Innovation Mission Punjab, a unique private-public partnership that aims to build, empower and act as a catalyst for startup communities in Punjab, kickstarted its Accelerator program with 16 Startups that are at the revenue and product-ready stage today at their office premise at Kalkat Bhavan in the city. The early-stage startups were taken through the session discussing the scalability of their businesses and suitable financial models from a panel that consisted of experts from various industries like Agriculture, Education, Technology, Retail, FMCG etc.

Inaugurated by Hon. Chief Minister of Punjab, Shri Bhagwant Mann, IMPunjab Accelerator will provide a three-month structured mentorship programme, piloting opportunities, capacity-building programs, catalytic capital, investor interaction, and business services to support early-stage startups. The program is designed to help startups build a strong foundation and scale up.

Talking about the networking cohort programme, Somveer Anand, CEO & Mission Director, IMPunjab said, “The IMPunjab Accelerator is a dedicated program to drive the growth of the startup ecosystem in Punjab as a whole. Starting with a cohort of 16 early-stage startups, we aim to support them to build scalable models and market fitment and make them, funding ready. The startups will be mentored through in-person contact sessions as well as virtual mentoring sessions by experienced and successful professionals from the startup ecosystem. Our objective, by the end of this programme, is to make these startups funding ready to scale.”

Both contact & virtual sessions will ensure work-plan creation for the startups for the month and would incorporate the learnings through diagnostics panels and clinics. All the cohort startups will get an experimental capital of INR 3 Lakh during their accelerator program to validate business and financial models. The startups will be able to understand the various functions required while working on a startup, like marketing, finance, sales, revenues, operation, partners and resources through the lens of scalability. The startup will become investable with financials in place and 5-year projections.

As part of its first contact session, the Mission had a great lineup of experts from the startup ecosystem with with the startups including JS Vali from IIM-A, Divyaroop Bhatnagar, MD of YFactor Marketing, Abhay Singhal, Founder of TickTalkTo, Saurabh Chandra Rai, Business Development Manager, HomeBiogas, Sumit Karranji, Founder of Curlin. Official, Utkarsh Joshi, Senior Vice President, AuthBridge, Yash Shah, Co-founder and Cheif Executive, Clientjoy.io, Rajendra Lora, Co-Founder & CEO at Freshokartz Agri, Amrit Tiwari, Assistant Vice President – Investment, IIM Lucknow Enterprise Incubation Centre, Arjit Lohri, Vice President of Mars Shot Ventures, Simarpreet Singh, Executive Director, Hartek Group, Priyanka Anand Chadha, Associate Principal, Sattva Consulting, to help the entrepreneurs in making successful business strategies.

The startups will eventually make a pitch to investors on Demo Day at the conclusion of the Accelerator programme. Startups will be able to seek investor readiness with the identification of clear asks, roadmaps, post-funding costing and scaling and business growth and a dedicated demo day to interact with venture funds, institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals with a clear objective to raise funds.