Park, California. Exclusively focused on wearable technologies across consumer, medical, industrial and defense businesses, the lab serves as a collaboration center for TE’s team of engineers, scientists and its customers throughout the design process.

According to IDC, shipments of wearable devices will exceed 19 million units in 2014, more than tripling last year’s sales. From there, the global market is expected to swell to 111.9 million units in 2018. This growth is a key indicator of the market potential and importance for continued industry innovation.

One of the first products to come out of the TE’s Wearables Lab is a first-of-its-kind, wireless power development kit for wearable devices. For the first time, TE will introduce a solution that addresses the need for miniaturization as well as low power requirements for wearables. Set for broader distribution in early 2015, the kit will include a small 2.5W charger with integrated magnet for attachment to a wearable device, as well as a complete RX coil and electronics for integration.

TE engineers miniaturized the electronic system & the coil to make it possible for wearable designers to quickly prototype their products and develop a customized solution to meet their design requirements.

TE’s Wearables Lab team consists of professionals with extensive skill sets and experiences. These individuals range from electrical and mechanical engineers to materials science experts, pioneering the use of conductive materials including embedding electronic systems in textiles.

The TE’s Wearables Lab is currently being used by a number of start-up and growth stage companies ranging from design to manufacturing and integration companies. TE’s ability to collaborate across the wearables ecosystem is one of its strengths, coupled with breadth of products and technologies. One key customer, Sensoplex, is an expert systems company that designs and supplies high performance sports and wellness wearable products to OEM companies.

In addition to working with customers on custom and existing products, the TE Wearables Lab team is also exploring innovations around wireless power and conductivity across textiles, plastics and other materials. With TE’s unmatched product portfolio, the company expects to be enabling connectivity across tens of millions of wearable devices globally in the next year.

Speaking on the collaboration, Brady Forrest, Vice President, Highway1 [Accelerator focused on helping early seed stage hardware start-ups take ideas from prototype to scalable product] said:

Innovation is part of our DNA. When we met TE and heard their vision for connectivity, things clicked. Together we have a real opportunity to enable a hardware revolution and help the next generation of innovators get off the ground.

For further details on the TE Wearables Lab, please visit TE Wearables Lab

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated:

Pitney Bowes has named eight start-up companies in India who will join Pitney Bowes Accelerator program in India. The program is a part of the NASSCOM’s 10,000 Start-ups initiative.

The eight start-ups selected for the program are:

  1. RetailNav : Solution for retail shopping with unique in-store location-based analytics.
  2. Audianz : Location-based advertising platform.
  3. Heuristics : GPS-based vehicle tracking system [VTS] and mobile-based personnel tracking solutions.
  4. Yo-app : App that integrates social circles with a discovery platform.
  5. Ideata Analytics : Integrated data intelligence platform to help users perform information discovery.
  6. Teritree  : Customer experience management platform.
  7. BrownTape : Single-click multi-platform solution for e-commerce management.
  8. Tagalys :  Solution that provides intelligent heuristic search.

More about the program

The program focuses on start-ups that leverage software for mobile, data analytics, location-based services, and e-commerce management.

Selected start-ups will have access to Pitney Bowes’ software, Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) & data for the duration of the program. Training, technical and business guidance and mentoring will be provided to the start-ups from Pitney Bowes engineering and innovation leaders & from software industry experts.

In addition to these strategic connections, start-ups in the Pitney Bowes Accelerator program will also be networking with prospective investors.

You can find more about Pitney Bowes & their accelerator program here & here.

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated:

The Citrix Startup Accelerator Innovators Program is launching in Bangalore. The focus of the Innovators Program is on accelerating business solutions & openly sharing approaches that have been integral to Citrix innovation.

The three-month residency at key locations around the world, cultivates breakthrough mobile, cloud & collaboration technologies by leveraging the expertise of Citrix and key corporate council members.

The Innovators Program successfully concluded in Silicon Valley last month & is now scaling globally.

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About the program

Twelve teams will be selected to receive support, in-depth training and a workspace at the Citrix Bangalore office. The modern space includes high tech meeting rooms and workstations and is a fitting place to design the revolutionary mobile work-style technologies of the future.

The Program blends leading-edge collaboration, design thinking and lean startup approaches. Innovation teams will learn to develop & bring to market business technology offerings that focus on user needs and helping people work better. Nascent entrepreneurial teams will learn alongside new corporate product teams, and will also receive seed funding.

Participants will receive mentoring & guidance from seasoned business executives, industry leaders and venture capital investors. Citrix will partner with the NASSCOM 10K team on the program.

How to apply

The Citrix Startup Accelerator Innovators Program is looking for great teams ready to test their business model. Applications for the program are now open.

Selected teams will be revealed at the NASSCOM Product Conclave on October 30, 2014.

For more information

Please visit Citrix Innovator’s Program to learn more about the program & how to apply.