Cisco launches startup accelerator ‘Launchpad’ under Startup India

In a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Startup India Initiative, network equipment maker Cisco announced the launch of its startup accelerator ‘Launchpad’ to help startups, their authorized channel partners and developers scale their solutions, address new markets and build digital businesses in the world’s youngest startup nation and second biggest developer community.

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to digitise the next three billion people in one-third the time it took to connect the first three billion. Through ‘LaunchPad’, we want to unleash the next generation of disruptive ideas and help turn the entrepreneurs of today into the business leaders of tomorrow,” said Amit Phadnis, President, Engineering and India Site Leader of Cisco.

Under the ‘Launchpad’ initiative Cisco will guide startups and developers on digital solutions, help match great concepts with business operational expertise and introduce investors to engineers. To facilitate this the San Jose based company will provide space in its Bangalore campus and access to Cisco technologies as well as provide free grants to startups who choose work on the campus. Cisco will not have any equity on the selected startups. The initiative will initially focus on manufacturing, retail, transportation, education and healthcare sector.

As part of the ‘Launchpad’ initiative, Cisco also announced collaboration with Tech Mahindra and smaller start-ups that work in the digital metering space to develop digital solutions for the Indian electric utilities.

The applications for ‘Launchpad’ is open and five to eight startups will be selected in the first round.