Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, hosted a Demo Day for its first Cohort of flagship accelerator program titled ‘Flipkart Leap’. The platform enables program finalists to present their evolved ideas during the 16-week mentorship training to potential investors and industry leaders.
Flipkart’s Demo Day attracted 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, comprising 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.
