It can be said that the 21st century is a great time for the growth of startups in India. Being one of the world’s most populated nations, India has its fair share of problems which are often too varied and complex to tackle headlong by resorting to traditional approaches. Over the years, India has taken a quantum leap in the domain of computer science and its subsets of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning). Today, AI and ML have proved to be more versatile problem-solving tools than natural intelligence.
To this end, harnessing the potential of AI/ML startups is a must, and Google’s Launchpad has been doing just that for the last 3.5 years. Indian startups of varied kinds, from Launchpad Start and Build to the 6-month global Launchpad Accelerator, have been powered by Google’s network and technology. The global Launchpad Accelerator program has supported 30 Indian startups to collectively bring in over $70M with a huge 500% of revenue growth.
Last year, the ‘Solve for India’ road-show program marked startups that were focally based on solutions to India’s problems with the latest technologies. Following this, the “Solve for India” mentorship boot camp nurtured the skills of the startup members to equip them with the latest know-how to tackle product and growth-based challenges.
And now, in a bid to continue its string of good work from ‘Solve for India’, the Google Launchpad Accelerator program sets its radar in India as a 3-month mentorship program with wide access to the wealth of Google – its people, network, and technologies.
This program has been tailor-made to give that much-required boost to AI/ML ecosystem by helping the Indian startups to build scalable solutions for the unique problems in India, such as agri-tech, healthcare, language web and transportation, and so on.
Starting out in Bangalore, this program will take up 8-10 Indian startups mentorship for its mentorship program, drawing in the best of Google in AI/ML, Cloud, Android, UX, and so on, receiving Google Cloud Credits from $20K – going up to $100K each, as stated in the post by Google.
India has the appetite to build entrepreneurs of the future and we are proud to announce a focused programme for the next wave of Indian entrepreneurs, who are using new technologies to solve the country’s needs. With the dedicated India-only Launchpad Accelerator programme, we will be able to build a bridge between startups and the industry ecosystem and support them to drive innovation in the India market. – Roy Glasberg, the Global Launchpad founder
For all the interested startup members, it’s a heads-up as the applications can be sent in for the program till July 31 for the first class which is slated to start in September 2018. For more details, check out the Google India blog and the official page of Google Accelerator.
As Google stated, the ‘Launchpad’ regional accelerators are meant exclusively for local markets, providing the startups the leeway to build great products and address India’s local needs bang on and seamlessly.
With India being included in Launchpad Accelerator’s global portfolio of startups, a bright future is just round the corner for the Indian AI/ML startups.
