Venture Catalysts launches Catalysts Lab to revitalise early-stage start-up landscape in India

Reiterating its commitment to boost the country’s start-up landscape, Venture Catalysts launches Catalysts Lab – its incubator programme – to fuel the entrepreneurial dreams of promising early-stage start-ups. The first batch of the structured mentorship initiative will commence in February, with VCats handpicking 20 start-ups for the three-month long programme in Mumbai.

Speaking about the launch of the programme, Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “Venture Catalysts was established with a vision of revitalising the early-stage start-up landscape in India, and to identify and support highly disruptive ventures that have the potential to become global success stories. The launch of our incubator programme, Catalysts Lab, is another step towards fulfilling that vision.”



The Catalysts Lab incubator programme from VCats extensively focus on providing business exposure, mentorship, and technological support. Selected start-ups will be given a chance to interact with seasoned angel investors, mentors, industry experts, and successful entrepreneurs. This will help start-ups under the programme to build great products, launch their services in the market, refine their business approach, and boost their growth and scale.

The programme offers founders access to 24-hour co-working office space, cloud credits worth INR 1-2 lakh, and payment gateways and other tech tools worth an additional INR 1-2 lakh. Founders also get a chance to interact with 10-15 mentors, industry experts, angel investors, accelerators, and established entrepreneurs as well as 5-7 VCs, which gives them a chance to strengthen their business networks and opens up avenues for future investments. All this is made available to selected start-ups at a minimal cost of INR 23,000, without the requirement of them to giving up equity.

“Mentoring is an important part of any business journey, and with good reason. Getting advice and guidance from those who have already achieved success not only helps emerging entrepreneurs in avoiding common errors of judgement in business, but also allows them to build on the experiences of their mentors. That is why we have focussed rather extensively on roping in the most prominent names in the industry to aid start-ups incubated under the Catalysts Lab programme,” adds Dr. Apoorv.

The last date to apply for the programme is 15th February 2017.