IncubateHub to launch 9 thematic demand-led accelerators

Strategic backing from Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns; company will launch specific solutions for the growing CVC market in Asia

With an aim to be a player in the open innovation space, IncubateHub has announced its plan to launch 9 Thematic Demand-Led Accelerators with the Strategic backing of Venture Catalysts (VCats) and 9Unicorns. The company will launch specific solutions for the growing CVC market in Asia, to assist corporates in funding startups that are strategic to the company's 10-year plan.

The platform has witnessed a 4x growth in the number of corporates, startups, and investors participating on its platform in 2021. Over one lakh corporate professionals, startups, and other ecosystem players used IncubateHub for various services, from using white-labelled portals for open innovation management to getting a group of dedicated analysts, community managers, and program managers to drive corporate accelerator programs.

Founded in 2016 by industry veterans and startup evangelists Rajiv Mukherjee, Uday Vipra, and Pradeep, IncubateHub is akin to US-based innovation platform Plug and Play Tech Centre. The Bangalore-based firm provides open innovation and corporate venturing management-as-a-Service for corporate professionals, investors, and ecosystem players. It connects large corporates with a curated community of deep tech startups to help them create a proof of concept, accelerate solution development, drive digital transformation and build capacity.

With just three corporate programs in 2016, IncubateHub has achieved to carry out over 480 open innovation programs with over 76 companies and conducted over 986 paid pilot projects. In 2021, the platform onboarded 86 startup partners and helped them secure Rs 280 million of paid pilot projects, among which six have progressed to be long-term vendor contracts.

Last year was phenomenal for IncubateHub as it achieved some key milestones, including launching Asia's first Enterprise SaaS platform for managing open innovation programs, managing global corporate programs for some marquee logos like Mondelez, P&G, Telstra in Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Egypt, Eastern Europe, LATAM, and North America.

Rajiv Mukherjee, Co-founder, IncubateHub, said, "As its name suggests, open innovation refers to a process where an organization does not solely rely on its internal knowledge, sources, and resources for innovation of products, services, business models, etc. It promotes innovation outside of the company to achieve new products, new verticals, or to innovate. We are helping the ecosystem stakeholders to work on ideas, test, pivot, and launch products and services that are globally scalable. We want to be the largest such platform in the world."

The corporate innovation market is estimated at a little over $200 million and is expected to reach ~$750 million by 2023, growing at 27% CAGR. IncubateHub is well-positioned to capitalize on the immense potential in this sector, Mukherjee said.

David Jakubovic, Director R&D Open Innovation Asia at P&G, said, "While global P&G teams were already working with IncubateHub on digital innovation, we wanted to conduct a pilot program on sustainable packaging. The quick turnaround time & a highly responsive support team ensured success throughout the engagement."

Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, cofounder of Venture Catalysts and Managing Director of 9Unicorns, said ‘’As a company we have seen a rise of CVCs especially in the Asian market which is a huge boost. IncubateHub will further establish and strengthen the position of start-ups, accelerate product development, expand its footprint with existing customers, and scale its go-to-market organisation’’

IncubateHub launched four solutions for Corporates last year for specific needs of Corporate Innovation Teams to accelerate their Build/co-create, Rent/license, Buy/invest decisions.