To be part of programme that follows an intensive 18 weeks cycle to unlock, value and scale their business
Bengaluru, NFAPost: Brigade REAP chose five startups from 122 applicants as part of its 9th cohort of startups who will be part of a programme that follows an intensive eighteen-week long cycle to help them unlock value and scale their business.
The five startups were chosen from 8 finalists who participated in two jury rounds. The startups were evaluated based on 10 criteria including innovation, relevance to the industry, the magnitude of the problem being addressed, the pedigree of the founding team etc.
Brigade REAP Director Nirupa Shankar said since inception Brigade REAP focus has been to accelerate innovation in the real estate sector and to help deliver and enhance efficiencies both for the industry and the customer.
“The objective is to help inventors and innovators create sustainable and scalable businesses. In the past, startups have seen an increase of over 150% YoY growth in revenue, 42% of the startups have raised funding within 12 months of graduating with the real estate industry being actively involved in not just giving business but also investing in many of these startups,” said Brigade REAP Director Nirupa Shankar.
He also said since the onboarded startup’s progress has been demonstrated, stakeholders clearly identified, business plan firmed up and customer and investor pitches ready, Brigade REAP enables access to customers for potential investors for fundraising.
The final five startups are
- Angirus: Eco friendly technology to make building materials that are made from 100% waste materials for the affordable housing industry.
- MetroGuild: Convert flat buyers to customers through hyper-personalised relationship-building marketing and sales.
- GoFloaters: Enable individuals and teams to work from anywhere through its wide network of on-demand workspaces.
- Strawcture: Green Building Material – bio panels that convert waste to value.
- Vision Earthcare: Waste water rejuvenation.
Expressing happiness over the development, Brigade REAP Chief Mentor John Kuruvilla said Brigade REAP has a very stringent selection process where the jury evaluates each incoming application based on the nature of the problem, the founding team, whether the company has any early traction and whether their solution is unique.
“Our role is to help the chosen startups to sharpen their value proposition, create or re-examine their business plans and pricing models and identify customers. Brigade REAP has six pillars of engagements with startups that are onboarded including product, technology, business model, people, go to market and scale” said John Kuruvilla.
The second jury included renowned industry stalwarts such as M R Jaishankar, CMD Brigade Group, Samir Kumar, MD Inventus Capital, Vipul Roongta, MD HDFC Capital, Sanjay Mehta, Founder & Partner, 100x.VC, Ram Chandnani, MD Advisory & Transaction Services, CBRE, Kumar Vembu, CEO GoFrugal Technologies and Mohan Parvatikar, Director, Brigade REAP.
Inventus Capital India Managing Director and member of the Final jury Samir Kumar he has been involved with Brigade REAP since inception and have seen a drastic improvement in both the numbers and the Quality of Founders solving real problems impacting both the Real estate industry and the environment.
“I have also seen the real estate sector start embracing technology solutions to become more efficient, and that’s one of the key reasons investments in the sector are now gathering steam. I’m reasonably confident that in the coming decade we will see the emergence of quite a few scaled proptech startups from India,” said Samir Kumar.
100X.VC Founder & Partner Sanjay Mehta said real estate is the largest asset class by far, but it is still in the early stages of technology adoption.
“While I have been investing in diverse sectors, Proptech as a sector is definitely to watch out for. Each of the finalists in REAP’s Cohort 9 are solving very interesting problems – for e.g., startups that are recycling waste to create new building blocks for construction and interiors in a scalable manner. The final five that were shortlisted should have an exciting 2021 as they get into REAP to scale their product and business offerings,” said Sanjay Mehta.
Brigade Real Estate Accelerator Program (REAP) is Asia’s first proptech focused Accelerator Program. Within a year of commencement of the program, Brigade REAP was recognized amongst the Top #3 Real Estate accelerators in the world! It’s success over the past 4 years has established the emergence of proptech as a critical sector for India’s progress.
Started in October 2016, the main objective of Brigade REAP is to understand the challenges faced by the Real Estate sector and then identify, nurture and validate solutions by innovative startups that can then catalyse the rapid adoption of technology by the sector, helping deliver significant cost savings, revenue maximization and overall process efficiencies.
Through its well-established network of over 50 veteran mentors, domain experts, investor access, deep industry relationships, corporate partnerships, access to a structured program, & the expertise of in-house mentors, REAP startups are adding value to India’s Real estate developers- both big and small. In October 2020 Brigade REAP was recognised by DPIIT, Govt. of India as the No1 Accelerator program in the country.
